outdated – Tantalizing Thoughts

As my class X Board Examinations are approaching, I often see people around me discussing about how they can get good marks in these examinations. No one talks about what they have actually learnt. All they care about is good grades.When I ask my classmates who scored decently in previous year’s examinations any question from the previous year’s syllabus they are seldom able to answer it. I blame such behaviour of students on our education system.

I say this because since the time we have started going to schools, all they teach us is that good grades are of utmost importance. They don’t teach the students to think diffrently, innovate and explore new things. All what they tell us to do is copy what is written on the board, mug up the entire syllabi and vomit what you have memorised on your answer sheet. Our education system solely focuses on rote learning.
Schools teach the same thing the same way to different students who different minds and different capabilities.Now if you tell a fish to climb a tree, it won’t be able to do so but if it is told to swim,it would excel in that. Similarly,every child has different capabilities and interests but our education system focuses on uniform learning for every child and then we wonder hasn’t any Indian won a nobel prize(apart from peace) from the time we have gotten independence.

Moreover in the name of education, we are taught outdated things. For example many of my own textbooks have been last updated way back in 2009. In this era of quickly changing world, many of the things taught 10 years back have become irrelevant but our system persists on outdated learning.

Another thing that I fail to understand is the necessity to maintain notebooks and practical files.I don’t see any point writing down the same things what are written in the textbooks once again in your own notebook.It is nothing but sheer and utter wastage of time. Forcing children to write down practical activities in a dedicated file but not allowing them to do the same activities in real life on their own makes no sense to me. And to all those who say that making notebooks and files improves handwriting,there is going to be no need of having a good handwriting in the fututre(atleast according to me) since everything is going to get computerized and digitalized.

I want to share my own personal experience to highlight one of the problems in our schools. So what happened is that one of my classmates asked a teacher a question which was out of the syllabus. Instead of answering it, the teacher said,” Focus on what is in your syllabus and not on what you don’t need to learn”. I mean this itself shows the pathetic condition of schools in India.

This type of education system has made the society toxic in a lot of ways. Whenever you go to any weddings or parties, all your relatives ask is how much did you score in your examinations. Parents have started comparing their kids to others’ kids on the basis of marks. They don’t encourage their wards to learn other skills but keep forcing them to study and that too not for knowledge but for marks.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, was not wrong when he said that Indians lack creativity.India ranks 66 out of 140 countries. This stat shows how far behind we are in the world in terms of creativity thanks to our education system and its effects.

I do agree that good marks show that you are dedicated to what you are doing show that you have good memory , and allow you to experience what it is like to be under pressure but the high level of importance that we give to marks in our country is unwanted and is something that needs change urgently.

Over and Out