Education- Child Centric correction

Fill the predicates in the blanks, read the heading. Maths is my favourite book, answered the fourth class child writing, ‘Math’

“Do you think, this is right?” asked my friend. “Yes.” I replied. My friend scrolled down the messages showing another message. “Surya, third blank(Maths) is wrong. Math is a subject. Not a book.”

“What do you think of it?” asked my friend for my opinion.

“Logically, teacher is right. Math is subject. It can be written as Mathematics textbook or some other book. Instead of highlighting that the student is wrong, she could’ve explained his thought process and the other ways to think.

“I have an issue” mentioned my friend.

“There are two aspects.

1.Pedagogical

2. Conceptual

 The blank is to assess if the child has the knowledge of predicates. Child got it right. He wrote it well.

As a society, we are so into education that we do not expose our children to any other books but, textbooks. There’s no knowledge of fiction, nonfiction, story books, novels. Growing up in such situations, kid thought maths as a book but not as subject.

Teacher should have taken the opportunity to start a dialogue about various books. “You are wrong,” ends with no dialogue.

Who’s surya? I assumed, my friend was defending his kid’s actions. No, he was observing and reflecting through dialogue.

I was logical in the answer and didn’t bother about the way the teacher corrected the student.

My friend was child-centric, wishing to help the child.

If we are not meant to help children, what are we here for?

Thanks friend for the reflection and dialogue.