ASSSIGNMENT NO 1

QNo1:-Discuss elementary education in Pakistan and compare it with elementary education in

india and bangladash.

Ans:- There has been much talk and debate regarding quality education in Pakistan. Ironically,
they all revolve around mostly the types, sources and content of education instead of stages,
particularly the most crucial and decisive stage i.e., elementary education.

There has been little progress in recent years in developing new and existing programmes for
adolescent learners in government schools at elementary level. Exploratory programmes,
counseling programmes and health and physical education programmes are being cut back in
government schools. The education has been narrowed down to teaching of rote-skills and
transmission of knowledge. This mere imitation and content-centred elementary education has
shortchanged the area of personnel development of the learners. This fact of failure of
government elementary education has been put in the back burner in the face of doing what is
easier and less costly, but the negation of various ongoing sustained social changes experienced
by the emerging learners has become the practice of the day. These social changes are:

The family pattern of a mother at home and a father working is increasingly changing.

The suicide rate in teenagers are increasing due to different pressures.

It is estimated that pre and early adolescents spend one third of their waking hours in watching
television, surfing social websites on internet and playing online games.

75 per cent of all advertising is aimed at promoting mobile brands, mobile networks and mobile
packages.

Lack of a stable home is a big contributor to delinquency.

The elementary level is comprised of the students with most impressionable age group where
various social changes make indelible prints on their minds. These years represent the last
chance for the students to master basic skills, lasting attitude towards learning and assertion of
self and individualistic differences. Success at elementary school, or the future life, can be
determined and predicted for this age group.

The associations such as The National Middle School Association, Pakistan Montessori Council,
and Pakistan Elementary Teachers Association are striving for a balanced elementary
curriculum by organising frequent conferences and workshops for the educators who are
engaged in imparting basic education. However, the government should patronise the
associations and educational organisations by allocating a large part of budget. Moreover, the
government educationist and administrative authorities should make sure that the content is
cognitive learning oriented.

It must be diversified and exploratory based on real life situations and indigenous experiences.
Consequently, it could enhance the development of problem solving skills and reflective
thinking process among the students. This would also help the students to acknowledge and
appraise their own interests and talents. The areas of curriculum concerned with basic skills —
logical, sequential and analytical — should be taught through an entertaining pedagogy. Other
areas of curriculum like social, moral, emotional, and physical should be developed through
integrative approach towards prevalent social issues and factors.

In short the elementary level education and knowledge must mirror the immediate culture,
ethnicity, ideology and local socio-economic groups so that the students can relate themselves
and concretise their knowledge coupled with critical sense. Besides, this will assist the student
to comprehend what he is and help him realise his concepts, responsibilities, identities,
abstractions and attitude towards society. Instead of departmentalisation of subjects there
should be coordination and inter-disciplines trend among them.

Doubtlessly the teacher’s role is indispensible in modern pedagogy where the teacher is more a
personal guide, a facilitator of learning, and a coordinator. The teachers should be trained to
practice the methods of instruction which involve open and individual directed learning by
accentuating modernly designed arrangements, collaborative work, and respecting individual
differences among the students. The list of dos and don’ts is long. However, the ground reality
demands more implementation than mere suggestions, planning, revising, and updating the
aspects of elementary education.

For implementation the primary parameter is the following statement: “The elementary
education should be projective.”

