WHENEVER there is a debate about revamping education in the country, scholars point out the daunting gap between the real world and the classroom as a crucial area where improvement is needed. While it is essential to reduce this gap, scholarly discussions often miss out on the most important world; a child’s inner world. This world remains invisible in discussions, and thus remains unaddressed.

American philosopher Martha Nussbaum describes the inner world as the world of imagination and empathy. It is this world that compels children to ask so many and such intelligent questions, and enables them to be more empathetic to others’ sufferings than adults.

I believe there is another component to this world; artistic identity. Children have their own artistic identities, which they manifest in their inclination towards certain disciplines and abhorrence of others. Unfortunately, our education system develops neither of these components. In fact, it puts them all to a slow death.

As a result, children are clueless about who they are and how they fit in this world. Being unimaginative and lacking empathy, the children become rather indifferent to the sufferings of the larger humanity. Forget humanity, there are times when they are unaware of even their own sufferings.

Policymakers suggest ways and devise plans to bridge the gap between the real world and the classroom. However, no effort can be successful without the development of children’s inner world. One step towards this will be to replace norm-referenced assessment with a system that allows students to track their progress in relation to their own work rather than others’ work.

For this to happen, not only the curriculum, but also the teachers who implement the curriculum have to be flexible. After all, it is a matter of an individual’s own world, which is different from any other world or anyone else’s world.

Kamran Akhtar Siddiqui
Sukkur

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2024