TFJ: Unleashing the creative potential of young minds

Rote education and exam-centric learning culls student’s curiosity and hence their creative confidence. Most school education around us focuses on remembering and understanding the concepts and facts. Both teachers and students are becoming book or internet (Google/YouTube) eccentric and they hardly get opportunity to apply this knowledge and explore it in a hands-on, real world context.  Tod, fod aur jod (TFJ) is a concept which would ignite “tinkering” and “experimentation” vital to nurturing creativity and innovations, specific to children. TFJ aim is to inspire children, teachers, and educators and parents making education more relevant in schools, colleges, communities and homes. TFJ workshops would enable children to de-construct (Tod Fod) everyday products / gadgets that children see and/or use. As they figure out how these products are designed and how they work, children would connect multi-disciplinary concepts they learn in textbooks to real life applications. They would get motivated from ideas and inspirations of others. They then would re-construct (Jod) these products, repair them (which involves great deal of hands-on problem solving) or re-purpose them to do create something completely different. TFJ is about learning parts, material, design concepts, features, usages, benefits, various principles and tools of a gadget. “Learning through self-discovery” is the mantra of TFJ.

TFJ Workshop:

   

The first part of this workshop is the Tod – Fod (De-Construct). It unleashes the Science, Math, Art, Design, and History embedded in things around us both natural as well as man made in order to spur and incite curiosity among children. It would help them to answer important questions, which otherwise keep bothering them throughout their lives, like what is inside? How does it work? Who came up with this? Why? How?, and so forth. Tod-Fod lets children experience their ‘school subjects’ in action in real life. Revelations of Tod-Fod often come in handy during Jod which is a Re-construct, Repair, Repurpose, Connect, and Create process. This is the practice of fixing or creating multidisciplinary; practical problem solving and skill enhancing process. The concept takes the child one step beyond theorising. Just like riding a bike – cannot be learnt just by reading about it, similarly innovations cannot be nurtured just by talking or reading about it.  TFJ helps develop hands-on confidence and ability over time. Success and setbacks are a part of innovations and are both essential to this development as initially the child may find it difficult to do it but doing it again and again will enhance his learning curve and at some time that interest and motivation will make him to do it naturally. When faced with a problem, need or opportunity they might have a higher chance of taking it on and creating a solution. The concept is beyond theorizing and makes education relevant and real as well as it expand Horizons (Extend, Correlate and Extrapolate). The child learns to stretch imagination to spot other uses of the principles at play.

TFJ Objectives:

•      Create awareness about TFJ initiative among various stakeholders’ e.g. education institutions (school, ITI, college) educational agencies, teachers, parents, NGOs

•      Generate lessons about TFJ impact on triggering innovation at an early age

•      Motivate and enable schools and colleges to have TFJ Centers at their premises

•      Demonstrate and provide case-studies to educational institutions, agencies and organizations to:

       i. Highlight the importance and benefits of TFJ in the learning process

     ii.         Create a sense of excitement through hands-on experience with objects of daily use

    iii.         Understand the role of TFJ to help develop curiosity, creativity, exploration, innovation and an experimental mind-set in students

    iv.         Understand how TFJ facilitates students apply science, design, arts, material concepts and principles utilized in the gadgets

     v.         Outline methodologies to conduct and scale up the TFJ programmes successfully

Benefits of TFJ initiative

A. For school and college students participating in actual TFJ workshops

• Learn how to safely disassemble, and reassemble using proper tools,

 • Learn the functioning of each gadget and role of the constituent parts play

• Discover the actual application of Science, Engineering, and Design principles and learn the roles materials play

• Learn to appreciate how diverse disciplines come together to create useful and usable things

• Acquire a new way of looking at “things around them”

• Learn to stretch imagination to spot other uses of the principles at play

• Nudged to become curious and questioning

 • Develop comfort with experimenting

 • Understand enough to be able to fix small problems

B. For university students as facilitators:

‘Best way to learn is to teach’. The workshop will help the students to:

• Enhances skills e.g. communication, presentation, ability to think differently, problem solving, creativity, innovation and get an exposure to develop basic comfort to independently run such TFJ sessions

• Become familiar with the collateral material for gadget and adding value

 • Discover the “Aha effect” as to how each day-to-day item offers so many opportunities for synthesising learning and developing a “holistic” view of the world around us

• Create a community of like-minded people to be able to make articulated cases for convincing others as to why TFJ is both feasible and advantageous

NIT Srinagar is beginning first such initiative in the last week of August in its campus and would initially select few commonly used gadgets for TFJ. Students of NIT would then further conduct such workshops in schools of the valley and involve children to learn the art and science of TFJ to enhance creativity and boost innovations.

Author is the head of head of IIED Centre at NIT, Srinagar

saadparvez@nitsri.net

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