Education

Though I really feel sorry for the kids, I am also a typical parent who forces and wants my kid to be a superstar in every activity be it academic, sports or other extra-curricular activities. All that I could not do, which I still dream of doing, but make no attempt to do it, I am trying to force it down the throat of my kid. I surely can’t escape by saying that I am doing this rather inadvertently or that it’s for the overall growth and development of the child. This would help him become a well-rounded personality as he grows up in life. He will be more focused and this would ensure that he is well settled, meaning financial well-being, in life. He will work for top notch companies or better still be an innovator or an entrepreneur par excellence.

So in short, the dreams of the parents become the vision of the child. What is that he actually wants to do. One can argue that it’s too early for him to say that, as he is only 7 years old now. Yet, I feel guilty in a way that I am pushing him to do what everyone else is doing and join the rat race that we and our previous generations were part of. Why can’t learning be any different. Why can’t it be fun rather than be a burden. I can see the same feelings running through him, as it did through me, whenever he is told to read and practice. Oh no, not again, what a drab. And then the usual frightening, threatening voices that shrill over the house until the lessons are learnt by rote.

In the process, does he really learn. When I say, learn, does he really comprehend the essence behind whatever he has studied. Is he able to relate it to the real life scenarios. The application thereof in our day to day lives. What does it mean to coexist and live with nature, animals, birds and other living organisms. In short, do we really teach him to appreciate life and what it’s all about. Rather, it’s shrieks and cries that echo all over until the so called process of learning is completed for the day. And at the end of it, you see a visibly enervated child that just dozes off out of sheer exhaustion. Instead of energizing the child and stimulating the vital senses to decipher the fascinating facts of life, we literally singe the child of all its energy and vitality. I am rather disparagingly cynical in my comments of our learning process and don’t seem to offer any alternate solutions, but the reality is what it is.

The basic premise in this whole process is like this. Would you let the child do what it wants to do. The alternate argument could be, how would the child know at such young age what to do. Perhaps the curriculum could include more practical ways of teaching. It could not be possible in a mass schooling where thousands of children are educated or rather churned out like in an assembly factory model. But take it in a much smaller scale with less no. of students with articulate teachers who harbor love for teaching and would like to shepherd children as if each one of them were the role models and future leaders who would drive boundary less nations. They can inspire and evoke a passion for learning. A learning that would make the child not a factory assembled product, but each one cast in diverse shape based on their inherent interests and learning capabilities. This would make them become an enriched individual based on their innate talents, what they inherently possess and where their interests lie, what their heart and mind sets them to aspire for and not what their parents want them to.

Practically in such a huge humungous, populous nation, such as ours, what I am trying to preach is more or less practically impossible at least for the better part of the population which is poor or middle class as such kind of experimental learning’s and leanings would prove expensive and cost a fortune. Yet, there is no harm in dreaming and trying to make an attempt somewhere so that the child in you and your own child can discover the true meaning of life through real learning and education. Not the education that helps us just eke out a living, seen through the eyes of others, but which is also morally, socially, politically and economically right, from within ourselves.

#Thoughts