Migration is a global phenomenon, largely driven by the forces of globalization (Lupton &
Power, 2004). Migration is not unique to Western or industrialized societies. However, similar
patterns and trends can be seen in the settlement and lifestyle patterns of migrant communities
in industrialized societies such as the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). The
ethnic makeup of industrialized societies is being transformed as a result of largely young and
growing migrant populations (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 10/23/2006). The UK population
grew by 4% in the 1990s and 73% of that increase is attributable to a growth in the ethnic
minority population (UK census 2001). Industrialized societies such as the UK have benefited
from the growth of the minority population. In the face of a shrinking and ageing indigenous
White population, the UK economy has been boosted by the increase of human capital from
the minority communities. However, growing minority populations have also made visible the
deprivation of these communities in industrialized societies. Research on immigrants and ethnic
minorities indicates that minority communities face greater socio-economic disadvantages in
comparison to the indigenous populations (Platt, 2005). Particular minority groups in the US
such as Blacks and Hispanics suffer from high unemployment rates, low educational attainment,
poverty and often segregation from the indigenous population (Iceland, 2003). These
disadvantages occur for a number of reasons such as discrimination, racism, prolonged
government inaction, and poor public policy. Governments in industrialized societies with
growing ethnic communities are now confronted by issues of how to integrate these
communities and ensure that they have equal access to the same opportunities that are
available to the indigenous population, which is critical given that the young people from these
communities will be integral to the economic future of the country. The Bangladeshi and
Pakistani communities are the most socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in London
(Mayor of London, 2005). However, both of these communities are growing rapidly, and about
half of the population of both these communities is under the age of 25. Hence they will form a
critical part of the future labor force (Mayor of London, 2006). Raising the educational
performance of these two communities and understanding the variables to their success is
imperative for policymakers. History of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Communities in the UK In the
early 1950s, the UK government experienced a labor shortage in the manufacturing industry.
The UK government openly encouraged migration from the former colonies of UK to fill in the
vacuum of jobs that the indigenous population had begun to perceive as being undesirable as
their level of education rose and they became more socially mobile (Tackey et al, 2006). The
Pakistani diaspora arrived in the early 1950s—slightly earlier than the Bangladeshi population—
with immigration peaking around 1961. They settled and found work in the textile,
metalworking, and car industries in the North of England. However, a substantial proportion of
the Pakistani community settled in the inner city of London. The Bangladeshi community is the
most recent ethnic minority to arrive in Britain (Peach, 1996). This population started to arrive
in the 1960s; immigration escalated in the 1970s and 1980s as many of the men who had
settled earlier brought their wives and families to the UK. A majority of the Bangladeshi
population settled around London, largely concentrated in the borough of Tower Hamlets. They
worked mainly in garment and textile industries and in other unskilled professions (Haque,
2000). Both the Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations came from poor rural areas in their
original countries. The Pakistani diaspora largely came from Mirpur, where the main industry
was agriculture. Most of the Bangladeshi diaspora came from a single district, Sylhet in
Northeast Bangladesh, a rural area where most of the population work in either agriculture or
the fishing industry. The motivation of these two populations for migrating was largely similar:
to remit money back to Pakistan and Bangladesh and invest in land and housing. (Tackey et al.,
2006). Both communities engaged in a process of “chain migration” where those already in the
UK would collectively raise money and help someone from their village to immigrate. This lead
to highly concentrated groups of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, with the Bangladeshis settling
mostly in London. This concentration was largely due to proximity to the workplace, but it was
also derived from the need to create support networks and protect themselves from a hostile
indigenous population (Dench, Gavron, & Young, 2006). The flow of Pakistani and Bangladeshi
immigration was eventually slowed down by increasingly restrictive UK immigration laws
(Haque, 2000). In the late 1970s, the UK economy was in recession and the manufacturing
industry went into decline. Large numbers of Bangladeshi and Pakistani men became
unemployed in the 1980s and early 1990s. The changing structure of the economy led to a rise
in skilled, non-manual occupations for which many of the first-generation Pakistanis and
Bangladeshis were unqualified

QNo2:-Describe middle childhood according to Piagets”s theory of cognitive development.

Also identify the source and types of adjustment problems in middle childhood.

Ans:- The mental (cognitive) changes children undergo during the middle childhood era are
often more pronounced and noticeable than their physical changes. Children's ability to
consciously, thoughtfully and pro-actively choose to pursue goals (instead of simply reacting to
the environment) appears during this developmental period. In addition, children's thinking
style gradually becomes more logical, organized, and flexible as they enter Piaget's "Concrete
Operational" thinking stage.

Piaget's Concrete Operations

A mental operation, in the Piagetian way of thinking, is the ability to accurately imagine the
consequences of something happening without it actually needing to happen. During a mental
operation, children imagine "what if" scenarios which involve the imaginal transformation of
mental representations of things they have experienced in the world; people, places and things.
The ability to perform mental arithmetic is a good example of an operation. Children at this age
become capable of mastering addition and subtraction and similar operations and consequently
are able to tell you that if they eat one cookie out of a jar containing five, that there will be four
cookies left in the jar. Importantly, they can do this without actually eating a cookie and then
counting the remaining cookies in the jar because they are able to model the cookie jar in their
minds and operate on the contents of that mental jar so as to arrive at the answer without
having to actually do the experiment.

