Call to enhance children’s ability of critical thinking

There is confusion in society about whether to speak English or Urdu as a medium of conversation, rather than concentrating on the aspect that one’s thoughts should be clearly conveyed to others and the same is the case when it comes to teaching students at schools.

“We should enhance the ability of critical thinking among young children. If these youngsters, who are God-gifted, better understand matters in Urdu, then they should be informed and guided in Urdu, and if they are comfortable with English as medium, then it should be used for them,” said musician, actor and television personality Khaled Anam on Saturday.

He was one of the panellists of a discussion on developing 21st century skills during a symposium, entitled “Thought Leaders”, which was organised by The City School at a hotel on Saturday.

He advised that rather than making language and the medium of teaching an issue, teachers, parents and others should concentrate on enhancing the ability of learning with understanding and questioning so that children could have the confidence to share their thoughts, plans and difficulties with them.

In his keynote address, the director academics of The City School, Philip Hallworth, said: “Children only get one chance at childhood; it is both our privilege and our duty, whether as educators or parents, to ensure that they spend their childhood actively learning and not passively doing. Actively learning the knowledge, life skills and values that will be the foundation for their future - and that they must have fun doing so.”

He emphasised that “we should never underestimate the influence we as educators can have on young lives”. 

“The child-centric early years education develops confident, resilient, sociable and tolerant young people who then grow up to be the responsible adult thought leaders of our future society.”

The general manager of Early Years Education at The City School, Saboohi Irtiza, said parents, teachers and schools played a pivotal role in shaping the personalities of children through education and training; hence, there must be a proper platform of these caregivers in the lives of the kids through exclusive gathering, workshops and symposiums.

“Gathering of caregivers should be effective to discuss their role to germinate quintessential skills in the children in a way the nation will have a determined and a productive new generation in future.”

A renowned educationist and teacher trainer, Abbas Hussain, advised that parents and teachers should equip themselves with emerging skills and new technologies which had a role in the children education and training because they were exposed to new learning equally as their children.

He said teachers and parents should equally play their role in providing education and training to children because the role of every individual was indispensible in catering to the growing education.

He said the system for education and training should be made conducive in a way that children could learn effectively learning patterns in their lives without fear and hesitation.

The speakers were of the view that whatever the schools were, whatever the training systems were, students should be taught the art of swimming in the river of knowledge.

“In spite of technological advancement which can be ruled out for utility in the lives, the fundamental skills are important as proved everywhere in the world, including observing, reading and writing, which could be attained through building the habit of reading books in students.”

They suggested that students should not only be encouraged to learn skills and acquire knowledge, but they should be given freedom to pursue their interests, because the passion of an individual could lead them to do their best.       

The City School management said the symposium provided a platform for renowned experts and influencers to exchange best practices and cutting-edge research in designing, developing and managing high performance learning environments for early childhood education. “It drew on a combination of speaker sessions, panel discussions and workshops engaging local stakeholders, early years’ practitioners, schools and parents, to set the future direction for this critical area of education.” 

Besides, the panel discussion, four workshops were held on the topics of “Inclusion in the 21 century: differentiating with technology”, “Parent up! Who’s parenting who?”, “Building self-esteem”, “Write Here, Write Now: High Quality Writing Instruction”, and “Story Time: A Learning Journey”. The experts shared different approaches and techniques with parents to enhance the learning ability of a child at home.  In the end, students sang a song in chorus and put up a stage performance.