On-site teaching

The system of talk-and-chalk teaching is so old-fashioned. Even at the infants stage, it rarely provides good results in education. Calling it 'schooling' in lieu of education, it still leaves much to be desired.

At the secondary level it is now the norm to have subject classes at school, where audio-visual aids take over from the old system. The accent, of course, is on projects in the sense that visual aids are provided - created or constructed are perhaps better terms - by the students themselves.

For certain subjects the classroom is too confined a space. Or rather, taking the students out of school to the site of the subject, is much more beneficial. This is more likely to approach the notion of education. These subjects are history, geography and botany or as it is sometimes called 'nature study' or environmental studies. These last mentioned subjects cannot really be 'taught' in the confines of a classroom. Music, drama and art demand more practice than theory. So the same or similar argument is apt. In other words true education is character formation and training. The 'look, feel and touch' method yields more lasting and in the long run much better results. In this way the classroom is being substituted by cultural and hands-on visits, because in essence this is what the new method amounts to. Take history, for example.

Our heritage in Malta and Gozo is so rich and varied that there is absolutely no comparison between the oral description in class and the actual scenario of say a prehistoric temple site. It is at the site that the teacher can relate the whole historic truth and the students can give free rein to their imagination.

Mental pictures are made of the uses made of the free standing monuments and of the probable methods of construction. Another visit to Limestone Heritage will no doubt drive home the method and difficulty of quarrying the huge monoliths used in erecting the walls of the temples. These visits will result in awareness and appreciation of our treasured heritage. Any sign of vandalism tends to provoke more direct condemnation than just mere talk.

Carthaginian rule

On a personal note I confess to better understanding of the rule of the Carthaginians when I visited the Carthage ruins in Tunisia. Amid the vastness of the ruins I could very well visualise the standard of progress reached in those far off times in architecture, in religious practice, in industry and commerce and their art and powers of colonisation.

Roman baths

Visiting the Roman Baths in the city of Bath, not far from London, I felt I was almost living in Roman times. I could visualise their daily routine at physical exercise and hygienic practice. However detailed Latin authors' description of Roman baths, whether private or public, may appear, it pales almost to insignificance when compared to actually setting foot in those of Bath. Not even the bathrooms of Pompeii give one the personal intimacy of standing almost expecting Roman citizens in their bathrobes going to their ablutions.

It is while advocating on-site teaching that one realises that it is not always possible to do this when the actual thing or artefact does not exist. In that case one has to opt for the next best thing. This is a video or a film of the building or its physical features in the case of geography. For example, we cannot visit a coalmine but a film will give the student a correct if not the complete feeling of being in a mine.

Baroque times

A baroque palace or church will provide the visitor with an appreciative view and experience of life in the days of opulence and artistic wealth. No Caravaggio or Mattia Preti painting can make you appreciate chiaroscuro or the torso depiction than seeing the painting in situ. It is not just the painting itself on the wall or ceiling but the very ambience in which it exists and to which extent the painting harmonises with its surroundings.

One gets a different kind of impression when viewing a reproduction, however well done digitally, of The Beheading of John the Baptist in the "impossible exhibition" as compared to the actual painting in the Oratory at St John's Co-Cathedral.

Geography

There is no comparison between learning geography from books and maps and learning it on site. This is true both as regards physical as well as economic geography. Seeing, breathing the very air of a site, factory or farm is so different from learning about the whole thing from books and hearing a lecture in a classroom.

Much the same argument holds good for environmental studies.