“Education is something that is done
to you. Learning is something that you do for yourself.”
The everlasting cut-throat
competition prevalent in our society has forced parents to worry about their
child’s education the moment he takes his first breath. And in this rat race to
get their ward admitted to the best school, they push their child into rot-learning
even before he steps his feet in school, so much so that they do not care to
give him an opportunity to learn. As he grows up, his intelligence is judged by
his maths score, his accuracy in the biology diagrams, his grammar in the
english passages, his spellings in hindi, and his knowledge by the marks he
could fetch in sciences. If he keeps scoring well enough, the gates to higher
education keep opening, and one day he finally walks out of the college -
"educated" or maybe just as a literate. But we need to pause here for
a question - what did he learn in the whole process, and is it worthwhile?
To combat this issue, the Indian
government proposed a very well thought scheme - Continuous and Comprehensive
Evaluation. The CCE was aimed to provide the students with various
opportunities for overall development. It was meant to take care of
psychological aspects, involve diagnostic teaching and learning, create fear
free environment and promote learning. It did change the marking system to
grading but that’s nearly all it could achieve. But what about the underlying
idea to make the child learn in varied fields, the decentralization of attitude
and mentality towards the education system? It aimed to witness the unfolding
of each child’s mind minute by minute. Alas, little has been achieved in that
direction. The problem is still the same - the rat race, and the solution -
realization. The need of the hour is not to accept the system as a burden but
to make it contextually and locally relevant to the needs of the children - to
realize that it’s not the grade on the child’s report card which makes the
child able enough, but what he has actually learnt. And why just academically?
A child must get an opportunity to score through their talents in other areas
such as arts, sports, music, dramatics, etc. The basic purpose is to enable
children acquire knowledge, and develop understanding skills, positive
attitudes and values which are conducive for all round development of
personality. Learning makes the child exhibit better not just in the test but
also in co-curricular areas, social personal qualities, secular values and
attitudes, and emotional stability. A child must not be subjected to failure if
he cannot recall the facts stated by the teacher, but instead be taken to slow
but progressive growth. And for this, the child must be encouraged to learn
what he is taught, not memorize it. The aim of teaching must not be to make the
child learn 2+2=4, but to make him understand that if he had 2 chocolates and
is given 2 more, he’d be having 4 chocolates. Completing syllabus in the class
is meaningless until a child acquires some basic competencies in that subject
and realizes what significance the topics hold in his life.
It is learning which makes him able
enough to sustain himself in the world, and not just education. Unless and
until the child begins to learn, and not just be educated, he would be little
more than a speaking parrot. But who are we to blame for this system of rot
learning? the parents that pressurize their children or the teachers that are
pressurized by the schools for better results?
On practical grounds, school or the
school teachers are not the only ones to be blamed. What is the basic aim of
educating our children today? it is not making them a sensible and intellectual
person, which ideally, it should be. It is getting him into a good college,
hence find a good job and earn relentlessly. Who imbibed this shift?
Nevertheless, whoever did, the point is, and it exists. Recently, comedian Vir
Das posted a video, to boost the confidence of students who had appeared in
board exams. In the video he talks about how a sheet of paper (board mark
sheet) is irrelevant and cannot decide the future of a person. Ideally,
it shouldn't, but the poignant reality of our nation is, that this “sheet of paper” decides the future of a student. My question is, is it fair?
The change does not have to be only
in schools, but also in colleges and hiring companies, who have the passing
criteria of just mere marks. How do marks mark the qualities of a person
anyway? The change we all aspire, as to be instilled in roots of our education
system, not just schools. One school alone, also, cannot change anything.
Education is not being able to write
Julius Caesar’s speech, or solve algebraic equations. Education knows what to
speak when, realizing that everyone is different and judging needs a
background, distinguish between self respect and ego, recognize need and want,
identify the fact that our purpose of being is not to be rich, but to be humans
filled with compassion, and most importantly, strive towards a peaceful and
meaningful living.
Authors: Akanksha Puwar and Malvika Kala
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