Friday, February 3, 2012

Should Education Be like a River or a Swimming Pool?

You must be thinking what is the similarity between the two and can we really compare the two, so the answer is it is still nebulous to me but I do know that there are some points which overlap and we can start from there.

Today’s Education
Swimming Pool
Try to work on a Linear Path
Makes it’s own path
Pre-defined by the engineer
Everyone knows the Danger and +ve pts
No one knows what lies ahead.
Everyone knows water is not contaminated and it’s safe.
There is a teacher to define your thinking and inspire you
Many times, the kids learn on their own to swim. Or sometimes they have someone to instruct but not every time.
There is a mentor to teach you the moves.

A person who knows how to swim in river can surely swim in swimming pool
Vice Versa is not true for most of the cases.
Pattern being formed 100 yrs back is still followed in same fashion.
No river ever remains the same, it keeps it’s origin the same everything else modifies
Still go back to your swimming pool with little bit of renovation nothing changes much.
A student studying English in same board, In India or U.S...More or less learns the same thing.
Every River provides you with completely different experience some are swift while some are calm.
Swimming pool gives you the same experience except the mentoring by the Instructor.

So many of you ‘the Educated youth’ till now must have understand that what I am trying to portray here. That Our today’s Education System has somehow become quite similar to the ‘Swimming Pool’ in our backyard and dissimilar to the river which are the origin of our water and may be also the swimming pool because there won’t be any swimming pool without water.

But, if you ask many parents would they send their kids to a river for swimming they would say complete no-no, saying that when we have safe bets than why should we go for other option.

To a large extend, my discussion is about this same thinking of ‘Safe bet’ when my parents send me to the school they thought about this same ‘Safe bet’ and also when they and I decided that I should go for further studies, we all thought about the ‘Safe Bet’, And yes it was truly a safe bet because know I do know that I can easily get any decent job, a nice Car in 2-3 yrs , A house in 5 yrs..And my life would be same and happy like others.

But isn’t this average life of everyone like the ‘Experience of a swimming Pool’. What if I was allowed to think where I would like to go a school or a music class or a sports stadium?

Yes every school does provide the various options to pursue your talents but still their main focus is on academia and ultimately making you an intellect & it is surely the ‘Safest Bet’. Whenever we had a discussion regarding the passions of a kids the answer is ‘Let them pursue education and simultaneously they can pursue their passions’ Why is it not the other way round? Why we always keep the academia as our top –most priority.

Natural Talent is like the experience of biosphere of river, which is different for every kid but in our schools we teach every kid from the same book using the same text and would then ask them all to pass the same exam, Can it ever happen that they all can perform at same level in exams? Yes, it can surely happen and it has already started, as it started happening with the products in the ‘Industrial Revolution’ when we understood the concept of production line and somehow our schools are now the production line not to make products but the workers for the industry.
With the advancement of technology in Industries we started making quality products at lesser cost as all were same with no ‘Differentiation’ or identity of their own and with ‘Six Sigma’ we moved one step further that ‘Now we were having less and less defects also’.

Now, we want a Six Sigma for our kids also. Everybody should get above 90 % in the same test and with great delight I am happy to announce that the best schools are able to achieve it and in few years you will find it duplicated or I should say replicated in every school in the world and truly ‘We all would be really happy’ without knowing the long term harm we may be causing.

We are still following the same education system which was formed 100 yrs ago by educationalist with a tit-bit of tinkering but right now the need of the hour is of a revolution or a flood which should change the complete landscape while bringing new ideas, new soil of fertility .We have to look at education from ab-initio and somehow you will find some educationalist have started challenging the whole ecosystem of education.

Society was never run by a single profession and life was never linear but still we keep on enforcing our kids to get admission in Kindergarten then go to school, then college and the rest of it you all do know. Here’s I would like to quote my favorite Audi Quote ‘Two roads diverged into the woods and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference’. But who cares about this difference in student mindset and ideas we are just worried about ‘giving them a Safe Bet’.

Thus at the age of 3, a child has to go for an interview for kindergarten. Why do we think that 3 yrs old is half as six while he is just 3 yrs old? Why do we keep blaming children that they won’t be able to make the right decision? Are we ready to make the right decision? Don’ we make mistakes? Every Big Leader can tell you that a failure is a path for success but we are too intrigued by ‘Safe Bet’.

Prashant Agarwal

I will write more articles in this series, because we really have to discuss it and truly the onus is on us and no one else is there to blame now.

Lot’s of Ideas in this article are coming from a Ted Talk by Ken Robinson on topic ‘Bring on the Learning Environment’, the Documentary ‘Schooling the world’ and Gartner Lecture ‘The Unschooled Mind’. I highly encourage you all to watch the videos and read the article irrespective of your current industry, as I am sure we all are the product of this maniac education Industry.

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