Learning gives creativity, Creativity leads to thinking, Thinking provides knowledge and Knowledge makes you great. Above lines said by former president of India APJ Abdul kalam depicts the importance of learning. Many a people often tell that the child learns till midnight or from four in the morning everyday, on the presumption that such an approach ensures quality in studies. They hardly realise that duration of learning does not reflect its effectiveness. We often wonder why certain students who burn mid night oil fail in securing good grades in examination. Any student can expect good grades if he follows sound methods and strategies for effective learning.Many times the student who knows most may not score the highest markes in examination. A lot depends on how one handles the questions and what strategies are adopted in preparation for the examination. In Asian countries examinations are only instruments for evaluating the achievement levels of students, our universities and colleges often put the cart before the horse. Many times students face pressure from parents and teachers to raise performance in the examinations as a result of which most of the students these days are under stress. I don’t think paper evaluators are enough smart to judge every student’s IQ level and most of them can’t evaluate one’s level of intellect. In today’s era education become a compulsion and soul destroying. Meaning and purpose of education is being restricted as it has become just a means to earn livelihood. Education in Kashmir is mismanaged as technical faults are visible in every institution and corrective measures required to achieve goals according to the wishes of students are missing in strategies and consequently the process of effective learning has become a casualty. Teachers plan to complete syllabus as quickly as possible every year and consequently they fail to nurture the talent and produce creative minds who could lead people better in their areas of their interest.
A student should learn an idea or concept through his own thinking. He should be provided free atmosphere and definitely he will learn by experiences .I have seen many students in my life reading loudly and developing a sense of feeling that they loose energy without understanding the idea properly. Better to follow reading style like the 4R method (Read, recall, Reflect, Review). Whenever you read anything keep a pen with you that will force you to think and grasp the core points involved. A student should always highlight significant points so that revision would be easy. In class room every student is not brilliant enough to memorise it as skill to learn varies from student to student.It depends on a person’s IQ as well how much easily one understands concepts and ideas. There are certain memory techniques that help to remember for example the word VIBGYOR not only reminds us of the seven colours in white sunlight but helps us to remember them in the order of frequencies or wavelengths of the component colours. These letters are a cue to an idea just to remember an acronym. A student should always be persistent and train mind to think and not worry about failures. Learning lessons from failure are the right path to success. Always maintain right attitude for learning .Keep trust on yourself one day success will be yours. The quality of education should be improved than producing a society of brains with creative minds.
(The author is a freelancer. Views are his own)
