5:00 am. The alarm goes off. The day begins with ‘a’ plus ‘b’ the whole squared. Breakfast is with Sinx and Cosx. Over the course of the day the visitors range from acetaldehyde to propanoic acid while the Avogadro number is of course a constant. The lullaby at the end of the day is a medley of complex numbers, co-ordinate geometry and relativity.
This is how the day of a typical high school student goes. This ritual continues into college (engineering colleges, of course). Interestingly, this trend began hardly a generation back. With the growing obsession of ranks and placements, the real meaning of education has been lost. Certainly, exams are necessary and ranks are essential in the allocation of seats to a huge number of students such as in our country. But when interest and healthy competition change to pressure, it shouldn’t be a surprise that although we produce more engineers than the US, 80% of them are unemployable.
From being a serious and difficult terrain to tread on, engineering has evolved into a go-to course for anyone out of school and clueless about their next step. With 535 engineering colleges in our state, soon their number would be giving competition to the number of tea stalls around.
In the 1930s and 40s, children (now grandparents) barely completed their schooling. But their knowledge is more profound compared to the formula-reciting, tuition-going children of this age. Academic stress was unheard of back then. But the atmosphere in which they were raised taught them to handle any kind of stress as opposed to the fragile minds of today’s children which is clearly revealed by the growing suicide rates among teenagers. Alarming acts of childhood violence these days show that the aggressiveness of students has reached an all-time high. While our schools may be developing the logical reasoning parts of the brain, the cognitive areas are left unattended to. Organization, planning and social skills are as important as academics. A child should be given the space to learn from the surroundings as it was in our grandparents’ times. What is learnt can be appreciated more if learnt in an engrossing way.
A clear and calm mind is the first step to achieving a goal. So, surely, learning can also be done minus the pressure and tension. Education should culminate in the full realization of a student’s potential, having given him tools to wield his mind productively in the world while instilling in him a sense of passion. This would enrich our country and make the halcyon days of childhood and youth a joyful memory to recollect for every individual.
