The current education system is designed to
build army of rooks, bishops and pawns where each of them has limited role
and option to move on the chessboard. Our system and families define the goal
of their children which is to chase the race. If any of them refuse to take part or
run slower than others then our society treat them like a discarded product. I
was lucky that my parents never forced me to run in 90%-95% marks race. I got
decent scores & participated in
every possible sports, art competitions, quiz, camps, trekking etc, luckily got
prizes whatever I did. I think we lived a better life than studious students.
They must be earning few millions but at what cost?
Most of the schools have one session/class for sports and co-curricular
activities which are mandatory for students but students are rated/evaluated on
the basis of their academic records not sports/extra activities. The problem is
we under-evaluates our kids and doesn’t spend time in nurturing the talent.
Imagine, if we give them enough space and options they can change the world.
Few of the well renowned personalities like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs,
Dhirubhai Ambani etc. are role model for millions but do we know that all of
the aforesaid personalities are either college or school drop outs. I am sure
there journey was very tough and difficult for them to convince families or
friends about their “i-m-possible” ideas.
A week ago, I was watching a video of 2 young school kids who have
started their own company and they are the youngest CEO’s of the company. Now
imagine, if their parents had demotivated them and told them to focus on their
education. We could have lost 2 intelligent minds.
Few weeks ago, I saw a presentation by Sugat Mitra which he gave in TED
conference. I was highly impressed with his research and the concept “Beyond
the Hole in the Wall”. His book is an eye opener, he has challenged the current
education system of India. How he has experimented with poor kids across the
globe and find out the learning trend is same. It clearly shows that if we
provide enough arms & ammunitions to even a poor kid, they can learn their
own (without any guide). The power of self-organized learning is better than a
forced learning.
Ken Robinson who is working in education industry feels that schools are
killing creativity of the students. One of the important point he raised was kids
who are in school are prepared for future but the fact is world is unpredictable
and we don’t know what will be the scenario after 5 years. We are living in an
era of “education inflation” which means 50 years ago a candidate with normal
graduation degree used to get a job but now even a PHD holder won’t get it. The
challenge is if we don’t encourage creativity of any kid at a younger age, it
would impact them in future. The older you grow people are scared to be wrong.
One of the key messages from all these initiatives & research by
different scholars or physicist is that we need to look things differently if
we really want to add any value. Society will always oppose you whenever you
come-up with an idea or if your thought process/believes are not in-line with
their expectation. They will come-up with their silly reasons and every
possible thing to become hurdle in your success or life. It is very tough to
fight with them but if parents or system show the confidence and prepare them for
the bigger challenges as well as failures. Ken Robinson said in one of the TED
conference that “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up
with anything original.”
All creative and genius person are insane and passionate about their
work. People should change their attitude and thought process towards them,
most importantly stop stigmatizing mistakes and beliefs of others. Everyone has
a talent to create a history, now it’s upto you whether you would like to be
known for good or bad side. I think giving a shot to your idea or following
your beliefs is a better choice than doing some non-interesting job.
We are not born to live and die. We all are born with a purpose and contribute
to the society and humanity. Think about it……
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