So, what's education?
Well, many things come to mind thinking of this word..after the parents, first amongst those things is the school where the child spends most of her time during the most impressionable times of her life - a that too a good 15 years! And our education system tunes the child to compete at every step and that too in the same subjects with other children - whether or not the child likes the subject or not, they compete with one another for 15 long years! This streak of competition only increases as the years roll by in the school and then into the cut throat rat race of competitive exams for higher studies and then on to every stage of life - competition never ceases!
But, what does competition do?
The competition that we witness in our eduction system whilst promoting meritocracy, the damage it does over years to our children going through this system is that it takes away from them, their innocence, their sense of camaraderie, their empathy and replaces it with a zeal to get ahead at any cost, breeding self-promotion and self-centeredness that gets well entrenched in who they are and becomes part of who they are much into their future lives.
Well, many things come to mind thinking of this word..after the parents, first amongst those things is the school where the child spends most of her time during the most impressionable times of her life - a that too a good 15 years! And our education system tunes the child to compete at every step and that too in the same subjects with other children - whether or not the child likes the subject or not, they compete with one another for 15 long years! This streak of competition only increases as the years roll by in the school and then into the cut throat rat race of competitive exams for higher studies and then on to every stage of life - competition never ceases!
But, what does competition do?
The competition that we witness in our eduction system whilst promoting meritocracy, the damage it does over years to our children going through this system is that it takes away from them, their innocence, their sense of camaraderie, their empathy and replaces it with a zeal to get ahead at any cost, breeding self-promotion and self-centeredness that gets well entrenched in who they are and becomes part of who they are much into their future lives.
Whilst, we don't want our children to be self-centered or selfish - instead we want them to be sensitive, having empathy - yet we, like a zombie, put them through an education system that coaches them overtly or covertly to be just the opposite!
Can there be a greater irony than this? Shouldn't this stop?
With ever-growing technology driven civilization of human population, we seem to be losing a balance between competition and cooperation. Machines are making us more and more independent. Thus, we do not need help or teamwork to perform chores, specialized jobs, work, and other activities in day to day as well as professional life. In other words this self-dependence and self-sufficiency is making us individualistic in nature. Society is encouraging such competent people. We are losing touch with people around us to be more competent. And while following this rosy path we ignore the fact that it is leading us to a state of friendlessness and loneliness.
ReplyDelete