________________
think of experimentation only in the four walls of a laboratory. Even long practicing scientists do not necessarily practice the same philosophy in real life. On the other hand, let us say, the student is learning to lift heavy loads, uses a rope for climbing up a tree or just planting a seed - the answers are not stated, at least not fully in any book. The teacher can only show one way to do it and not necessarily the best and it is easier to let the student find out for himself. Teaching skills that are used in everyday life provide a better medium to induce the spirit of experimentation as well as the methods of drawing conclusions where results cannot be quantified so easily. Knowledge becomes education when it is fully adsorbed and becomes part of the system. What is it that one remembers? One remembers what is strikingly different. One remembers things through association. One often remembers what we experienced in childhood. There is a good chance that an experiment with an unusual result will be well remembered. But there are other things like the fall of objects under gravity which are part of the system and do not have to be remembered. If one has learnt swimming or cycling in childhood, we never lose it. The things that are practical soon become part of us and are never forgotten. If science education is imparted by demonstrating the why and how of the skills being practiced, the chances are these effects will remain as long as the skills are retained, perhaps longer. Rural Development Through Education System 132
