(Inspired by Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch: How to change things when change is hard)
When people resist change, it is usually not because that they don’t know about the problem. I know that eating momos is not going to help me lose weight, but I still eat them. My mom knows that oily vegetable dishes are not healthy, but still she likes drowning potatoes in oil. Same with the smokers. They know that cigarettes are unhealthy and can cause cancer. But still many smoke.
Same goes for some teachers who resist change. They understand that they need to change. Teaching is not what is used to be 20 years ago. They know that their method is obsolete, their practice is ridiculously traditional and their knowledge is outdated. But many still embrace the status quo.
Telling people, you or me – you need to change – is not going to work.
When educational institutions want their teachers to change, they send the teachers for training and try to give them new knowledge. Trainers think that if the teachers just understood about the new techniques, they would implement those techniques in the classroom. Or if the teachers just understood the importance of professional development, they would just start changing.
Here’s the problem. In their book Switch, Dan and Chip Heath say that: knowledge rarely leads to change.
Students make noise in the class. They know that making noise is not right. They are wasting everyone’s time. But they still do it.
Street protesters know that burning rubber tire is harmful to health and detrimental to the environmental. But they still do it.
Employees waste time gossiping and pulling each other’s legs. They know it’s not productive. But they still do it.
The FM radio in our kitchen is always switched on. While listening to the morning news, the Nepal Traffic Police update, almost every day, says that over a hundred people were charged for “maa.paa.say†which means they were driving vehicles while being drunk. The ‘maa.paa.say’ rule has already been imposed for over two years but still people drink and drive (and get arrested and pay heavy fines).
They know the rule but they still make a mockery of it. Because, knowledge rarely leads to change.
Thus the big question: can we change? How? Let me leave these question to the readers.
Umes Shrestha
Teacher, Writer, Speaker
