CAN GOOGLE TEACH US HOW TO 'FEEL'?


















“We live in a world where there is more and more information,
and less and less meaning.”




In yesterday’s TOI, there was this interesting article about the plight of teachers inside the classrooms, in these ‘information-overloaded’ years… The class rooms of some of the ‘Best schools’ have Wi-Fi connection and students can obtain answers, examples and options without even waiting for the teachers to come out with… In fact, the teacher is, often, left blinking… sorry, dumb-founded!

‘’They know it all… and, what am I doing here?”  This question haunts many, many teachers, particularly the ones who aren’t tech-savvy…

“They google mechanically,” tells one of my friends, who is, like me, an old-school-of-thought teacher, “they do not do it out of childlike curiosity.”

Is it true?

I think, it is. The way the young ones ‘search’ on Google is more as a habit… It is there handy, so just click it… It is just as their hands reach a calculator even to find how much is 3 plus 2!

Just imagine, how we did it when calculators were not there… even the mighty calculations!

Now, the patience has turned paper-thin… So, the so-called school and college Projects, through which the young ones are expected to learn their subjects the ‘practical way’… yes, even those doctoral ‘thesis’ works have become just a mockery… It’s all there in tons and tons and it is there just a click away!

“There is no depth in their knowledge,” says another friend of mine, “It’s all superficial and a show-off.”

Is it true?

Again, I think, it is. I meet scores of parents, who complain the same way as teachers do... “Our kids think, that they know more than we do… They think that our knowledge is outdated and  of any use. We have stopped advising and lecturing to them.” This, invariably, is the tone and tenor of parents’ complaint…

Google gives us loads and loads of information. But, it doesn’t give us the ability to ‘filter’ this information… nor does it give us the ability to ‘feel’… It can never give us the gift of ‘childlike curiosity’ and the enormous prerequisite of all understanding, called – ‘the sense of wonder… Awe’… It happens to us not when we google, but when we stand alone before the ferocious ocean… It happens when we stand looking up at a stars-lit night… It happens when we sight a new-born for the first time… It happens when our hearts go quiet in an intimate embrace… It happens when we send our departed loved-ones down into the grave or up into the flames… Can Google teach us how to feel, how to love, how to laugh, how to cry, how to apologize and how to forgive… and, how to bounce back?

It needs a different kind of Wi-Fi connection, sir…

True, Google can make our kids into great robots… But, certainly, to make them into great ‘human beings’, there should be a different source, a different knowledge…

The ‘depth’ comes from this source…

“In this world of numbness and information overload,” counseled Patrick Ness, “the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.”


GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Shripad Kulkarni


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