Exercises
Reading with insight
Question 1. What do you understand of Einstein’s nature from his conversation with his history teacher, his mathematics teacher and the head teacher?
Answer : Albert Einstein was an intelligent student, who was dissatisfied with the school education as it was based on rote-learning. The dissatisfaction of the history teacher with Einstein was primarily because of the fact that Einstein did not believe in learning dates and for the teacher, education meant only learning the dates and years of events.
Einstein’s maths teacher’s assessment was very different. He realised that Einstein’s intelligence was much superior to his contemporaries. That was the reason, he gave a glowing testimonial to Albert.
Einstein’s meeting with his head teacher was in an extremely bad taste. He wanted Einstein to leave the school as he had become a nuisance to others. Albert was very angry. He restrained himself and showed his contempt by not closing the door as his head-teacher had asked him to do.
Question 2. The school system often curbs individual talents. Discuss.
Answer : School should be a platform from where the students can hone their talents. However, it is unfortunate that our system has turned education into a demanding monster. Education received in the school may not be the true education. True education promotes free growth and all-round development. But, the school system interferes with such development. There are a lot of restrictions and formalities in the form of assessments and activities. They are very time consuming and dreary.
The modern education system does not leave any space for a child to nurture his/her individual talent. They are all burdened with rote-learning which is measured by grades. This kind of system is almost claustrophobic for individual talent and a hindrance to the holistic development of a child.
Question 3. How do you distinguish between information gathering and insight information?
Answer : As depicted in the story, the school education system is more concerned about information gathering rather than making students proficient in insight information. The teachers by students to learn dates and sequences by heart. They do not encourage the observatory and inferential skills of students that are essential to sharpen their intelligence. Whereas, information gathering is only about collecting data, insight information is analysing the information and making sense of it.