Love for Books: What impedes our students to develop critical thinking?

Love for Books: What impedes our students to develop critical thinking?

Critical thinking is an essential skill that enables one to differentiate between right and wrong, rational and illogical and of course between true and false. It is this very skill that develops and hones sense of judgment, whets
the ability to think clear and fast and to make right and timely decisions. While there are no two opinions about the importance of developing critical thinking, one develops serious concerns after getting to know that a great majority of the students in Pakistan
are being provided with no such training or guidance to develop this critical skill.

Critical thinking is an essential component of personality building and thus, it is deemed a crucial part of the school learning activities in the quality education environment. However, in Pakistan, marred by old, obsolete and
subjective curricula, most part of which has become redundant in the modern day world, there is nothing remained that could teach the students objectivity and unbiasedness – prerequisites to develop free thinking and sense of verdict.

Besides the curricula, it is the teaching environment the students are exposed to in most of public and private schools that affect their ability to develop a critical mind. In a traditional Pakistani school, no one can dare disagreeing
with a teacher, nor is one allowed to ask a question outside the textbook. The unconscious training that spans over a painfully long period only teaches the students that teacher is always right, and that anything in print is absolutely true, without mistake
and unquestionable.

Moreover, public teachers in Pakistan believe that the only thing that could make the students perform academically well is their high handedness and frequent use of stick and insulting tactics. Being extremely counterproductive,
such ways of behaving with the students only leave them fed-up of entire education process and they start hating keeping in touch with the books. This hatred with the books and the teachers lead the students towards choosing to stay away from books for rest
of their lives (perhaps that is the reason that dropout rate in Pakistan is highest in the world).

Marred by similar other inflictions, even if some students manage to complete their education, they remain incapable of creating and mulling over original ideas – rather, they are mere followers. Those of them, who opt for teaching
as professional careers, play further havoc with the youth of the country. And thus, the vicious circle continues.

Addressing this problem, where there seems no panacea presently available, a multi prong approach may be required to get rid of and eradicate this trend. First of all, the school environments should be child friendly and learning
friendly. Questions, no matter how basic or say stupid, should never be discouraged and should be responded patiently. Teaching methodologies, pedagogy and syllabus should be improved and synchronized with the modern day world needs. And there should be no
barriers hindering free thinking.

Finally, reading habit among the students should be promoted. In Pakistan, the irony is that public schools usually lack libraries. If at all they exist, they always remain locked and the students are not allowed to enter into
them. They themselves usually do not have the resources to buy books of general interest and read. All this results in inculcation of one-sided ideas with receding acceptance for counter thoughts and arguments.

Pakistan presently faces increased religious fanaticism, and ironically, the roots of this phenomenon also find their foundation in a similar learning environment to which students at public schools are exposed to. Had the madrassas
in the country promoted free learning with the students’ exposure to all sorts of books, the modern Pakistan could have greater acceptance for a wide diversity of ideas with thriving democratic values and increased religious freedom.

While what is done is done, an attempt can still be made to reverse the damage and stop the phenomenon of killing creativity, objectivity and free thinking in the bud. This can be done by promoting reading and allowing the students
to question freely. This year, as Pakistan celebrates its first National Book Day, we must make a promise to ourselves that for the sake of a mentally thriving Pakistan, we must resort to free learning and that too through promoting love for books and reading.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=20019

Posted by Fayyaz Yaseen on Apr 24 2012. Filed under Education, Opinion, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry