The Daily Chime

It has been some days since I have updated my blog, been busy with a set of lousy tests. I have been sleeping at about 3 for last few days. It is a disappointment to have tests based on memory rather than your understanding of concepts. Every night before the quizzes, most of us in the institute usually mug our way into the quizzes. It is the same with the entire country. Our education system stresses more on memory than our understanding. This is the marked feature of Indian exams, especially in social studies’ question paper.

A couple of years ago, I happened to see a comment on Indian education system as ‘trying to find out what you don’t know rather than what you know’. This indeed is very much true in my opinion. Academic excellence depends too much upon what you do on last day, and not on interest shown during the year. The marks you score is highly irrelevant to the knowledge you posses. It doesn’t do justice to most of the ‘lateral’ thinking students.

That’s the reason why most of the achievers in the world have been those who have not followed the crowd and shown their presence by their shear brilliance. Did you know that Picasso was remarked ‘uneducable’ by his teachers? Edison also shared the same fate as a child. Despite knowing all this, only a handful people voice their opinion against this. Only creative geniuses have the courage to go all out against the system. Some of them come up with ‘another brick in the wall’, which, no so surprisingly, has been the most influencing song. Our system kills any creativity that one has cultivated. (I do believe creativity can be cultivated; if one has right eyes or ears for it.)

We Indians excel at all places as technicians, but not as designers. The answer lies in the roots of our system which inherently curbs our thought process. None of these can change if year after year the questions remain ‘state five advantages of biogas plant’, ‘give six reasons why 1857 revolt failed’ or ‘what kind of crop are grown in eastern part of Africa’. Why is it the only academic success is seen as the real one and not sports or music?

It shouldn’t be surprising to find most of the world’s richest being school or college dropouts. Why is it that we don’t find people with interests varying from building your house from scratch all by oneself, in philately or other hobbies? I think the reason is curiosity is ruined by the system at a young age itself. What do you think?

# posted by Shankar : 2:39 AM