My experiences with education - Part III ( IIT-JEE coaching)
Ok before I get into trouble let me say this - "all the opinions expressed in this blog are my own and are online solely for the purpose of documenting my experiences and making it accesible to wider audiences, they are not intended to hurt people, reputation of organizations, to serve as sources of primary or secondary data, or illustrations of effective and ineffective management ".
In June, 1995 I joined Ramaiah's coaching centre(RCC). I was very happy and excited.
RCC and Ramaiah were almost legendary in Hyd then, not sure what the situation is rite now. Almost every student in Hyd and a lot of cities in AP had heard about Ramaiah and RCC ( students used to come from other cities as well to study at RCC). In terms of faculty and academic inputs, RCC was the best in the city but each faculty there, had his own set of eccentricities.Also the institute was very strict when it came to punctuality, homework, dress code etc.Nobody was allowed inside if he/she was late to the class even by 5 mins, if you miss a class you would have to get your parents to the institute to offer explanations for your absence, boys were not allowed to tuck their shirts or wear shoes, girls were only allowed to wear salwar suits, and once inside the class you were not supposed to be wearing sweaters/woollen clothing etc.There were a lot of instances were people had to shift to houses closer to the institute because the morning classes would start at 4am in the morning. In short , during the two years when students were at the institute, the students including their parents were at the mercy of the institute.Some of the students used to leave the institute because they couldnt cope with the pressure( which includes nasty comments and may be a bit of slapping as well) there.From my personal experiences I can say that a lot of what I heard was right, though not everything was right.
There are some ' interesting' things which I distinctly remember about the institute.The first thing they do is have a meeting with the parents and the students when they discuss the question paper and the performance of the students. In 1995 around 4500 students appeared for the exam and around 600 - 700 of them got zeroes in maths and physics ( that should give you some idea about the toughness of the paper).The best part about the maths paper atleast is that all the questions can be solved without using any mathematics beyond class X though the questions appear very complicated.(For those who are mathematically inclined here is a 1 mark question from the paper which I gave.. How many times does the curve y = | | x-1| -1 | cut the x - axis?).In the meeting, the parents are also told not to scold their children at home because they do that at the institute anyways and they are also urged to take good care of them and monitor their mental health regularly.The other interesting thing about the institute is the classroom experience; sometimes nasty and sometimes witty comments peppered the lecture sessions.Once in a physics class I was asleep and the prof caught me napping. He promptly woke me up(dont remeber if I was slapped though) and this is what he told the class in telugu " Vamshi gaaru theory of relativity meeda panichestunnaru andukaney raatri padukoledu" which when translated into english means "Vamshi was working on the theory of relativity and thats why he could not sleep yesterday nite" and then he asks me "Vamshi, any breakthroughs ?".
Some of the comments the lecturers used to make were quite sarcastic and you needed to be really thick skinned to take that and continue with the course.
On the whole, to be frank I didnt enjoy my experience at RCC very much but I cannot deny that I learnt a lot of stuff there and some of what I learnt I remember to this day. It was in RCC where I fell in love with Maths and Physics and I will always be grateful to the faculty there for this.I learnt what passion means from the faculty there.Also I met some amazing guys at this place.
Only when teachers are passionate, knowledgeable, good communicators and friendly can learning be fun and effective.At RCC atleast as far as my perception is concerned, the faculty satisfied the first three conditions but I think they were very students unfriendly.I dont deny the importance of discipline but I am against taking it to extremes and imposing meaningless rules like what I thought they did at RCC .Proponents of RCC's system may argue that it is very effective based on statistical facts, I agree it is effective but the effectiveness comes at a very high cost. Many students apart from the ones who are very very bright dont perform as well as their peers from coaching centres in other states once they join IITs because they are already so 'tired' studying for getting into IITs . I dont have exact numbers to support my statement but the above statement is based on my personal experiences.
The goal of coaching centres should not just be maximizing the number of students cracking JEE, but instilling in them a passion for life long learning with discipline and making the learning process enjoyable.
