Modern education attaches great importance to learning through…

Modern education attaches great importance to learning through doing. It is fully recognized that the knowledge gained through actually doing the task is more effective and lasting than that gained through mere reading. That is why all the modern methods of education give top priority to some hand-work round which they base the teaching of the curriculum. In the past, whereas education laid stress on training of three R’s i.e. Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, modern education attaches great importance to the training of three H’s i.e. Head, Heart and Hand. It has been realized that the head, the heart and the hand get the best training through self-activity with hands and brain, especially when carried out in cooperation with others. Mere reading of books or listening to others does not help much in this direction. In modern education, the student is not merely a passive listener but is an active participant in the process of education. In the past, it was the teacher who did most of the talking. Now it is the student who is expected to be more active and up and doing and the teacher is merely a guide. For the healthy development of the mind, it is most essential that the student should be an active giver and not merely a passive receiver. It is this activity of the mind which will lead to emotional integration, so necessary for a healthy personality. If the child is merely a recipient, all the time listening to his teachers, his own personality gets dwarfed because the teachers’ personalities dominate over his personality.