These sorts of operations are "concrete" because they are based on actual people, places and
things that children have observed in the environment. Children's mental representations
remain concretely linked to things they have seen and touched throughout the middle
childhood period. Because their representations are limited to the tangible, touchable and
concrete, their appreciation of the consequences of events is similarly limited, local and
concrete in scope. At this age, children can easily tell you that if the fence breaks open, that the
dog will be able to get out. However, they cannot easily think about more abstract things like
what it will really mean for the family if a parent loses her job. In the Piagetian theory, it is not
until children enter adolescence that they become capable of more abstract "formal"
operations involving representations of things that are intangible and abstract (without any
tight link back to a tangible person, place or thing), such as "liberty", "freedom" or "divinity".

Piaget described multiple operations that children begin to master in middle childhood,
including conservation, decentration, reversibility, hierarchical classification, seriation, and
spatial reasoning. These are technical terms, all of which will be described below in greater
detail. Obviously, children do not learn the names of these various operations or proudly point
out to their parents that they've mastered these skills. Children just start doing these things
without having realized what they've accomplished. However, these new skills are often
noticeable by outside observers familiar with children's progress. In their own subtle way,
children's mastery of these operations is a tremendous accomplishment, easily as impressive a
feat as any physical accomplishment children might learn.

The stage-by-stage nature of Piaget's theory, with each stage linked to an age group for whom
the stage is typical, strongly suggests to many people that at a particular age, children are
supposed to be functioning at a particular stage. It's important to keep in mind that Piaget's
theory is intended to talk about how an average child might be functioning at a particular age; it
is not a pronouncement about how any particular individual child should be functioning.
Children develop uniquely and at their own pace depending upon their temperament (the
inherited component of their personalities), genetic makeup, supports available to them in
their environments, and their learning experiences. Different children will show mastery of
specific operations sooner than will others, or display them in some situations but not in others.
Newer research also shows that context affects children's abilities as well. Most children will
display more advanced operations when in familiar or mandatory environments (e.g., at school,
working on school tasks). They may tend to become confused and perform more poorly when
confronted with novel situations.

Let's now explore the various concrete operations children start to master during this middle
childhood stage of their development:

Conservation

Conservation involves the ability to understand when the amount of something remains
constant across two or more situations despite the appearance of that thing changing across
those situations. The idea of conservation can be applied to any form of measurement,
including number, mass, length, area, volume, etc. Piaget's famous example of conservation
was performed using liquids poured into different shaped containers. Though the volume of
liquid remains constant across the two containers, each container has a very different visual
appearance, with one being tall and thin, while another was short and wide. Using this setup,
Piaget was able to show that middle childhood-aged children were able to appreciate that the
total amount of liquid was unchanged despite being poured into differently shaped containers.
Younger children were characteristically fooled by the appearance of the containers and tended
to conclude that wider, shorter containers held less water than taller, thinner containers.

In everyday life, children demonstrate conservation of number (of counting) when they realize
that 10 cookies will remain constant in number no matter whether they are spread out or
stacked into a tower. Children who grasp conservation of mass realize that their body weight
will remain consistent, whether they stand up straight or sit cross-legged on a scale. Similarly,
children who understand conservation of length understand that a rope is the same length
regardless of whether it's laid out straight or coiled up. Children who understand conservation
of area know that the total space on a tabletop remains constant regardless of whether it is
cluttered with objects or cleared. Recent research suggests that children in Western cultures
tend to achieve conservation of number by age 7, conservation of mass and length by age 7 or
8, and conservation of area by age 8 or 9. hildren between the ages of 6 and 12 are in the age
period commonly referred to as middle childhood. As an age group, 6- to 12-year-olds are less
obviously set apart than infants, adolescents, and even preschool children are in most Western
societies. Nevertheless, the implicit grouping of ages 6-12 appears to be neither an idiosyncratic
invention of Western cultures nor merely a category by default among arbitrarily defined
periods of human development. Rather, these years universally mark a distinctive period
between major developmental transition points.

In diverse cultures the 5-7 age period is regarded as the beginning of the ''age of reason''
(Rogoff et al., 1975). Children are assumed to develop new capabilities at this age and are
assigned roles and responsibilities in their families and communities. Middle childhood has also
been differentiated from adolescence cross-culturally, largely by the onset of puberty. Recent
emphasis on cognitive differences between 10- to 12-year-olds and relatively mature
adolescents has also contributed to popular and scholarly distinctions between middle
childhood and adolescence.

