Socialization, essential for improved behaviour

Peer group based self-learning concept:

[Part 3]

P I Keerthisinghe-Additional Director, College of Technology, Galle

Self learning activities give more time to the slow learners and peer group learning can help them to get advice and instructions from better peers. Peer groups are a powerful factor that can train individuals towards socialization. Most peer groups represent the social groups the learners belong to and can help them towards early successful socialization.

Even though a peer group may not entirely represent the learner's social environment, for example, one black American student and five white American students, the common goal in education may make them work together irrespective of the differences in their social, cultural, racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds and teach them the concept of social amity. Peer groups can act as 'little communities' by themselves. Sharing of knowledge for the betterment of the society, the country or the world in general is a noble concept compared to working only towards personal uplift. More self disciplined individuals with feelings of friendship, comradeship and brotherhood can be created. More unity among the student population can be fostered by reducing negative or hostile feelings such as jealousy, hatred, animosity, envy, superiority or inferiority complex which are caused by undue competition for academic success.

Idolization

Imitating famous personalities or idol figures is an important part of the growing up process in the psychological development of youth. They look for role models. The better peers will become role models for the lazy or lethargic or week minded ones with poor personalities. By imitating the better ones, the weak ones will also learn how to solve the problems concerning education.

Stress factor

Most slow learners undergo stress due to the inability to perform well caused by reading disabilities (dyslexia) or writing disabilities (dysgraphia) and fail examinations. They have been forced to select subjects they do not like or cannot perform well at, which have made them give up what they could really do or what they had been good at. They are terribly frustrated and this can lead them to violent or disruptive acts later. By sharing their difficulties with peer groups they can function better. Most teachers, though they are expected to apply psychological principles in their dealings with the student community, seldom do they do so and as a result very rarely do the students communicate with them productively.

Personality development

The behaviour of an individual learner is the yardstick of his personality development. A learner's character is seen in the behaviour. By training them to work with peer groups, leadership qualities, team spirit and problem solving ability etc can be developed as they are important activities for the character building. Developing the personalities of the learners is a part of the teaching process. However, it does not seem to happen. The teachers conduct lectures, offer advice and give instructions to make the learners better individuals but seldom do their efforts bear fruit as their advice rarely gets instilled in the learner's minds. Learners are, most of the time, passive listeners and as a result lawlessness, crimes and violence have resulted in educational institutions. The essential component of meaningful self knowledge is missing in education today as intellect and skills of the learners rarely accompany their emotions, sentiments and desires which are appropriate for personality development.

The teachers alone cannot mould all these diverse and complex personalities of all their learners on their own. Teachers rarely inculcate values such as sense of justice, humanity and consideration for others in their learners' minds. These qualities have to come from within character, cannot be forcefully formed by teachers. It is the product of the learner's socio cultural background and the home environment too. Since there is a very little teacher student communication in educational institutions, peer group education can help to some extent to ease out the teachers' burdens. As in peer groups, there can be learners of exemplary conduct who can inculcate a good value system in the minds of the less efficient ones. Besides, most teachers do not possess a humane outlook regarding their learners. They hardly pay attention to their learners' problems unless a crisis situation emerges. Teachers of high calibre devoted to the profession wholeheartedly are not available in plenty today. Besides they too are busy and have to tackle their own set of problems in their personal, family or career lives. Some are bored with their jobs and come only to draw their pay. Hence, the need to encourage peer group based self learning arises.

Psychological distance

In the modern world, the teacher cannot limit his role to that of 'knowledge giver'. He has also to be a priest, a counselor, a disciplinarian or an order keeper as well. This has become extremely difficult for them as their learners hail from diverse socio cultural backgrounds such as broken families or united families, violent or peaceful homes, disciplined parents or undisciplined ones etc. All those learners have to be trained in the same class to achieve the common goal or the set target. The teachers are expected to maintain discipline by making the learners understand the importance of socially acceptable behaviour. However, no teacher can act all these complex roles on behalf of their learners and the end result is that the teachers have to avoid the trouble shooters or cast them aside or reject them completely. This makes such slow or errant learners lose their self esteem and can lead to unruly behaviour patterns. Most teachers avoid the company of learners and rarely offer any companionship, kindness or warmth and always try to maintain their distance. Another hassle the teachers face is corporal punishment which produces negative emotions in the learners' minds and distances the learners from their teachers psychologically due to the fear of such acts. The need to punish can be reduced by encouraging peer group studies as the responsibility will be collective rather than purely individual.

