Teaching the Gen Alpha child
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Teaching is an art and a science that has been developed from the ancient times. Dhisapamok and Socrates are well-known teachers of ancient times.
Teaching systems that have been developed in all parts of the world have taken cognisance of the fact that learning is a logical process. Hence school systems wittingly or unwittingly resorted to strengthening the logical processing ability of the brain.
Till recent times, it was not realized that humans have two brains, instead of two sides of a single brain. The left brain handles the logical processes of breaking down into fragments and details, while the right brain is in to creativity and putting the fragments (details) together and seeing the ‘big picture’.
The purpose of a school is to make the students smart learners. For that, it is essential to make them smart thinkers. This obviously means to be logical thinkers. Hence, all school systems made it their bounden duty to strengthen the left brains of the children who start formal education around the age of five years.
The right brain was not neglected. It was well known that the right (side of the) brain handles creativity. This meant that the aesthetic subjects were handled by the right brain. Aesthetic subjects – music, dancing, art, handwork etc. were an essential ingredient in all school systems.
This worked very well for two millennia in human history. All great Mathematicians, Scientists, Professors, Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Architects etc. produced by the human race were the product of left brain dominated ‘smart’ teaching techniques used by their teachers in the primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
The third millennium however, proved to be different.
On the one hand, scientists, psychologists and educationists have by this time understood the way the human brain works much better than their counterparts in the first two millennia.
On the other hand, the unprecedented development of Information Technology has exposed the young children to mindboggling and frightening amounts of information.
Any child who has access to the ‘glow screen’ (smart phone, laptop, I pad, and the television) is bombarded with a never ending stream of information through their main sensory organs – the eye and the ear.
Using the logical processes of the left brain to assimilate and process the unprecedented amounts of information is obviously insufficient. Though smart and logical, the left brain processing is slow. It is unable to handle the huge amounts of information that bombards the child.
It has become absolutely necessary to engage the right brain, which bypasses the details and sees the big picture, in the teaching learning process.
THE GEN ALPHA CHILD
Students who get admitted to schools to start formal education today belong to Generation Alpha. They are children born in the third millennium. They are the first generation of children who are born entirely in the 21st Century. They are exposed to the unprecedented development made in information technology and are also called the iGeneration.
Although it was assumed that the human species has completed the process of evolution by becoming specialised, a new evolutionary process has been witnessed in the functioning of the brain. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information, the ‘screenagers’ have developed their own skills of coping with it.
The clear proof of the above is the way the very young children handle new, complex gadgets. It is well known that a child in any part of the world is capable of making sense of a smart phone or an I Pad to find his favourite programme, even if he has to use the internet for same.
On the contrary, an adult, whose logical left brain is strengthened by the well-meaning education system, would find it to be a very painful exercise to learn to use a computer.
THE TEACHER OF
GEN ALPHA
The new generation thinks differently and learns differently. Hence, they should be taught differently.
For that, the new generation of teachers should think differently. They should engage their students differently, realising that the set of students that enter schools now, are unlike all previous generations of students.
The mere fact that the modern teachers belong to Generation Z, does not mean that they are equipped with the skills of teaching Gen Alpha children.
THE SCHOOL FOR
GEN ALPHA
It is no secret that the children of today, are far ahead of their teachers in using new technology. A school cannot be sustained unless the teacher is treated as the master of the knowledge that is given to the children.
A class in which the students know that they know better than the teacher has no respect for the teacher. In such classes the teacher becomes useless.
WHOLE BRAIN TEACHING
The old concept that Mathematics, Language, Science etc. are to be taught logically predominantly using the left brain, and Art, Music, Dancing etc. are to be taught predominantly using the right brain is not valid any more.
The right brain should be brought in to the picture in teaching even highly logical subjects like Mathematics. This is called whole brain teaching.
The teachers should be given specific training to use whole brain teaching techniques that are currently being used extensively in the developed countries.
PREDICAMENT
If the teachers in the preschool and primary classes are not trained immediately to use the right brain in their teaching strategies, school systems will become obsolete in the near future and the teaching profession faces the risk of becoming the laughing stock in front of the class as children start using the search engines in the internet to learn.
Somabandhu Kodikara (B.Sc., Dip. in Edu., IDEPA)
Principal (Primary School)
Vidura College – Colombo