Historically, in many cultures the age of 6 or 7 was the time at which children were absorbed
into the world of adults, helping shoulder family responsibilities and fill work roles alongside
their elders. Only in recent centuries have changing concepts of the family and the advent of
formal schooling removed children of this age from wide participation in adult society (Aries,
1962). Today and for most of this century, the ages of 6-12 have continued to be set apart from
younger ages because they correspond to the first 6 of the 12 compulsory school years. The
segregation of children ages 6-12 in elementary schools provides a distinctive basis for the
social definition of children and a social structure that constrains and channels development
during this period.

Increasingly, however, the social norms and structures that determine the age grading of 6- to
12-year-olds are being blurred by secular trends toward earlier schooling and earlier puberty.
Growing numbers of children younger than age 6 are beginning some kind of formal schooling,
sometimes compulsory. The trend toward earlier puberty means that many 10-, 11-, and 12-
year-olds are experiencing the physical changes traditionally associated with adolescence but
out of synchrony with the transition into the teen years. The impact of this secular trend can be
seen in experiments with school organizations in the past decade in an attempt to find
workable age groupings for children whose physical, cognitive, and social characteristics are in
transition. The term preteen has emerged to acknowledge this earlier advent of teenage
characteristics.

As social structures for delineating ages 6-12 become less definite, it becomes more crucial to
understand the nature of development in this period, including the ways in which it is—and is
not—linked to particular social and cultural structures and demands on children. Toward this
end, the chapters of this volume represent distillations of research findings from studies of
children ages 6-12 and assessments of the status of knowledge in a number of areas.

The panel's primary goal was to assess what is known about the distinctive characteristics—
physical, behavioral, social, and emotional—and development of children across the age span
from 6 to 12. Although we have devoted considerable attention to the societal contexts of
development in this period, including the social structures that shape and constrain the course
of individual growth, of primary concern in our deliberations have been the implications for
individual children—in particular, long-term individual outcomes of development.

QNo3:-Elaborate the theories of personality development by focusing on the role of famiy in he

personality development of a child.

Ans:- Childhood social and personality development emerges through the interaction of social
influences, biological maturation, and the child’s representations of the social world and the
self. This interaction is illustrated in a discussion of the influence of significant relationships, the
development of social understanding, the growth of personality, and the development of social
and emotional competence in childhood.
 

Learning Objectives

Provide specific examples of how the interaction of social experience, biological maturation,
and the child’s representations of experience and the self provide the basis for growth in social
and personality development.

Describe the significant contributions of parent–child and peer relationships to the

development of social skills and personality in childhood.

Explain how achievements in social understanding occur in childhood. Moreover, do scientists

believe that infants and young children are egocentric?

Describe the association of temperament with personality development.

Explain what is “social and emotional competence“ and provide some examples of how it
develops in childhood.

“How have I become the kind of person I am today?” Every adult ponders this question from
time to time. The answers that readily come to mind include the influences of parents, peers,
temperament, a moral compass, a strong sense of self, and sometimes critical life experiences
such as parental divorce. Social and personality development encompasses these and many
other influences on the growth of the person. In addition, it addresses questions that are at the
heart of understanding how we develop as unique people. How much are we products of
nature or nurture? How enduring are the influences of early experiences? The study of social
and personality development offers perspective on these and other issues, often by showing
how complex and multifaceted are the influences on developing children, and thus the intricate
processes that have made you the person you are today (Thompson, 2006a).

Understanding social and personality development requires looking at children from three
perspectives that interact to shape development. The first is the social context in which each
child lives, especially the relationships that provide security, guidance, and knowledge. The
second is biological maturation that supports developing social and emotional competencies
and underlies temperamental individuality. The third is children’s developing representations of
themselves and the social world. Social and personality development is best understood as the
continuous interaction between these social, biological, and representational aspects of
psychological development.

Relationships
This interaction can be observed in the development of the earliest relationships between
infants and their parents in the first year. Virtually all infants living in normal circumstances
develop strong emotional attachments to those who care for them. Psychologists believe that
the development of these attachments is as biologically natural as learning to walk and not
simply a byproduct of the parents’ provision of food or warmth. Rather, attachments have
evolved in humans because they promote children’s motivation to stay close to those who care
for them and, as a consequence, to benefit from the learning, security, guidance, warmth, and
affirmation that close relationships provide (Cassidy, 2008).

