Education Ruins a Child

A for Apple, B for Bat, C for Cat, D for Dog……How many times have we heard about this. I was thinking instead of these….why not A for Amazing, B for Beautiful, C for Creativity, D for Discover……I know that a student learning the word Apple may not be able to learn the word Amazing, but my point is that our Education system ruins a child. It just narrows a child’s thinking. Even today, if someone asks to an adult what does A or B or C or D stands for, you can surely expect the same answer (i.e. Apple or Bat or Cat or Dog). There is a big problem in our education system. A student who gets the highest marks is branded as the best student, no offence meant to them for getting the highest marks. Even the schools, who call themselves as some International school, are no better.
I had gone to a parents teacher meeting in an International school where my relative is studying in 5^th standard. She didn’t score well in a particular subject. The concerned teacher questioned her, “Why you are not studying…? Why don’t you work hard…? You need to work hard…” I was wondering, what the hell the teacher is saying. After sometime, I told her, “Don’t worry, if you need any help I am there. I will help you.” As I was speaking to her, she started crying, I felt bad. None could understand her, but within a span of few minutes I started speaking to her, I knew what was going through her. I mean, the student is just 5^th standard and teacher is saying as if the student is doing some PG degree.

One more horrifying thing I heard. In that school, the student who gets the highest marks will be made to sit at the front and students getting lowest marks will be at the back. This is nothing but discrimination. The lesser the marks, the farther they sit. This is utter crap. I mean, you are just killing a student literally. Imagine what might be going in their minds. What will be their morale….?? They are made to feel low, which is pretty sad. They are not mature enough to cope with the stress from Parents, teachers and peers and these schools expect them to be what, Scholars right from day one….?? What kind of education is this? You just can’t assess how good or bad a student is based on marks. Among those scoring less marks, there might exist a poet, an artist, an athlete, a wonderful human being, a thinker and much more. I saw on National Geographic channel where a 1 hour program was there about World War II, it was just awesome and very informative compared to learning in a classroom of 100 students and a teacher explaining things. I feel, the schools should try different ways of helping a child to learn things.

According to me, Education should teach what Life is, how to lead it, no discrimination on the basis of anything, teach them what is important and required for Life and the most important thing is to let them explore by themselves. By inculcating these things, marks will automatically follow. Let their imagination go far and wide. Think, if everyone gets first rank it’s of no use. The Best part of this bad education is that, you can see people like Albert Einstien, Steve Jobs and many more. In a society, we need more of people who are frank and honest and less of intelligent ones. About the teachers, well what can I say, they are only not matured enough so can’t entirely blame them either, but they should understand their weaknesses and should try to work on it.

We all need to be very careful, especially teachers when dealing with students of younger age. The teachers play an important role here and nowadays it has become even more considering that both the parents are working and have less time to interact with their children. Almost half of the time in a day is spent in schools by the students. They need to play a dual role of a teacher and a counselor. In order to help students the teacher needs to get to the student level. There should be a one on one interaction with these students. They need to explain them as to how to be good Human Being. A student getting first rank but having a bad character is of no use. In America, there is a school started by Bill Gates (Microsoft Co-founder). In this school, there are no exams. You have everything there, musical instruments, games, books, toys, you name it. They are just letting the children to explore it and try their hand in everything. I am not an education expert, but looking around you can surely say that there is something wrong in our teaching style. It is better let the child explore whatever they want to rather than confining them to books only.

A Silver lining

But hey hope is there. Some new schools have come up in Bangalore, where the stress is on learning and not on just bookish knowledge. In one school, there are no exams upto 7^th standard. These schools may not have large number of students, but they are surely better off. I hope and I am sure someday actual learning will be given high importance.

Prashanth