Monday Musing: When Students Teach, Learning Deepens
By Dr Samar Verma*
Student-Led Learning: The Future of Schools
Some of the most durable ideas are disarmingly simple- and they often surface at the intersections of disciplines rather than within subject silos. While teaching young children, I noticed a pattern that felt obvious in hindsight: their learning accelerated most when they had to explain an idea to someone else. That insight anchors the approach I propose here.
Most schools still operate on an assumption inherited from an older world: teachers teach, students receive. The classroom is designed around a one-directional flow of knowledge- lecture, note-taking, memorisation, and examination. In that model, curiosity is optional, questioning is often treated as disruption, and the student’s primary incentive is compliance: finish the homework, reproduce the right answer, stay within the boundaries of the “expected.”
This arrangement is not merely a pedagogical preference; it is also an institutional habit reinforced by hierarchy, administrative overload on teachers, and reward systems that prize order over exploration. When “good behaviour” becomes indistinguishable from “good learning,” students quickly learn a silent lesson: do not take intellectual risks. Do not ask inconvenient questions. Do not be seen to challenge. Over time, that hidden curriculum hollows out the very capacities education claims to build- curiosity, agency, creativity, and independent judgement.
At the same time, the technological context has changed decisively. Search engines already weakened the monopoly of textbooks; artificial intelligence now challenges the monopoly of lectures and even the monopoly of “answering.” If information is abundant and explanations are instantly available, then the enduring value of schooling cannot be the delivery of content alone. It must be something more demanding: the ability to frame questions, evaluate sources, build an argument, communicate clearly, and learn continuously.
A practical way to realign schools with this reality is deceptively simple: invert the centre of gravity in the classroom. Teach less, and make students teach more.
Learning by Teaching: A Model for Modern Schools
Ask any adult who has to deliver a public speech, lead a meeting, or present to an audience. Something changes the moment you must teach others. Your attention sharpens. You anticipate questions. You look for examples. You worry about clarity. You rehearse structure, tone, and timing. You do deeper research not because someone demanded it, but because you feel accountable to the audience and to your own performance.
That motivation- curiosity plus accountability plus the desire to do well in public- is an unusually complete engine for learning. The proposal, therefore, is not to turn every student into a mini-professor overnight, but to make “student-as-teacher” a deliberate, structured, recurring feature of schooling. The teacher’s role does not disappear; it evolves from primary lecturer to learning architect, coach, and credibility gatekeeper.
Peer Teaching: Unlocking Curiosity and Competence
Imagine a weekly “Student Teaching Studio” built into the timetable.
Each cycle begins with the teacher defining the topic boundaries and the learning outcomes- what must be understood, and what misconceptions must be avoided. The teacher then provides a small set of high-quality sources and a set of guiding questions. Students (individually or in pairs/triads) prepare a short teaching segment for classmates: a 7–10 minute explanation, demonstration, or case-based discussion, followed by questions.
During preparation, the teacher supports students in four specific ways.
First, guiding them toward credible sources and away from misinformation and shallow content. In an AI-enabled world, this is not a minor skill; it is foundational literacy.
Second, training students to build a storyline: What is the core idea? Why does it matter? What is the simplest example? What is the common confusion?
Third, helping them anticipate questions from peers and preparing thoughtful responses, including admitting uncertainty when needed and showing how to find the answer.
Fourth, coaching performance: structure, pacing, use of visuals, and respectful handling of disagreement.
Over time, this routine turns the classroom into an environment where questioning is expected, not punished; where preparation is purposeful, not rote; and where learning becomes something students actively do rather than passively endure.
From Memorisation to Mastery: Students Take Charge
This approach directly counters the compliance-heavy culture many schools unintentionally cultivate. When students teach, they cannot hide behind memorised lines for long; peers ask real questions in real time. The incentive shifts from “finish the chapter” to “make the idea understandable.” That requires comprehension, not repetition.
It also makes productive use of technology instead of treating it as an enemy. Students will use Google and AI anyway. The educational task is to turn that usage into disciplined inquiry: verifying claims, cross-checking sources, distinguishing explanation from evidence, and recognising where AI output can be persuasive but wrong. Under a teacher’s guidance, technology becomes a learning amplifier rather than a shortcut.
Finally, it restores dignity to curiosity. The student is no longer primarily a test-taker; the student is a sense-maker and communicator.