One of the first and most important relationships is between mothers and infants. The quality
of this relationship has an effect on later psychological and social development. [Image:
Premnath Thirumalaisamy, https://goo.gl/66BROf, CC BY-NC 2.0, https://goo.gl/FIlc2e]

Although nearly all infants develop emotional attachments to their caregivers–parents,. Infants
become insecurely attached when care is inconsistent or neglectful; these infants tend to
respond avoidantly, resistantly, or in a disorganized manner (Belsky & Pasco Fearon, 2008).
Such insecure attachments are not necessarily the result of deliberately bad parenting but are
often a byproduct of circumstances. For example, an overworked single mother may find
herself overstressed and fatigued at the end of the day, making fully-involved childcare very
difficult. In other cases, some parents are simply poorly emotionally equipped to take on the
responsibility of caring for a child.

The different behaviors of securely- and insecurely-attached infants can be observed especially
when the infant needs the caregiver’s support. To assess the nature of attachment, researchers
use a standard laboratory procedure called the “Strange Situation,” which involves brief
separations from the caregiver (e.g., mother) (Solomon & George, 2008). In the Strange
Situation, the caregiver is instructed to leave the child to play alone in a room for a short time,
then return and greet the child while researchers observe the child’s response. Depending on
the child’s level of attachment, he or she may reject the parent, cling to the parent, or simply
welcome the parent—or, in some instances, react with an agitated combination of responses.

Infants can be securely or insecurely attached with mothers, fathers, and other regular
caregivers, and they can differ in their security with different people. The security of
attachment is an important cornerstone of social and personality development, because infants
and young children who are securely attached have been found to develop stronger friendships
with peers, more advanced emotional understanding and early conscience development, and
more positive self-concepts, compared with insecurely attached children (Thompson, 2008).
This is consistent with attachment theory’s premise that experiences of care, resulting in secure
or insecure attachments, shape young children’s developing concepts of the self, as well as
what people are like, and how to interact with them.

As children mature, parent-child relationships naturally change. Preschool and grade-school

children are more capable, have their own preferences, and sometimes refuse or seek to
compromise with parental expectations. This can lead to greater parent-child conflict, and how
conflict is managed by parents further shapes the quality of parent-child relationships. In
general, children develop greater competence and self-confidence when parents have high (but
reasonable) expectations for children’s behavior, communicate well with them, are warm and
responsive, and use reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children’s
misbehavior. This kind of parenting style has been described as authoritative (Baumrind, 2013).
Authoritative parents are supportive and show interest in their kids’ activities but are not
overbearing and allow them to make constructive mistakes. By contrast, some less-constructive
parent-child relationships result from authoritarian, uninvolved, or permissive parenting styles
Parental roles in relation to their children change in other ways, too. Parents increasingly
become mediators (or gatekeepers) of their children’s involvement with peers and activities
outside the family. Their communication and practice of values contributes to children’s
academic achievement, moral development, and activity preferences. As children reach
adolescence, the parent-child relationship increasingly becomes one of “coregulation,” in which
both the parent(s) and the child recognizes the child’s growing competence and autonomy, and
together they rebalance authority relations. We often see evidence of this as parents start
accommodating their teenage kids’ sense of independence by allowing them to get cars, jobs,
attend parties, and stay out later. Family relationships are significantly affected by conditions
outside the home. For instance, the Family Stress Model describes how financial difficulties are
associated with parents’ depressed moods, which in turn lead to marital problems and poor
parenting that contributes to poorer child adjustment ( Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010). Within
the home, parental marital difficulty or divorce affects more than half the children growing up
today in the United States. Divorce is typically associated with economic stresses for children
and parents, the renegotiation of parent-child relationships (with one parent typically as
primary custodian and the other assuming a visiting relationship), and many other significant
adjustments for children. Divorce is often regarded by children as a sad turning point in their
lives, although for most it is not associated with long-term problems of adjustment ( Emery,
1999).