Psychological maturity

Every learner is a special individual although he may appear to be in the same grade and is of the same age as his or her peers. Their behaviour patterns and their character traits differ because the levels of growth in the physical social, intellectual and moral spheres can vary due to hereditary or environmental factors these factors can exert a great influence on a person's existence. Innate abilities of individual learners also vary like their environmental stimuli which can enhance or destroy the realization of that potential essential for the social well being. The innate ability is conditioned by genetic factors and the environmental factors which can either make this potential dormant in a negative manner or active in a positive manner. The negative factors can trigger violent or aggressive behaviour and positive factors can trigger productive behaviour. A learner's intellectual ability and his level of psychological maturity constantly do not match each other. And thus can lead to confused behaviour patterns. Peer group study and self study methods can reduce the tension that results from such disparities. The personal development stage decides an individual's capabilities but this factor too cannot be accommodated or addressed meaningfully in crowded classrooms.

Motivation

Many learners also face the problem of motivation. Most teachers cannot motivate the learners. The motivation is essential to get started in a learning enterprise, continue amidst difficulties and reach the end of a study programme without giving up half way. The primary drive for achievement and the secondary drive for social recognition cannot be present without adequate motivation. When problems come up which make the achievement of a goal impossible the learners run away from what they are learning. Motivating the learners to remain in a set task is not very easy. Only if a learner has enjoyment in what he is learning, he will like the teachers and the course of study and will want to continue unless circumstances beyond his control stop him.

In order to motivate the learners rewards are used. When the learners receive stars marks. Grades or at least verbal praise they generally get highly motivated. But all the learners cannot react positively to a learning situation and win these awards due to the difficulty level of the task to be accomplished. There is more opportunity for such learners if they are judged as members of study groups. Expectations such as 'What will I get?' can be changed to 'What will we get?' or 'If I finish this task I can start another', to "If we finish this task we can start another'," 'I am not capable of doing this,' to 'We are not capable of doing this.' Preconceived notions of self, such as 'Will my answer be correct?' to 'Will our answer be correct?' or 'Will I be laughed at or punished?' to 'Will we be laughed at or punished?' Ability in getting the goals straight can be made easier by setting short term goals or definite and manageable challengers to groups which is important to motivate them. All the group members have to work hard to achieve them while having more opportunity in getting enjoyment, having curiosity, acting on available opportunity, enjoying learning new things. Keeping themselves occupied and gaining satisfaction on completing an assigned task can be achieved more easily by working as groups rather than as individuals.

Concentration

Opportunity for self study will help to achieve personal freedom and may be highly beneficial in strengthening creativity, productivity and originality in education. Peer group study can help these learners to get rid of the problem of low concentration inability to concentrate can be followed by punishment. When the givers of knowledge are frustrated they act in a bizarre manner. However, when there is fear there is no joy in education, aesthetic or spiritual needs of the learners should be satisfied in order to motivate them and at the same time increase their span of concentration. Without concentration, there is no memory retention which is another important factor in education facts are retained through symbols and are stored in the two levels of the mind, the conscious and the subconscious, and have to be recalled later when needed. This process is hard for many learners. The failure to recall visual and auditory data results from inadequate internalization of such data due to poor concentration that blocks the proper organization of data received. This constantly happens in classroom situation due to the fear of teacher confrontation and level of difficulty. If the facts are properly organized only there will be meaningful chunking through language. This difficulty can be eased to some extent if the learners are put in to groups where they have to perform set tasks.

Learners and learning process

Today's learners are unable to obtain the essential knowledge he wants and to make it his own. The sources and types of knowledge and the means of obtaining it in specific contexts are all decided by the needs of the society. The basic goal of education is to help the society to achieve this. Thus, education is not only individual oriented but also society oriented. It is the duty of the society to develop every learner's knowledge and personality by understanding his or her physical, mental and emotional needs. Every learners' desire and preferences along with the emotional, mental and intellectual status has to be judged before launching any study programme to make him realize his innate intellectual potential. However, no individual can expect this to happen in his quest for education.

The learner's inability to achieve his target is caused by the diversity concerning the learners in a learning situation. Every learner hails from environments which differ widely in his socio cultural make up, natural and material resources available, and the family background and lifestyle. This diversity cannot be accommodated in a classroom. Hence the need arises for the learner to develop his own means of acquiring and accumulating knowledge and building his own personality on his own to become a successful person in the present day complex world within the limits of the fields of knowledge chosen for him by society hence, the present day learners need a special learning environment to meet the challenges posed by the modern world.

Some education systems force the individual learners incapable of pursuing higher education to do so for socio economic benefits which make them end up as failures and make them really feel frustrated and may hate the society by becoming victims of anti social elements. This kind of frustration can lead to addiction, mental depression and suicide too. Instead of such a system, it is better to have a system where individuals can decide the path they like to follow or a field they can perform well out of the fields of knowledge available in his social environment.