Don’t teach me….Allow me to learn….

“I am not from your field” -an interesting statement by my friend wedged my mind this week. It was simple and unconscious attempt to say that our academic disciplines are different. This statement suddenly made me realized something about our education system. A system which plays great role in producing good citizens or civilized human being who has specialized skills to contribute in development of mankind.

India spends huge chunk of its social sector budget on education but no Indian university is listed in top 200 hundred universities of world.  This seems a shocking situation to me, it raises question, what is going wrong with our education system. When I thought and shared my concerns with people from other countries, I realized that education systems of every country is undergoing under transition. The only difference is that some countries are managing this transition well while some are not (like India).

The most shocking observation is that it’s not higher education system but its primary and secondary formal education systems are facing many challenges. To cop up these challenges parents and students are greatly experimented. Under the winds of change, our next gen kids are facing so much of contradiction and stress in day to day life. This stress and contradictions is actually killing their creativity and childhood at large. 

The idea of formal education comes from period of enlightenment and it was boosted up during era of industrial revolution where there was high demand for skilled and specialized labor. I can see reflection of industrial era in current education system.

Our education system is still dominated by idea of schooling. School which is factory like setup: it is runs by rule of bell, it has separate facilities as per hierarchy (facilities for students and facilities for teachers), it has specialized labor force (called teachers), and it has specific time period or dose, schooling still produce its products (students) in batches (I am from batch of 2005J) this dominance of factory like system in schooling actually is problematic now. Because “work hard and get job” is no more working formula

We prepare our next generation mainly for two reasons, either for contributing economic systems or for preserving our existing cultural values. In both the cases there is chances of greater failure because economic systems are not stable and culture values are under transitions. The stress created by this conflict in fact affects child and kills his/her creative power or his ability to think something new. I have thought of some parenting measures (though I am not qualified for itJ) 

• Don’t ask child about their favorite subject; our favorite subjects keeps on changing, it may create hatred for some other subject.
• Prepare child to do work, not job: remember he/she can create newer markets instead of joining market.
• Allow child to do whatever he/she feels like, show them how to judge between good and bad, do not impose your idea of good or bad on child.
• If child is not willing to do school work, try to find out reason why he/she is not willing to do so, school is not supreme authority to decide child’s destiny.
• Encourage child to participate in extracurricular activities as per his/her interest; do not force them to participate.
• Give good and healthy food for their body as well as food for their thoughts.
• No child is mischievous, allow them to talk, ask and shout, don’t teach manners, they’ll learn that in school (factory)
• Allow them to watch television and surf internet; observe and keep track of their interests.
• Encourage them to read, sing, play, draw etc. but not through formal system of coaching institution (don’t put them in another factory)
• And finally, don’t try to teach child, allow them to learn.