QNo4:-Describe the inter-relatioships pf language skill. How does this relationship work in
teaching of English and urdu at elementary level in Pakistan?
Ans:- 1947 to 1973: I would like to begin with the speech of Pakistanís founding father,
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, made at the convocation of Dhaka University in 1948. He stated that in
that province it was to be the will of people living there that would determine the official
language of the province. However, it could only be Urdu that would serve as a bridge between
the peoples of different provinces and be the official language of the Pakistani State (1989,
183). You will hear the latter part of this speech quoted and stressed by both quartersóthose
who criticize his support for Urdu as the sole national language as well as those who emphasize
that only Urdu should be promoted in Pakistan, whether or not at the cost of other languages.
Jinnah called it the ìState Language of Pakistan,î neither national nor official. But the Bengali
intelligentsia were unhappy because their language was called provincial and not national. After
a language rights movement and agitation by the Bengali opposition in the early 1950s, Bangla
was given the status of a national language. This same issue persists in what is left of Jinnahís
Pakistan. If he would have termed all the languages spoken in Pakistan as national languages
and Urdu as the official language of the Pakistani State, many such perceptions could have been
dispelled. If the local languages would have been taught in schools and adopted as official
languages in the provinces, the issue of an official language for the State would have been
resolved to a greater extent. However, everybody who had to work at the State level would
have to learn Urdu. In my view, this is what Jinnah meant and he is thoroughly misinterpreted
by the two opposing lobbies. The third opinion prevailed, which was sometimes stated in clear
terms and sometimes only practiced but not stated. That was, to continue with English as the
official language of Pakistan while it was seen and promoted as a compromise candidate
(Haque 1993, 14). It remains a compromise candidate, as it were, for the multilingual
intelligentsia in India and is promoted as such in todayís Pakistan. However, we shall see how
true it is in the latterís case. The Advisory Board of Education in its first meeting in 1948 had
resolved that the mother tongue should be the medium of instruction at the primary stage.
Also, a number of institutions were established or supported by the State to do basic work in
Urdu: from coining new terms, to translations, to developing new tools and techniques to
expedite its adoption as an official language (Rahman 1996, 233). General Ayubís martial rule
saw a revived emphasis on English as a medium of instruction in all élite schools. He established
cadet colleges and other institutions besides patronizing the likes of Aitchison, Burn Hall,
Lawrence College, Karachi Grammar School, many convent schools across Pakistan, etc. where
Urdu was considered a language of servants and taxi drivers. Whereas, for the common folk,
Urdu-medium schools and institutions were created in order to provide the élite and affluent
middle class with an underclass of clerks, munshis and literate servants. There was complete
agreement between the anglicized military generals and the famous Civil Services of Pakistan
(CSP) about the use and higher status of English. While Faiz Ahmed Faiz was traveling to
Moscow via Delhi to receive his Lenin Prize (1962), he stayed at a senior Pakistani diplomatís
residence in Delhi, probably the high commissioner. The diplomatís young son asked him for an
autograph. Faiz inscribed one of his verses and his signature. The boy looked at his autograph
book and asked Faiz, ìUncle, you know such good English. Dad told me you were also the editor
of a daily and you have given me your autograph in Khansamanís language?î This incident was
related by Faiz himself in front of Mahmood Faridoon, Khalique Ibrahim Khalique and myself at
Begum Majeed Malikís residence in Karachi in 1982. It sums up the language policy and
preferences in Ayubís era. The dame had to be given a bag too. The Sharif Commission, formed
in 1959, had recommended that both Urdu and Bangla be used as mediums of instruction from
Class VI onward and in this way, in about fifteen years, Urdu would reach a point of
development where it would become the medium of instruction at the university level. The
Commission had clearly stated that until Urdu was ready to replace English, English should
continue to be used for advanced study and research. Now, this statement served a purpose. It
allowed confusion to take root in terms of how and when and by whom it would be determined
that Urdu was ready to replace English. This was a convenient method of maintaining the status
quo and English was given a fifteen-year lease. On the other hand, based on the Commissionís
report, Urdu was introduced as the medium of instruction in all government schools across
Pakistan. This created serious displeasure in Sindh, where Sindhi was already a medium of
instruction from before. Sindhis saw it as a blow to their language and heritage, and rightly so.
Sindh had Gujarati-medium schools as well, but the latter community was either being
assimilated among the Sindhis in rural Sindh or among Urdu-speakers in urban Sindh. The
decision had to be reversed in favor of Sindhi, nevertheless it contributed to a permanent
wedge that developed between the Sindhi and Muhajir (migrants from India, mostly speaking
Urdu as their first language) communities of the province. Therefore, while the underprivileged
fought over their languages and cultures, the privileged continued to rule in English.
Nonetheless, the Muhajir leadership, both cultural and political, cannot be absolved of its role
in siding with the government on the language issue at that time. The Hamood ur Rehman
Commission Report, which also came out in the same era and looked at studentsí welfare and
problems, simply confirms this assertion. It criticizes Karachi, Punjab and Sindh universities for
allowing Urdu and Sindhi as languages for instruction and sitting exams. It says that some were
swayed by sentiment rather than dispassionate judgment in accelerating the pace of
changeover (Rahman 1996, 234). 1973 to 2006: The year 1971 not only created Bangladesh, it
created a new Pakistan. Pakistan was reborn at that time after the majority of its population
chose to secede, or was made to secede, from their once cherished homeland. This has no
parallel in history (Khalique 2003, 9). It completely changed the dynamic among the
stakeholders of the country and introduced new pressure groups and stakeholders. The
language policy remained vague for people at large and clear to those who ruled. It would have
been easier in the 1970s than now to have promoted and adopted Urdu and the other national
languages of Pakistan at different levels ensuring the empowerment of people.
QNo5:- Discuss the technique of questioning for the development of higher mental process
from teachers as well as pupils point of view.

