Bravo! After several years of failure, education
finally cleared its paper in practicality.
Rousseau had rightly said that, "Man is born
free; and everywhere he is in chains." These chains could be of societal
pressures of caste, colour, educational degrees or religion. The tough task of
education would be, to do away with laborious efforts, such restraining links of
backwardness.
What a glorious moment of application we did see
this festival of holi, when we coloured our widows at Vrindavan, violating a
400 year old Hindu tradition of apathy!
Education is a torch that leads us out from
darkness into light and as the author of 'India Unbound' says, "When
ordinary human beings err, it is sad, but when leaders do, it haunts us for
generations."
Our system of education has been haunting our
students for years; a system that has driven blossoming lives to shrivel and
end abruptly. Its ideal task would be to live a life of love, of working
towards the betterment of mankind and helping him to broaden his horizons to
allow world citizenship. Sadly though, our leaders in education can be held
responsible for injecting unhappiness into the lives of children which
gradually spills into their homes and work places as they grow up to becoming
rich in material wealth and poor in spirit.
Our classrooms are like granaries where matter
from books is hoarded and no room is left for life education. Too much is crammed
in too little a time limit, creating Jacks of all but Masters of none.
Often I have sat to wonder as to how something
that is meant to bring in a wealth of knowledge can ignore the importance and
purpose of existence?
Of late, an advertisement intending to give a
positive message is being aired on Indian television where an attempt is made
to enlighten worried parents and teachers about the importance of knowledge in
place of marks; telling them to focus on learning instead of numbers on the
report card. The lead character in this advertisement is a principal of an
institute who is seen telling the others about how she herself had only
acquired a 58% and yet is well placed in life. I would here say that though
it's a wonderful attempt made at educating the elders to save their children
from stress, it is only giving a half truth. It is giving an ideal picture
which is totally different from the practical one. Last year there was a
college in our country whose cut-off percentage for admissions was 99% and the
scenario at other places is also on the fringes of such glorious grades. Glory
be to God! How and where would a student getting a 58% today stand? She would
be like a beautiful bird soaring high in the blue skies suddenly caught in a
net of learning and having her wings cut off and instead forced to climb trees
and ultimately be labeled a failure.
If only our education would give our students
time; time to figure out what works best for them, then it would be a happy story.
In our journey of applicability of learning, we
could at least try to do away with an education that awards weapons of a
degree to exploit the masses with destructive pride.
A system of education whose focus has been to
enable a life of physical comfort but has failed to pay attention to ethics and
values and in fact which often brushes them under expensive carpets has done us
little good. Mr. Mallya, I suppose would be able to explain this point far
better than me.
It's time we realize that our standardized
testing methods prohibit our students from thinking and instead make them into
robots following simply a system fed into their brain machines.
If we, as a country fail to give our youth the
right knowledge at the right time and instead continue to suppress them under
our dominion, then what today is happening at the JNU is not surprising. An
educated mind wants to break free from the chains of restrictions and if not
permitted, can get violent.
If the concept of liberty is misunderstood, education which can be used as a ladder to help
us climb towards chambers of freedom can sadly drop us down the abyss of soul
destruction. Freedom though, must be
questionable. It cannot be freedom to hurt others with a voice of anger and
frustration but with a dutiful and unlimited voice of love, which will be
charitable to poor ears and never demean a mother even if she is ignorant.
The mother universe, I came into being from, may not have done a great amount of
good to me as per my understanding of goodness, but in all my humbleness I will
practice respectfulness towards her. There are many, who though did not go
through formal education have been well schooled in common sense often
neglected in conventional education.
Till now, we have kept ourselves too busy
producing winning rats and if we do not become mindful, then we will have an
army of rodents, for the eradication of whom we will need a Pied Piper of
Hamelin to change the sequence of vacuous learning and drown it in order to
disinfect our world of education from the plague of unmindful intellectual
conditioning.
But alas! With such a destruction of the old, a
new world of students will be constructed. Here, wisdom which can never be
taught will be acquired with open eyes and ears along with a still mind,
undisturbed with the stress of deadlines for papers to be written and
submitted. Then ignorance which is a curse of the mind and illiteracy, a
conditioned result of physical poverty, will be eradicated and a new mind will
help bring light. This light will then reflect joy and not grief in the world
of learners. Here the learners will not stand naked in their intelligence but
be clothed in garments of character.
We all know that education is a must but let us
also attempt to gain wisdom and achieve intellectual freedom free from the fear
of extinction which is taking birth in the minds of the learned.
One of the greatest challenges our educational
institutes of the world face today is to introduce PEACE as a subject in the
syllabus. Today, the youth of the world is being nurtured on the bread of
violence and early childhood visions and experiences are leaving a lasting
effect on them. Such rigours of life leave no place for them to understand
peace and therefore they are growing big on hatred; hatred of caste, religion,
colour and economic placements. Instead of educating their minds to be free,
they are getting chained in torturous situations which are destroying their
capacity to grow to love one and all.
After all, at the end of the day, education bereft of love and peace only leaves
them less career choices. We need to read the stories
from the his-story books and understand the past wars and work towards positive
emotions of affection towards one and all with commitment.
Our world has a great diversity and we must learn
to appreciate it instead of getting prejudiced about it. We must inspire every
student towards world democracy giving every mind, space to move in a holistic
way. Education of peace needs to be supported in every institute of learning so
that our future world wealth will not be wasted in making weapons of war and instead be used to make tools of
agriculture, art and literature.
The Good Lord, when He walked the earth, taught
us to pray and we must now at least learn to go beyond the printed word and
bring down to our planet, the order of the heavens.
Let us then in our classrooms teach peace and not
the makings of atom bombs. Let us teach about a world which has no boundaries
or territories but grasslands of free love and oceans of peace. Let us become
citizens of humanity. Let us seek the limitless, leaving behind the limited.
This festival of colours, we have taken a
gigantic leap in India to apply our knowledge and make our world shine bright
with colours of understanding. Let us now not stop here ever but instead
stretch the limits of our horizons and literally bring down the heaven planned
for us in creation.
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Eye opener. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteEye opener. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteSuperb... I Like the idea of introduction of subject PEACE... Its really needed a lot now. ....good job ...Ruby mam...
ReplyDeleteSuperb... I Like the idea of introduction of subject PEACE... Its really needed a lot now. ....good job ...Ruby mam...
ReplyDeleteVery good
ReplyDeleteVery good
ReplyDeleteVery well written Ruby. I totally endorse the idea of PEACE as a subject to be taught.
ReplyDelete