I believe fundamentally that we make very poor use of our talents. Many people go through their whole lives having no real sense of what their talents may be or if they had any to speak of. I met all kinds of people who don’t think they are really good at anything, or who don’t enjoy what they do. They simply go through their lives getting on with it. They don’t get any pleasure from what they do. They “endure” it rather than enjoy it and wait for the weekend. But I also met people who love what they do and who can’t imagine doing anything else. This is who they are. Education dislocates human resources. Human Resource cannot be found on surfaces, you need to go in search of them, they are buried deep.
Education system is being reformed every moment, but reforming is improving already broken model. (re-form as the word says). Bringing revolution through innovation is what we need and it is hard. Challenging what we take for granted, things that we think are obvious. The main hindrance in bringing about this revolution is the tyranny of common sense as people think there can’t be any other way ‘cos that’s the way its done. Quote by Abraham Lincoln second annual meeting of congress on Dec 1862. I ought to accept that I have no idea what was happening at that timeJ, here goes the quote: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion”. I love that. I love the term not “rise to it “but “rise with it”. “as our case is new, so we must “think anew and act anew”, we must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country” I loved the word disenthrall here which means that there are ideas that all of us are enthralled to , which we simply take for granted as the natural order of things , the way the things are. And many of our ideas are used not to cope with the coming century but to cope with the circumstances of previous centuries, but our minds are still hypnotized by them. You know today’s kid doesn’t wear wristwatches not because he choose not to but they don’t have to as for them time is everywhere in this digitized world whereas we had to wear something that told us the time. Its a single function device, right? In today’s multi-tasking life who needs it?
Education today follows “Theory of Linearity” that you start from here and follow this track and if everything works fine you will reach here and set the rest of your life. Life is not linear, so why should our education be one? Humans depend upon not a singular concept of ability but a diversity of talent. A simple example: There is competition for the admission in right kindergarten with kids going for interviews at a mere age of 3! with their resumes and a set of unimpressed panel (teachers) saying “this is it ? ! you’ve been around for 36 months!” Its outrageous but it attracts people, how ironic! The moment you tell you had to undergo interview for your little one for admission, you are highlighted in your group and people start “talking” about it. So, this is just about the competition a child faces once he steps into this world and then later he is molded into what parents and others think “The perfect way to lead a life”. But I think we should not forget that after all it’s about passion; often people are good at things, they don’t really care for. What excites our passion, our spirit our energy and if you were doing the thing that you love to do, that you’re good at, time takes a different course entirely. If you like what u do, 5 hours feel like a minute and vice versa. And this is why so many people opt out of education as it doesn’t feed their spirit, energy or passion. You cannot predict the outcome of human development. But then developmental ways (Education) shouldn’t be predictive either.
Its about Customizing to your circumstances and personalizing to the people whom you are actually teaching. So, when you think your daughter should have studied medicine while she opts for Mass Media and Communication, let her explore, that’s where she belongs, don’t hold her back. And if you do, do not forget “Every year our children lay their dreams beneath our feet, so we should tread softly!
