Outside the Classroom

Teaching and learning are inherently spontaneous, when moved out of the classrooms looking the world at large. Putting education into practice is beneficial for the students. When students get out of the boring educational environment of the class they get to learn more while haunting out practically and experiencing in the real world. Often, schools as well as curriculum developers forget the importance of including co-curricular activities along with the usual studies.

Schools should organize field trips for the students for their exposure and better experiences. The phrase field trips bring in mind long bus rides, bag packs, campus, mountains, museum tours, etc. The students create a bond with teachers; this brings improvement between the learning experiences and creates a learning community as students continue forward in the discipline. Take any of the top schools in Delhi NCR or for that matter any part of India; each has included co-curricular activities in their syllabus and some even went to the extent of integrating it in their grading methodology. Teaching in the field brings opportunities that also give a chance to the teachers to know their students more deeply and understand their sentiments well. Practical teachings like such create an understanding and a bond between the teachers and students, which help the teacher understand their students in greater depth in terms of how the students see the world differently. This friendly bond shared between the teachers and students would help them gain more knowledge.

Classroom study does not bring the best out of the students. It keeps the students entangled with limited knowledge and zero exposure and experience. At last what matters is experience, and not classroom education. Take Delhi Public School Dwarka for example. They organize regular field trips and on-site industry interactions to enable and empower their students with the requirements of the changing times. Schools should also organize workshops and seminars regularly for the students to give them practical knowledge and break from regular school classes. Such activities will keep the students involved and interested in the regular school and will keep giving them the good knowledge about their subjects.

Do you remember what you studied in grade, 5^th or 6^th? What we remember is our experiences and exposures. We only remember our school outings and trips, and not our classroom studies.Students these days are so much involved in latest technologies. With the rapid pace of technology, it is tough to monitor your kids’ exposure to different forms of media. Students are involved in various technologies like computers, mobile phones, PSPs, video games, etc. Students should get out of these technologies and get involved in outdoor games and get involved in games which freshen their mind and keep them active and joyful.

A child should participate in innovative activities, which he/she likes to do, things that interest the child. Children who are interested in sketching and painting should join classes after school to keep themselves busy and have memorable experiences. Those who are interested in singing or dancing should join classes specialized in these and learn their specific style of singing or dancing. Students should get out of classroom teaching and do extracurricular activities and what interests them, so that they have life experience learning. I am not undermining the importance of concentrating on the core subjects that a student studies, however, if integrated with regular courses, the results can be unfathomable. Eventually, any extracurricular activity when integrated with the curriculum, can lead to huge success. All a child need is an honest effort. So basically this article portrays everything a student should and can do other than classroom studying.