Cracking JEE is not an end in itself, its just a means to an end.
In June, 1995 I joined Ramaiah's coaching centre(RCC). I was very happy and excited.
RCC and Ramaiah were almost legendary in Hyd then, not sure what the situation is rite now. Almost every student in Hyd and a lot of cities in AP had heard about Ramaiah and RCC ( students used to come from other cities as well to study at RCC). In terms of faculty and academic inputs, RCC was the best in the city but each faculty there, had his own set of eccentricities.Also the institute was very strict when it came to punctuality, homework, dress code etc.Nobody was allowed inside if he/she was late to the class even by 5 mins, if you miss a class you would have to get your parents to the institute to offer explanations for your absence, boys were not allowed to tuck their shirts or wear shoes, girls were only allowed to wear salwar suits, and once inside the class you were not supposed to be wearing sweaters/woollen clothing etc.There were a lot of instances were people had to shift to houses closer to the institute because the morning classes would start at 4am in the morning. In short , during the two years when students were at the institute, the students including their parents were at the mercy of the institute.Some of the students used to leave the institute because they couldnt cope with the pressure( which includes nasty comments and may be a bit of slapping as well) there.From my personal experiences I can say that a lot of what I heard was right, though not everything was right.
There are some ' interesting' things which I distinctly remember about the institute.The first thing they do is have a meeting with the parents and the students when they discuss the question paper and the performance of the students. In 1995 around 4500 students appeared for the exam and around 600 - 700 of them got zeroes in maths and physics ( that should give you some idea about the toughness of the paper).The best part about the maths paper atleast is that all the questions can be solved without using any mathematics beyond class X though the questions appear very complicated.(For those who are mathematically inclined here is a 1 mark question from the paper which I gave.. How many times does the curve y = | | x-1| -1 | cut the x - axis?).In the meeting, the parents are also told not to scold their children at home because they do that at the institute anyways and they are also urged to take good care of them and monitor their mental health regularly.The other interesting thing about the institute is the classroom experience; sometimes nasty and sometimes witty comments peppered the lecture sessions.Once in a physics class I was asleep and the prof caught me napping. He promptly woke me up(dont remeber if I was slapped though) and this is what he told the class in telugu " Vamshi gaaru theory of relativity meeda panichestunnaru andukaney raatri padukoledu" which when translated into english means "Vamshi was working on the theory of relativity and thats why he could not sleep yesterday nite" and then he asks me "Vamshi, any breakthroughs ?".
Some of the comments the lecturers used to make were quite sarcastic and you needed to be really thick skinned to take that and continue with the course.
On the whole, to be frank I didnt enjoy my experience at RCC very much but I cannot deny that I learnt a lot of stuff there and some of what I learnt I remember to this day. It was in RCC where I fell in love with Maths and Physics and I will always be grateful to the faculty there for this.I learnt what passion means from the faculty there.Also I met some amazing guys at this place.
Only when teachers are passionate, knowledgeable, good communicators and friendly can learning be fun and effective.At RCC atleast as far as my perception is concerned, the faculty satisfied the first three conditions but I think they were very students unfriendly.I dont deny the importance of discipline but I am against taking it to extremes and imposing meaningless rules like what I thought they did at RCC .Proponents of RCC's system may argue that it is very effective based on statistical facts, I agree it is effective but the effectiveness comes at a very high cost. Many students apart from the ones who are very very bright dont perform as well as their peers from coaching centres in other states once they join IITs because they are already so 'tired' studying for getting into IITs . I dont have exact numbers to support my statement but the above statement is based on my personal experiences.
The goal of coaching centres should not just be maximizing the number of students cracking JEE, but instilling in them a passion for life long learning with discipline and making the learning process enjoyable.
Cracking JEE is not an end in itself, its just a means to an end.
posted by Vamshi Jandhyala at 12:51 PM
1 Comments:
You hit the Bull's Eye !!!!!!
Look out for reprisals frm RCC fan club
Post a Comment
<< Home