Sometime back I was keenly observing an engineer designing a product, making it, checking the dimensions and ultimately he was not satisfied with the product that he had made. I was keen to know what his reaction would be when the product did not meet his strict product specifications. He rejected the product and changed his design. He also did Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) and after rectifying the process defects, made the product once again and this time he was very happy about the product and cleared the product as ‘OK’.
As I was observing him, my thought went to another person, in a school, imparting knowledge to a student. After teaching a lesson he wanted to ensure that he produced an outcome at the knowledge level in the mind of the student and gave a test. For some reason, the student did not fare well in the test. The student was rejected as having ‘Failed’, but the teacher was satisfied that the process was in order, and that the student did not adsorb what was taught !When I write about this incident, I fully appreciate the effort made by the teacher to be at his best while teaching the student and I am not blaming him.
However when I compared these two independent incident, something very strange Struck me. The first person checked his PROCESS and not his PRODUCT, but the second person checked his PRODUCT, not his PROCESS of teaching. This incident triggered a strange phrase in my mind ‘attitude engineering’. I was noticing that the engineer has certain well accepted engineering concept to ‘engineer’ a quality product, and he knows that a quality product cannot ‘just appear’. I was concluding that a teacher should also know and understand some well accepted ‘behavioural concept’ to ‘engineer , a good behavior which cannot ‘just happen’.
Both the engineer and the teacher are producing something for the society; the engineer is producing materials for the society and the teacher is producing the human ware for the society, to use the thing produced by the engineer. In this context the concept of attitude becomes very crucial.
What happens in the school environment is the transfer of knowledge from the teacher to the taught. Even though it may appear to be very simple, it is not so. It is a system for a conveyor belt by which the knowledge is transported from where it is to where has to be! As the process of teaching takes place in the context of hardware aspect such as the class time table, lesson plans, examination system, paper correction, classroom furniture, school bell, morning assembly, etc there is unspoken software, namely the ‘MIND’, which is to be taken care of.
Two issues decided the quality of absorption and the retention of knowledge ; the brain and the mind. The brain and the mind are two different things, while the brain is a thing and has no place and a physical structure , the mind is a process and has no place and cannot be seen. Whereas the brain issues involve things as the nerves, neurons, vein etc., the mind aspect involves issues such as mindset, feelings, emotion, values, which point to one important parameter ‘ATTITUDE’. In a society which is becoming more and more competitive, it is very important to understand the role played by attitude in a school system. An effective education process should integrate the mind and the brain. While lots of efforts are being taken to drive the knowledge into the brain of the student, it is very important to understand the role played by attitude in a school system. An effective education process should integrate the mind and the brain. While lots of efforts are being taken to drive the knowledge into the brain of the students, taken to drive the knowledge into the brain of the students. While on this I would like to Quote W. Clement Stone:
