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What schools today are making of our kids tomorrow

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THE CYNIC
THE CYNICNov 07, 2014 | 13:50

What schools today are making of our kids tomorrow

Walk by an English medium CBSE affiliated school these days and there is a good chance that you would hear loud speakers either giving out instructions or blaring out some form of music. This is the season for extra curricular activities – Sports Day; Cultural Functions; Founder’s Day; Annual Day and so on and so forth and every school it seems is totally engrossed in preparing for the big event.  

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One activity follows another and a school’s curriculum has these activities spread out through the year, interspersed with evaluation schedules that judge the holistic growth of a student. The more number of activities that the student is active with, the greater the chances of a higher grade. Education is no longer defined as the amassing of knowledge but is defined by the learning of "life skills". Being knowledgeable has lost its sheen, of prominence, to being skilled at - navigating the challenges of "life". Acumen is passé, smart is in.

"Activities" is the catch word. Parents discuss the activities that schools have to offer. Does your school have a swimming pool? I have seen a huge hoarding which advertises an Olympic style swimming pool at a school because if your child wants to swim, nothing should hold the young person back. Does your school have horse riding? I have seen school prospectus which highlight horse riding as one of the promised activities. Schools are selected by prospective parents for the activities that they have to offer – not that parents have much choice in the selection process. But they list schools as per their aspirational quotient. The schools then of course have their own criteria for selecting who they want as students – but that is another topic of cynicism, to be dealt with at another time.

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The sound of knowledge being imparted, the audio environment of the schools of old where you heard poems being recited, number tables being memorised or the periodic table being discussed has joined the realm of dinosaurs. Schools nowadays believe in the more advanced educational system where knowledge is imparted through internet research (read Google search) and PowerPoint presentations. Schools have replaced the home as the crucible of holistic development. Games, singing, swimming, dancing or horse riding are all activities to be done at school and studying can be done at home. Text books are opened in class and projects handed out to the students, it is like real life situations, to gauge what you can come up with on your own. Grades and marks get allocated on how well the student does the presentation. The idea behind the whole endeavour again is to prepare you for the real world ahead, the person who talks the best, is adept at holding ones ground in front of an audience is the clear winner.

Children of India are being trained to become excellent sales and marketing people – nothing wrong with that except that there is no place for aberration, or to word it differently no scope to mentor the potential genius. How many great mathematicians or scientists or philosophers were reputed of being great public speakers and debaters? Where is the scope to encourage the tinkerers – the engineers of tomorrow? Or do we want only those to succeed who can sell and market their ideas, even if they may not be the best of the best.

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The school system nowadays believes in the motto of – no child left behind, so how does one achieve that? By lowering the bar? By making it easy for every one to just saunter over it? No need to jump, no need to strive and seek to grasp the fruit of knowledge because everything is available via Google.

Education is dependent on the level of those imparting it and as being a school teacher, is certainly not one of the most sought after of regular professions, the quality of the education giver, in my opinion, remains suspect. It is a case of the blind leading the blind – a very inappropriate use of an impolite idiom, but one that aptly sums up my impressions of the quality of teaching, rampant across schools in the metropolitan India. Most school teachers, in my experience, turn out to be the secondary bread winner in the family – euphemism for the Mrs. who is also employed. It works out well for the family. Work place is close to home, hours are limited, holidays are more and children are assured of admission. These are the criteria that more often than not makes one a school teacher – not the desire to teach, not the hunger for knowledge nor the love of children per se.

I am reminded of what George Bernard Shaw famously wrote in his play Man and Superman: "He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches." I have immense respect for teachers who teach, as will be borne out by my very own teachers if they knew who this Cynic was, but I can not condone those who teach, to only earn a living – whatever their compulsions maybe. It is the future that is entrusted in their hands and they cannot be callous perpetuators of mediocrity.

Let me share a few examples of the level of teaching that is being imparted. These are examples that this Cynic has seen at first hand.

1) Sun does not rotate on its own axis, or else there would be darkness!!

2) Water is not tasteless, cannot be… How come, then, the oceans are salty? Who put the salt in the ocean water?

3) Classification of Valleys: "I-shaped valley exists" along with V and U shaped valleys found in geography books, simply because the net has a reference in form of a question asked by someone somewhere on a - we provide you the answers, sort of a website.

4) "Define" the different types of water pollution.

There were many things wrong or outdated with the way knowledge was imparted in the days gone by but everything could not have been wrong. The educational system can not dump everything of old just because it is dated. Education in trying to be inclusive can not defeat the purpose of instilling a craving for knowledge at the altar of seeming to be - knowledgeable.  The schools are tending towards being havens of mediocrity where the developmental level of the majority is being used as the benchmark to mould the future.

We are creating a society of average humans, the plus point in that being guaranteed a level of wellbeing that belies the ascent to greatness.  A developed society invariably sets the bar of acquiring education higher than the common grasp so that the intent is to attain complexity for knowledge to flourish.  But to be able to see the flaw in the logic of averages, one has to be slightly more evolved than the mediocre, and we all know why, that is a mathematical improbability.       

Last updated: November 07, 2014 | 13:50
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