KOCHI: Book buff: Achuthsankar S Nair, honorary director, Centre for Bioinformatics, University of Kerala
Book: The Process of Education (Harvard University Press)
Author: Jerome Burner
Language: English
Where did the book find me: I grew up hearing my father quote from this book often. So the ideology had played its part in shaping my outlook on teaching and understanding even before I bought a copy and read it for myself about five years ago
Achuthsankar had steered to heights C-DIT, Kerala Government’s signature R&D institute for imaging technology. He is an IIT-trained, brain-drain resistant, socially committed technocrat. But then he refuses to use a mobile phone, resisting the encroachment of technology into personal spaces.
Browse his website and it declares that history of Thiruvananthapuram is one of his major areas of interest in which he has produced more than one research paper.
His other serious passion, Carnatic music, is not limited to an academic interest. The rare vocal concerts he has rendered would assert his creditable status as a musician. Achuthsankar just refuses to be typecast. Bookie, too benefited out of its tryst with this singular individual. While the books featured till date in the column were quintessentially literary, Achuthsankar’s choice was a seemingly academic one, which he insisted would enhance and influence a common reader’s horizon of knowledge.
“My father, A Sukumaran Nair, former Vice-Chancellor and a devout reader, found his favourite quote from this book - that anything can be taught to anyone in some honest form. The phrase has stayed with me ever since I can remember, although I read the book only about five years ago. I have picked up this light book of hardly 130 pages several times hence for its simple elucidation of a profound philosophy.”
Though Jerome Burner had put down his concepts on the process of education 50 years ago, his book has remained the most epochal influence on educational psychology and cognitive learning theory. The American psychologist’s landmark text, ‘The Process of Education’ (1960), had a direct influence on the educational policy formation of the United States.
Perhaps, the appeal of the text is largely contained in the ‘breezy thought’ as Achuthsankar puts it, that anything can be taught to anyone. Burner states that there is nothing intrinsically difficult about any subject. “If you read him, you will understand that mathematics, a subject that has a dubious history of being the most scary, is not difficult in itself. But the way it is taught has made its understanding difficult.”
Achuthsankar’s website has a green band on the top with this quote from Burner - ‘Any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development’.
“I started my career as a teacher and it remains my most preferred vocation. And I found Burner’s idea an empowering thought and has gone to the classroom armed with this ideology,” he said. “Whenever I faced a difficulty in communicating with the students, I remembered Burner. I trained myself to imagine that I should teach the same thing to my grandmother. She had a wisdom that surpassed anything that a formal education can give. But to communicate with her, you needed a totally different perspective. And suddenly the terminology and the assumptions were all illuminated by a new light. It has helped me
immensely.”
He said the book is so inviting that one would be tempted to keep returning to it. “It is written in a most creative, refreshing and humorous way. Anecdotes explain intricate ideas with ease, like this instance of a teacher who went back and prepared for his class many times because his students said they did not follow him. After many such attempts, the teacher discovered that it was then that he understood the subject.”
It is not a book that is to be read by teachers alone, he underscores. “Any form of communication is also a form of teaching in that you seek to educate someone of an idea. This book can help a common man organise his/her thought process better because Burner bases his ideas on the assumption that ‘Knowing is a process not a product’."
"And I think, on that score, it influences one like a profound philosophy. You can also approach the book as a thinker would. I believe people should find time for such books apart from fictional works,” he suggested.
“Perhaps we should make a compilation of 100 must-read books, with short descriptions on each by one impassioned reader. It could be named ‘Invitation to reading’.” His spirited imagination is always on a never-ending flight.
But Achuthsankar is different on one note, he makes sure the dreams land on the ‘special efficient zone’ in his radius.
aswathy@expressbuzz.com
(The weekly column brings you the favourite read of who’s who of society)