NUT CASE!
This is what most of my friends think of prof. Santhakumar who was the Dean Academics of IIT Madras. I have learn't one thing among other things in my stay at IIT Madras. A person who is orchestrating the efforts of people in any good organization always has a view point and usually is very strong about it. Whether we like it or not there is some truth to it and they are very strong about their point of view. I have a deep respect for him. Unlike most people he is a real engineer. He seems to know about all the branches of engineering! It is fantastic to sit and listen to his class. It is true that he cribs about a lot of things. It is also true that what he teaches for the rest of time is fantastic. Also, there is truth in all his cribs. It is just that we don't like to hear it.
This conversation is the following. A lot of profs in IIT Madras are in the bandwagon of the claim that coaching centres are screwing up the quality of the students entering IITs. I am against this. I dont think coaching centres are doing this.
Me: Sir, What is wrong with coaching centres? We just get better teachers there. What is wrong with that?
Some I like them better than the ones who teach at IITs
Prof. Santhakumar: AHA! You obviously find them better because they make your life easier.
Me: what is wrong with making life easier?
Prof. Santhakumar:Everything!
Me: what do you mean?
Prof: Dont you ever wonder about these things? A lot of us don't use power point slides even though we are supposed to be technologists. We still use blackboards. You probably also wonder why the contents of what we teach is almost same for the past 50 years.
Me: I wonder a little but I know the reason for the second part. The laws of science dont change whether it is 50 or 100 years. Newton's laws are going to be the same even after thousand years.
Prof: Its nice that you know that. It is technology which changes not the laws of nature and we dont focus on technology much. Now about the coaching centres. You don't recognize the difference between education and training.
Me: I don't think I know the difference.
Prof: Exactly! that is where the problem stems from. We dont train you we educate you.Our aim is to make you think better. If we make life easier while you are learning you wont grow. This is the reason behind us not simplifying the learning process. We are also in the business of teaching you engineering. That is the reason why we do this educating process through teaching engineering.
Me: Well, it makes sense.
Prof: Most of you kids wont end up in engineering. We know that. The reason why a lot of you kids end up successful is because you get educated and not trained.
(all the old profs call us kids :P)
Me: Its funny that I am hearing this when I am almost about to graduate.
Prof: Dont worry you get a lot of training when you are working(on job). No body is going to educate you there. This is the reason why we don't focus at all on training.
Me: Why don't you tell this to us when we are in first year?
Prof: That is how life is kid. This is why you should listen to profs :P. The coaching centres focus on training you not educating you. That is our problem with coaching centres. The bigger problem is you expect us to do the same when you come here.
I have my thoughts on coaching centres but one cant neglect what he said. The profs want us to learn a LOT in two years. The learning style completely changes from the learning style in school. While there is a lot of focus on rote learning in school, it is of little importance for JEE. It is difficult to make this switch without good teachers when you are 15 years old. Good teachers end up at coaching centres because they pay them more.
On an unrelated note I made a few punctuation mistakes which were pointed out in my last blog post. @Harsha - thanks.
@others:
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interesting!!!
ReplyDeleteNice conversation :) .. Didn't know Santhakumar thinks so much :P . But I've had bitter experiences with him and I still don't find any logic in it... :-/
ReplyDelete@mohan - sure it is interesting!
ReplyDelete@arun - silver lining in the cloud? My first experience with him is pathetic. The problem is the the following - most of the students he sees are undisciplined(to the extreme) and who don't care about studying at all(only then u go to dean acads :P). He should trust you before he listens to you :P
i see that coaching centers do train in some way. but we personally had different coaching experience all together i guess. I think u would agree with me that we r not trained and it mostly depends on the students IQ. if he is dumb, he gets trained, if he is smart he educates himself via training...:)
ReplyDelete