Ans Educators have traditionally classified questions according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, a

hierarchy of increasingly complex intellectual skills. Bloom’s Taxonomy includes six categories:

Knowledge – recall data or information

Comprehension – understand meaning

Application – use a concept in a new situation

Analysis – separate concepts into parts; distinguish between facts and inferences

Synthesis – combine parts to form new meaning

Evaluation – make judgments about the value of ideas or products

Some researchers have simplified classification of questions into lower and higher cognitive
questions. Lower cognitive questions (fact, closed, direct, recall, and knowledge questions)
involve the recall of information. Higher cognitive questions (open-ended, interpretive,
evaluative, inquiry, inferential, and synthesis questions) involve the mental manipulation of
information to produce or support an answer.

Regardless of the classification, traditional wisdom holds that the higher cognitive questions
lead to higher-quality answers and increased learning and achievement. However, the research
has mixed conclusions in this area. Some studies found that higher level questions did indeed
produce deeper learning, while others found that not to be the case.

According to some studies, lower cognitive questions (knowledge and comprehension on

Bloom’s Taxonomy) may be most beneficial for primary students. Lower cognitive questions are
also more effective when the goal is to impart factual knowledge and commit it to memory.

This finding does not mean that primary teachers should avoid all higher cognitive questions.
Certainly, primary students need to have chances to speculate, imagine, and manipulate the
information being presented. Some research, however, suggests that for these youngest
students, these questions should be used more sparingly.

Higher cognitive questions (application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) should make up a
higher percentage of questions asked above the primary grades. Studies show that a
combination of lower and higher questions is more effective than the exclusive use of one or
the other. Increasing the use of higher cognitive questions can produce superior learning gains
for older students, particularly those in secondary school, and does not reduce student
performance on lower cognitive questions.

It is important to note, though, that simply asking these kinds of questions does not guarantee
higher responses or greater learning gains. Students need explicit instruction in answering
these types of questions, including making inferences. This instruction, in conjunction with the
use of higher cognitive questions, can positively impact student achievement.

The use of a high frequency (50 percent or more) of higher cognitive questions with older
students is positively related to increases in on-task behavior, length of student responses, the
number of relevant contributions, the number of student-to-student interactions, student use
of complete sentences, speculative thinking, and relevant questions posed by students.

How many questions should a teacher ask? And at what point during the lesson? Frequent
questioning has been shown to be positively related to learning facts, but simply asking a
greater number of questions does not facilitate the learning of more complex material. Just as
with higher cognitive questions, it may be necessary to include explicit instruction to promote
student learning of complicated concepts.

Teachers often pose questions prior to reading. Research shows that while this strategy is
effective for older students, those with high ability, and those interested in the subject matter,
it is not as effective for younger students and poor readers, who tend to focus only on the
material that will help them answer the questions.

