When I was in school, the best student among us was Ahmad Ali. It was understood by all, students and teachers, that he cannot be beaten in Exams because he was very much skilled and experienced in cramming. Like one becomes expert in doing something repeatedly, same was the case with Ahmad. At that time and now as well, I feel surprised on his skills and expertise in cramming. Many times, teachers were surprised when they gave a paragraph to the students for understanding, or learning and Ahmad used to go to a side of the class and started memorizing and in a surprising time, returned back and read by heart the whole paragraph to the teacher. As I was also a student so I was not able to ask a number of questions that I had to ask about cramming and its relevant factors.
Many years passed and I myself became a teacher. In one of the classes, a student was known as one of the bright students by securing good marks in Exams but the situation was a bit confusing for me. Being a teacher, one acquires the ability to realize the skills and intelligence of a student by merely observing the face, style of speaking and others but I failed to find any quality in him that should qualify him as one of the best students of his class. Later on, I was able to observe him closely when I was given the science of his class. Before going to class, I used to prepare different things and scenarios so that students should be able to fully comprehend and also enjoy the topic. One day, my topic was about the Solar System in which I had to explain the reasons of temperature differences between different planets. I worked hard on preparing models of planets, making drawings on board and explaining the different parts of the topic. Students seemed to have enjoyed and well understood the lesson and when I asked questions to assess their level of understanding, I got the response far better than my expectations. Then we came to the questions and students were able to answer them all. Answer of one of the questions got lengthy a bit in which they had to explain about the reasons of temperature differences and as English was not their first language so they struggled a bit to present their ideas in English. Anyhow, I dictated the answer to them and they wrote it in their notebooks. After this, I asked them to divide the answer in small parts and try to tell these parts in their own words. This time, they were all able to answer the question but that bright student came to me and said, ‘Will you accept my answer if I memorize your answer and write the same in test?’ I had no objection on it so I nodded my head and then I was caught with surprise. He went to his desk, opened the notebook, put his head on the desk and started memorizing the answer by repetition. In less than five minutes, he came back to me, handed me over his notebook and repeated the complete answer without any difficulty. It was a surprising achievement but I asked him, ‘Now, whatever you memorized and read out to me, explain in simple words. Just tell what you have understood of this question.’ And he came up with an answer that still resonates in my ears. He said, ‘Sir, please don’t ask me about this. You gave me something and I memorized it and I will also get complete marks in exam by writing the same in my paper.’
When we return to the case of Ahmad Ali, it is worth mentioning here that in his practical life, he failed badly because in university and job places he could not come up with better results as he had forgotten the things he had crammed (As crammed memory, without understanding, doesn’t last for long) and he failed to pass the university examination. Later on, he was rejected at many places for different job positions because he had not learned basic writing and communication skills and his language proficiency was very weak.
When such habits are observed in present day students, we cannot solely blame the students for this because this habit also needs some effort and it cannot be done by students who don’t want to work for their studies. Mostly, this habit is developed and promoted when teachers fail to teach their students properly and when students don’t understand anything; they just cram or memorize the answers and successfully pass any kind of assessment like quizzes, tests and final exams. Another factor is the system of rote learning when system keeps operating on the same old techniques and procedures and fails to adopt the recent advances in teaching and learning. Intense pressure of parents to acquire more and more marks or better grades is another reason responsible for this bad habit. It is also necessary o mention here that our system of society and education is based on orders and obedience and there is no room for questions and reasoning so it drags the students into a dead end where they are left with no other option except to memorize. Another benefit is the result shown by students by memorization or cramming which makes happy all the stakeholders, i.e., students, parents and teachers.
It is also a fact that when our top students go to foreign lands and appear in any kind of examination, they badly fail in it because they never had the chance to learn professionally. The procedures we follow here are obsolete and the procedures and techniques used in developed countries are not easily comprehendible for our students and end result comes as a disaster for them.
Because of this bad habit, our students fail to make any kind of contribution to the real knowledge. This is just like walking along a circle in which nothing new is discovered. Now it is not a secret that majority of our university students prepare their assignments by copying-pasting from internet or by using an already used material of a senior student or teacher. Sometimes, we don’t believe a person who says that he or she has completed her university education because their level of knowledge is so weak that they cannot be even compared to the students of high school. It is also one of the main reasons for the presence of large number of foreign technical experts and educationists because our own experts and educationists are not up to the level that they should fill this gap.
In this scenario, many salute to teachers who work to update their knowledge about latest improvements in the field of education and make the process of learning easy and interesting for their students and realize the value of true learning when students show courage to ask questions and think out of the routine. Students taught by such teachers really brighten the name of students and bring good fame for students, teachers and the educational system.
The problem can be solved by discovering such teachers and using their skills and expertise. Some of the foreign educational organizations are also doing remarkable work by giving training to our teachers and introducing them to the latest improvements in the field. Same kind of coordinated planning can be made by the concerned ministries to train our teachers instead of leaving it to those so-called teacher training institutes that have teachers who are themselves in dire need of training.