Teach-to-Learn: Rethinking Classrooms
A predictable objection is, “But how will we assess this fairly?” The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 itself provides the direction of travel: a decisive shift away from rote, high-stakes, content-heavy testing towards competency-based and formative assessment- what the policy language often frames as “assessment for learning,” not merely “assessment of learning.”
A “teach-to-learn” model fits this NEP intent unusually well because it makes competencies visible in real time. When students teach, the school can assess (a) conceptual clarity and depth of understanding, (b) reasoning and use of evidence, (c) ability to ask and answer questions, (d) collaboration and leadership, and (e) reflection- what they would improve, what sources they trusted, and why. These are precisely the kinds of higher-order abilities NEP expects schools to cultivate rather than implicitly treating them as “extra-curricular.”
Practically, schools can operationalise this through NEP-consistent mechanisms such as low-stakes periodic rubrics, structured peer-feedback, teacher observation notes, and short reflective write-ups that become part of the student’s holistic progress record. The key design principle is to ensure that marks are not dominated by polish or extroversion; they must primarily reward learning quality: accuracy, coherence, intellectual honesty, and responsiveness to critique. Done well, assessment becomes a tool to build agency and competence- directly advancing NEP’s emphasis on learner-centred education and holistic development.
If schools want to fix the dysfunction of compliance being rewarded more than competence, they must change what they measure and celebrate.
Flip the Classroom: Learners Become Educators
Is it difficult? It is demanding- but NEP 2020 expects a pedagogic shift of exactly this nature: moving classrooms towards inquiry, discussion, and experiential learning, with teachers functioning increasingly as facilitators and mentors rather than sole lecturers. A structured “Student Teaching Studio” can be framed as a concrete school-level method to deliver NEP’s broader vision of a learner-centred system that builds a vibrant knowledge society and 21st-century capabilities.
When to introduce it? NEP’s 5+3+3+4 curricular structure is helpful here. In the Foundational and Preparatory stages, the practice can start as guided “show-and-explain” and micro-demonstrations with supportive questioning. In the Middle stage, it can become short peer-teaching modules linked to syllabus topics, with explicit instruction on sourcing, distinguishing evidence from opinion, and resisting misinformation- skills NEP foregrounds as essential in a technology-saturated environment. By the Secondary stage, it can mature into seminar-style discussions, debates, and project-based teaching episodes with clear learning outcomes and feedback loops.
How to include students who fear public speaking? NEP’s equity lens matters here. The model should be scaffolded: pair teaching, small-group teaching, rotating roles (explainer, example-builder, moderator), and optional recorded explanations before live delivery. The intent is not to privilege the naturally confident, but to build capability gradually and safely- consistent with NEP’s emphasis on inclusive, learner-centred classrooms.
What does this mean for teachers? NEP recognises teachers as central to transformation and implicitly calls for professional capacity to shift pedagogy and assessment. In this model, the teacher’s work becomes more intellectually valuable: curating credible sources, coaching argument and structure, correcting misconceptions, and building classroom norms for respectful questioning. Teachers become mentors, editors, and learning designers. But they are no longer required to be the only voice in the room. That can reduce burnout and increase professional satisfaction- provided administrative load is reduced, and teachers are trained and given planning time to run this model well. To make this sustainable, schools must protect teacher time for planning and feedback- otherwise the model risks becoming another add-on. Implemented as a core pedagogic routine (not a one-off “activity”), student-teaching can become a practical vehicle to deliver NEP’s stated aims: reduced rote learning, stronger competencies, and a more vibrant culture of curiosity.
When Students Teach, Learning Deepens
In the end, the proposal is not simply a technique; it is a cultural shift. A school that expects students to teach is implicitly saying: you are capable of making sense of complexity, you are allowed to question, and you are responsible for helping others learn. Those are not minor messages. They form the basis of citizenship, leadership, and entrepreneurship- qualities schools often claim to value but rarely cultivate systematically.
If the world has changed so much that information is everywhere, then education must move from delivering answers to developing minds. A classroom where students routinely teach, question, and refine their understanding is one of the most direct ways to make that transition real.
*Samar Verma, PhD, is a senior economist, public policy professional and an institution-builder, with 28 years of experience in economic policy research, international development, grant management, and philanthropic leadership. Views are personal.
With great mentors and guides by their side, students can be the best teachers to their peers. It is apt to say, ‘When Students teach Learning Deepens’. This has been an old Vedic practice! The intelligent and hard working students were given the opportunity to teach their peers where interaction was free amongst the teacher and the learner….