Wait-time is another crucial factor in questioning techniques. Wait-time can be defined as the
amount of time a teacher allows to elapse after he or she has posed a question. (A less
frequently used and researched definition is the amount of time that a teacher allows to elapse
before responding after a student stops speaking.) While traditional wisdom advocates a brisk
pace of instruction to maintain interest and cover more material, research shows that slowing
slightly to include more wait-time promotes achievement.

In the classrooms studied, the average wait-time after a question was posed was one second or
less. Students perceived as slow or poor learners were afforded less wait-time than students
viewed as more capable. This amount of wait-time is not sufficient for students, particularly for
those that experience difficulty.

Studies show that for lower cognitive questions, a wait-time of three seconds is most effective
in terms of achievement. Shorter or longer times were less positively correlated with student
success.
For higher cognitive questions, no wait-time threshold was observed. Researchers noted that
students seemed to become more engaged and successful the longer the teacher waited
(within reason, of course).

Increased wait-time is related to a number of student outcomes, including improved

achievement and retention, greater numbers of higher cognitive responses, longer responses,
decreases in interruptions, and increased student-student interactions. These outcomes are
quite similar to those observed with an increased frequency of higher cognitive questions. In
fact, researchers believe that a causal relationship may exist between the two: higher cognitive
questions require more wait-time, and more wait-time allows for the implementation of higher
cognitive discussions.

A teacher’s response to students’ answers is just as important as the question asked. A

response may redirect students when an incorrect answer is given or students misinterpret the
question. Teachers may probe for further explanation when a partial answer is given. Finally,
teachers may validate a correct response.

Research in this area shows that redirection and probing are effective when they are explicitly
focused on student responses. Vague or critical feedback (such as “That’s not right, try again”)
has been shown to be unrelated to achievement.

Acknowledging correct responses is necessary and effective. Praise that is used sparingly, is
directly related to the response, and is sincere and credible is also positively related to student
achievement.

How can teachers make use of these findings? Teachers often have little or no training in
questioning techniques, so being familiar with the research is a good place to start. Improving
in this area requires a reflective and metacognitive approach. For example, teachers may
choose to:

Plan and write out the questions to be used in a lesson. How many are lower cognitive
questions? Higher cognitive questions? Is the percentage appropriate for the age and ability
level of your students?

Anticipate possible student responses, especially partially correct or incorrect ones. How will
you probe for further information or redirect
Ask a colleague to observe a lesson, paying particular attention to the types of questions and
student responses. Meet to discuss the observations and plan for improvement.

Videotape yourself teaching a lesson. When you watch, record your wait-time for each
question. Also note if you provide longer wait-times to certain students. Or examine your
feedback. Are you specific and focused on the students’ responses?

Seek out resources and professional development that can help you improve your questioning
techniques. If possible, start a study group with colleagues.

Effective questioning sessions in classroom require advance preparation. While some

instructors may be skilled in extemporaneous questioning, many find that such questions have
phrasing problems, are not organized in a logical sequence, or do not require students to use
the desired thinking skills.

Levels and types of questions

Questioning should be used to achieve well-defined goals. An instructor should ask questions
that will require students to use the thinking skills that he or she is trying to develop. Bloom's
Taxonomy is a hierarchical system for ordering thinking skills from lower to higher, where each
level requires a student's mastery of the skills below it. It is not essential that an instructor be
able to classify each question at a specific level. The taxonomy is introduced as a tool which is
helpful for defining the kinds of thinking skills instructors expect from students and for helping
to establish congruence between the instructor's goals and the questions he or she asks.

People often refer to "lower-level" and "higher-level" questions or behaviors, rather than
assigning a specific level to those questions or behaviors. Lower-level questions are typically at
the remember, understand, and apply levels of the taxonomy and are most appropriate for:

evaluating students' preparation and comprehension

diagnosing students' strengths and weaknesses

reviewing and/or summarizing content

Higher-level questions involve the ability to analyze, evaluate, or create, and are most
appropriate for:

encouraging students to think more deeply and critically

problem solving

encouraging discussions
stimulating students to seek information on their own

Typically, an instructor would vary the level of questions within a single class period. For
example, an instructor might ask the higher-level question, "How can style of writing and the
thesis of a given essay be related?" If she gets inadequate or incorrect student response to that
question, she might ask lower-questions to check whether students know and understand the
material. For example, she might then ask, "What is the definition of thesis statement?" or
"What are some characteristics of different writing styles