Education: Small changes can make a big difference

Recently I read a New York Times editorial written by Richard Nesbitt, a leading social psychologist who teaches at the University of Michigan. In this article, Nesbitt discusses the power that small influences can have on children’s success in school and educational growth. For example, taking students through life-planning exercises, in which they detail obstacles they will face and how they plan to overcome these challenges, can help improve student performance. This example is further explained in the article excerpt below.

“Daphna Oyserman, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan, asked inner-city junior-high children in Detroit what kind of future they would like to have, what difficulties they anticipated along the way, how they might deal with them and which of their friends would be most helpful in coping. After only a few such exercises in life planning, the children improved their performance on standardized academic tests, and the number who were required to repeat a grade dropped by more than half.”

Several other innovative practices, such as asking students to complete writing assignments that detail their most important values to more intensive early education efforts (which included teacher visits to students homes for 90 minutes each week) similarly improved disadvantaged students’ performance.

In the context of India, there are fundamental issues, such as teacher attendance, that need to be addressed. But that said, there are approaches that can, and are, being taken to improve educational performance for students. For example, Neerja Raman discusses three schools that are using unique strategies to teach and inspire their students in her blog. Below are quick descriptions of two of the organization Ms. Raman highlights:
1. Riverside School in Ahmedabad – Focuses on social justice and experiential learning to help both affluent and poorer students understand the impact of their actions.
2. Manzil – A youth empowerment and learning center in New Delhi. Operating out of the founder’s home, Manzil is a unique resource designed for local low-income youth. It offers classes in traditional subjects, but also fosters the creative arts and leadership capacity building to provide a more holistic approach to critical thinking and learning.

I am not sure how well these programs work, but it’s worth evaluating leading educational innovations such as these to learn more about approaches that should be scaled up in India. Moreover, it makes sense for us to think a little outside the box when trying to come up with ways to improve student educational attainment. As Nesbitt demonstrates in his Times article, small changes can make a big difference.

I'd love to hear about other innovative education programs in India that any of you are aware of . . .