Relevance of Education
 |
| With a student in Goa, 2013 - I learnt more from him than he from me. |
Does education play any significant role in one’s
success in life? Vardan Kabra, educationist, motivator, and author of the
provocative book Reimagining Indian Education, asked this question to
many parents in different parts of India while conducting workshops for them.
The answer was surprisingly revealing. NO.
A lot of successful people aren’t
highly educated. Mark Zuckerberg is a school dropout. Steve Jobs dropped out of
college. Sharukh Khan didn’t learn acting from any school. Narendra Modi’s
educational qualifications exist only on forged papers. Donald Trump is the
most awkward entry on this list with his bachelor’s degree from the elite
Wharton School which didn’t do him any good in life. Trump mocks “educated
elites.”
Let me take a leaf out of Kabra’s
book and give you a quiz.
1. How many times did you use
the quadratic equation in your life? (math)
2. Mention any one specific
duty of the Vice President of India. (social science)
3. Did this equation mean
anything to you at any time outside the school examination? CH4 + 2O2
à CO2 + 2H2O.
Does the equation make any sense to you now? (chemistry)
4. Give an example for litotes.
(English)
5. Differentiate between
speed, velocity, and acceleration. (physics)
Never mind if you don’t know any of the answers. My point
is that much of what we learnt at school is never used in our actual life. Then
what use is that school education?
Kabra, mentioned above, put a
question to the parents in his school workshops. What are the factors that
create successful people? Education was not one among the answers. Parents listed:
Determination, hard work, persistence. Confidence and readiness to take risks.
Vision. Passion. Time management. Attitude, flexibility, adaptability…
Nobody mentioned education. “It’s
because,” says Kabra, “most of us KNOW that education as we know it, doesn’t
play a make-or-break role in success in the real world.”
Now, under Narendra Modi’s
leadership, India is making education ever more redundant. Why do further
research in physics or biology at all if everything was already known thousands
of years ago as claimed by the Indian Knowledge System [IKS]? The IKS with its
emphasis on tradition and culture dissuades students from questioning,
debating, and falsifying what should be falsified. IKS is presented as a
corrective to “Western influence” and thus the entire global knowledge system with
its infinite potential is downplayed.
When knowledge is inherited rather than investigated, education ceases to be a pursuit and becomes a ritual.
But, wait. My complaint is not just
about IKS. IKS is the last nail on the education system’s coffin. The rest is
not much effective either.
School education should be made more
effective and practically useful. It should be fun going to school because the
school provides lessons required for success in actual life.
How to do that?
February is dedicated to investigate
that. Be with me here in this space if you’re interested. I would love to
hear from you too on this matter of vital importance. Do share your experience
either in the comment box or personally with me. Your views may enrich this discussion.
Everything that we learn in a classroom is not for application as it they are.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in a Chemistry class when we solve an equation or in a Maths class when we solve a calculus problem or in a Physics lab when we do an experiment, it's not just about the problem or the specific experiment.
It's about learning how to solve a problem: the method, the steps, the approach, the speed, the patience, the resilience ... a whole lot of things.
Education is not just about a particular subject. Subject just a medium through which we learn a lot about life and the world around us.
Yes, Pradeep. I agree. In fact, I'm looking at that issue tomorrow. Using the classic Bloom's taxonomy as a framework, I'll be looking at how the present system can be made more effective. A lot of content with no practical skill is of little use. There are other serious problems too with the current system.
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteThere is a great deal in the IKS that is valuable, no doubt about that. However to say that it is the only way one should learn is akin to saying there is only one way to reach the pinnacle of spiritual understanding (which, of course, Modi does too).
As Pradeep points out, any educational system is most beneficial when it teaches the student not just one particular subject, but how to activate the brain, stimulate the intellect, and to discover the joy of discovery. It is necessary to learn all those redundant things in order to stimulate interest and find our paths, too.
Learning is an unavoidable part of childhood - or indeed, throughout life - but what must be guarded against is that the formal education of the young is enticing and liberating for them - not constricting and indoctrinating... YAM xx
That activation of the brain, stimulation of the intellect, and the joy of discovery - they are not happening at all. That's the main problem. The politicisation of the content is a different matter and I may not touch that this time. We're all sick of that already.
DeleteEducation now as, being described under the Technocratic becomes an Amnesia. But actually it is an Anamnesis ( Remembrance) and Aletheia, in the Platonic and Heideggerian sense. My father, who never passed Kerala SSLC could quote Milton's Paradise Lost to me to give me lessons on Angelic Hubris and Humility. And my mother, stanzas of A ganathaimavu of Vailoppilly to teach on the pathos. And I remember the Angle of Elevation taught by Fr Dominic, whenever I scale the majestic height of the Banyan tree. Education is s wave where things surface and resurface, in the process, making the human.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you're familiar with the three domains that Benjamin Bloom posited. Making the human - that's the pinnacle of educational achievement in Bloom's theory. We're going to look at that from a contemporary point of view tomorrow.
DeleteFine and Awaiting
ReplyDeleteThe school system is a compromise, and it takes a long time to get it to change at all. What's taught was determined to be important decades ago by people who were looking to the past as to what needed to be learned.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I don't think it's so important what's taught. Just the activity of learning something strengthens the brain. If you don't use your brain, your brain gets used to laziness.
Anyway, I have many different directions to take my arguments, not something that's really for a blog comment.
Getting students to think for themselves is the hardest job for a teacher. They prefer the easy way, readymade answers. Any change in the education system will happen only when students are taught to think!
Delete