World Students' Day to honour former president of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was proclaimed in 2010 for observance on his birth anniversary, October 15. Dr Kalam had articulated that he was a teacher first and foremost who subscribed for the view of making students empowered through self-study skills and pursuing their dreams.
He was not just an aerospace scientist of great standing and a liberal politician, but a pro-student teacher too to be remembered so. He had wanted to remain a teacher till the last moment. One may recall that Dr Kalam died suddenly on July 27, 2015, while he was delivering a lecture to the students of IIM Shillong.
He had urged students to acquire following aspects
·Having a great aim or vision for life
· Acquiring continuously knowledge by being lifelong learners
· Working hard and persevering
He was of the view that with these aspects acquired with the help of the teachers and care-givers as a support system, anything can be achieved by students and makes the country great. In his words, "If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher."
Here is my special note on the self-study skills as a tribute on his birth anniversary being observed today with the theme ‘Learning for people, planet, prosperity, and peace’.
If one goes through the interactive sessions of Dr ADJ Kalam in various educational institutions, he seemed to have subscribed for self-study skills and autonomous learning by students. He was a pro-student and self-study subscriber. In his sessions he always encouraged students to ask questions. He had deemed that students had a right to ask question and make queries.
I feel that the school-based training of both teachers and senior students jointly is able to make the users to imbibe requisite study skills and make them a part of the system. Not only the training in Self-Study Skills (3S) and and Higher Order Thinking Skills or HOTs (Analysis, synthesis, evaluation and creative-critical thinking) will help the school to move toward the resource-based learning; doing their assignments meaningfully; writing project reports adequately. Moreover, it will also help them to participate in student seminars effectively and revise courses quickly with self-confidence for external examinations.
Moreover, researches in classroom instruction and cognitive psychology inform 3S and HOTS can successfully create independent and autonomous learners at the senior school level and provide scope to the teachers to don the roles of facilitators, guides, better evaluators and resource managers.
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