One of my most favorite quotes is “I was born a genius, but education ruined me”. I do not agree with it completely since I do believe education is important, but not the way the system is today. The current education system gives prominence to rote and marks but not on imparting knowledge that matters. It has become commercialized and branded. It teaches discipline at the cost of wringing out a child’s childhood and its childishness. And in all this drama, the value of education is lost, the quality of education is lost, a child’s touch with reality is lost.
Some of the kids I see today are so busy that they hardly have time for their meals. They get up by 6:00 AM, attend school from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM, attend tuitions from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM, finish their homework by 9:00 PM and read some more before they go to bed at 10:00 PM. If they find some time to “play”, they spend it online on social networking sites or playing online games. They hardly talk to their family members or play with real people. And the sad part is that no one is complaining. Because attendance percentage and higher marks/ranks are considered better than learning to talk to other people or learning how to cook your own breakfast. The kids never learn to use public transport because the parents are always picking/dropping them from/to school. This is true for most upper middle class families. And the schools that they go to encourage these kinds of behavior from the child’s family. English is made strict in schools and parents are asked to talk to them in English even at home. The result is that they learn no other languages.
On the other hand, today the kids are learning new and innovative ways to give teachers a headache. Instead of chits, these days SMSes are forwarded. Camera phones are sneaked in and videos recorded in the class. Quizzes are forgotten, reality song-n-dance shows are all “in”, competitions for starring in ads and serials are “on” round the clock. “Dating” is already in practice by the time they reach high school. Slang words are used like we use salt in our food. What used to be normal words with straight meanings during our school days have all been transformed to slang over the years. For example, when we were in school, “cock” meant an adult male chicken, and “chick” meant baby chicken, “ass” meant a donkey, “gay” meant happy, “figure” meant diagram, and the “eff” word was unheard of. These days one of every four words is an “eff”.
I was reading mythology a few weeks back to brush up and came across the Gurukul system of education. This traditional system of education taught values and things that mattered. It was in this system that our ancestors were coached in. It did not matter if they were a “high-born” or a “low-born” (terms that were used then), they were treated like an equal, they had to wear just a loin cloth to cover their body. They stayed in the Gurukul till they completed their education. They had to clean the Gurukul themselves, pluck fruits and roots themselves for their meals, and so on. They were taught astronomy and weaponry, cleaning and cooking, survival skills and languages, compassion and communication, sharing and caring, accounting and law, music and animal care. These things were relevant in those days; all the skills needed to lead a better life were taught. And most importantly, the values were ingrained in them to stay within the bounds of “dharma”.
The Gurukul method of teaching is still relevant today, with a few changes to suit the times we are in now. Skills like swimming, martial arts, dancing, singing, accounting, negotiation skills and many more are needed to be taught. These skills give us the confidence to make a living in any situation and the courage to face the world. I’m not saying the current education system has left us handicapped but what purpose does it serve to learn the years of battles and wars of the world? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to know what strategies the winning side used in order to win, and what mistakes the losing side did in order to have lost the battle/war? Isn’t it better to learn how much money you can make with whatever little you have, with the available instruments (uh-huh, not xerox machines, I’m talking about the bank accounts, mutual funds and so on) instead of calculating co-efficient of friction (:P) of the road? What use is it to learn differentiation and integration without knowing the practical applications of it? We would know there is water on Mars but wouldn’t know how to survive if trapped in a desert without water. If we fall in a river will we be using a formula to calculate the speed with which we need to swim to reach the shore? That says something about our education system, isn’t it?
It is not just the parents or teachers that are responsible for where we are today. Every person in the society, including ourselves are responsible. Of course there are exceptions to the above cases and it all depends on the individual too. All said and done, is there a way to change the way things have been over the years? Is change the answer?
Some of the kids I see today are so busy that they hardly have time for their meals. They get up by 6:00 AM, attend school from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM, attend tuitions from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM, finish their homework by 9:00 PM and read some more before they go to bed at 10:00 PM. If they find some time to “play”, they spend it online on social networking sites or playing online games. They hardly talk to their family members or play with real people. And the sad part is that no one is complaining. Because attendance percentage and higher marks/ranks are considered better than learning to talk to other people or learning how to cook your own breakfast. The kids never learn to use public transport because the parents are always picking/dropping them from/to school. This is true for most upper middle class families. And the schools that they go to encourage these kinds of behavior from the child’s family. English is made strict in schools and parents are asked to talk to them in English even at home. The result is that they learn no other languages.
On the other hand, today the kids are learning new and innovative ways to give teachers a headache. Instead of chits, these days SMSes are forwarded. Camera phones are sneaked in and videos recorded in the class. Quizzes are forgotten, reality song-n-dance shows are all “in”, competitions for starring in ads and serials are “on” round the clock. “Dating” is already in practice by the time they reach high school. Slang words are used like we use salt in our food. What used to be normal words with straight meanings during our school days have all been transformed to slang over the years. For example, when we were in school, “cock” meant an adult male chicken, and “chick” meant baby chicken, “ass” meant a donkey, “gay” meant happy, “figure” meant diagram, and the “eff” word was unheard of. These days one of every four words is an “eff”.
I was reading mythology a few weeks back to brush up and came across the Gurukul system of education. This traditional system of education taught values and things that mattered. It was in this system that our ancestors were coached in. It did not matter if they were a “high-born” or a “low-born” (terms that were used then), they were treated like an equal, they had to wear just a loin cloth to cover their body. They stayed in the Gurukul till they completed their education. They had to clean the Gurukul themselves, pluck fruits and roots themselves for their meals, and so on. They were taught astronomy and weaponry, cleaning and cooking, survival skills and languages, compassion and communication, sharing and caring, accounting and law, music and animal care. These things were relevant in those days; all the skills needed to lead a better life were taught. And most importantly, the values were ingrained in them to stay within the bounds of “dharma”.
The Gurukul method of teaching is still relevant today, with a few changes to suit the times we are in now. Skills like swimming, martial arts, dancing, singing, accounting, negotiation skills and many more are needed to be taught. These skills give us the confidence to make a living in any situation and the courage to face the world. I’m not saying the current education system has left us handicapped but what purpose does it serve to learn the years of battles and wars of the world? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to know what strategies the winning side used in order to win, and what mistakes the losing side did in order to have lost the battle/war? Isn’t it better to learn how much money you can make with whatever little you have, with the available instruments (uh-huh, not xerox machines, I’m talking about the bank accounts, mutual funds and so on) instead of calculating co-efficient of friction (:P) of the road? What use is it to learn differentiation and integration without knowing the practical applications of it? We would know there is water on Mars but wouldn’t know how to survive if trapped in a desert without water. If we fall in a river will we be using a formula to calculate the speed with which we need to swim to reach the shore? That says something about our education system, isn’t it?
It is not just the parents or teachers that are responsible for where we are today. Every person in the society, including ourselves are responsible. Of course there are exceptions to the above cases and it all depends on the individual too. All said and done, is there a way to change the way things have been over the years? Is change the answer?
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