Good teachers have been left broken hearted by seeing how badly students are taught today .
They will be the first to acknowledge that our education “system” has let our students down . This obsession with scoring marks and filling in paperwork means they can’t spend enough time and energy on doing what they love – helping students learn !
The plague of overcrowded classes, after-home , tuitions, coaching classes and Edutech apps is just making a bad situation worse , but even though their heart is in the right place , they feel powerless and helpless , and don’t know how to fix the problem .
Sadly, the good teachers are getting progressively disillusioned and cynical, and the problem is getting worse because the EduTech startups have millions to spend on selling their products in order to make money by exploiting the ignorance of students and parents !
It’s inspiring to see how hard good-hearted and well-meaning educational NGOs have been working behind the scenes to make a difference in the lives of under-privileged students . However, the problem is they all work in silos .
Instead, we should all get together to create a product and open-source it , so that it becomes a platform which anyone can tap into and modify and tweak and adapt . Let’s learn from the Khan Academy story. Salman Khan started with creating videos for his niece, but grew this till it impacts millions today, because he was generous and shared his expertise with others.
Let’s create an open source platform – a LearnoPedia, which is pre-populated with lesson plans, so that everyone who wants to use it (teachers, parents, and students) can do so ?
People can contribute, edit, adapt and translate, so that this grows organically.
This is a huge opportunity , and if you’re willing to be open minded and to explore, this kind of platform could take on a life of its own, which will outlive you.
I will be happy to fund this!
What a great legacy to leave behind !