There is a growing feeling today that something is wrong with our system of education. Nevertheless, what is it? Well, we send our young ones to school to make them ready for the real world, which is changing very, very fast. But our schools have not changed much for many years.
Thought leaders agree that the present system of education was designed within the industrial age, mainly to churn out factory workers! And this industrial age mentality of production and mass control still runs deep in schools
We educate children by batches and govern their lives by ringing bells. All-day long, students do nothing but follow instructions! Sit down, take out your books, turn to page 40, solve problem number three, stop talking!! At school, you are rewarded for doing what you are told. These are industrial age values that were important for factory workers.
Their success depends on following instructions and doing what they were told. But, in today’s world, how far are you able to get by merely following instructions? The modern society values the people who can be creative, who can communicate their ideas, and collaborate with others. But our children don’t get a chance to develop such skills in a system that is based on industrial age values.
At school, our students experience an entire absence of autonomy and control. The system tightly controls every minute of a child’s life. But in today’s world, if you are doing important work, then you’re managing your own time. You are making your own decisions regarding what to do and when to do it. But life at school looks very different.
The system is sending a dangerous message to our children, that they are not in charge of their own lives. They just need to follow whatever is laid down, rather than taking charge and making the foremost of their lives. Experts believe it is incredibly important for children. It’s no wonder that our children are bored and demotivated by the school. Can you imagine how you would feel if you are told what to do for every minute of your life?
Most of the teaching that happens in schools today is not authentic because it relies on memorization and rote learning. The system defines a generic set of data that each student must know. And then, every few months, we measure how much has been retained by administering the exams! We know that such learning isn’t authentic because most of it is gone the day after the exam.
Learning can be much deeper and more authentic. It can be so much more than just memorization and retention! But that’s the only thing we measure, and test scores are the only thing we value!! This has created an extremely unhealthy culture for young students, parents, and teachers. Children are going through endless hours of tuition, staying up the whole night memorizing useless facts that they will forget very soon.
We have a typically standardized system, where each child must learn the same thing at the same time in the same way as everyone else. This doesn’t respect the essential fact of being human, that every student is unique and different in our way. We all have different passions and interests. And the key to fulfilment in life is to find your passion. But do the teachers of today help our young children discover and develop their passion?
There seems to be no room in the current education system for the most critical question in a child’s life: ‘What am I good at?’, ’What do I want to do?’, ‘How do I fit into this world?’ and many more! The system doesn’t seem to care. There are lots of exceedingly talented people that failed in the conventional school system. Fortunately, they were able to overcome these failures. But not everyone can. We have no measure for how much talent, how much potential goes unrecognized within the current system.
Each folk is additionally different in how we learn, in how much duration of time we take to learn something, and what tools and resources work best for us. But the system has no room for such differences. So, if you are a bit slow in learning something, you are considered a failure, when all you need was a bit more time to catch up.
In the current system, children are lectured for quite five hours a day! But there are a couple of significant problems with lecturing. Sal Khan from Khan academy calls teaching “a fundamentally dehumanizing experience.” Thirty kids with a finger on their lips, not allowed to interact with each other. Also, in any given classroom, different students are at varying levels of understanding. So, whatever the teacher does, there are bound to be students who are either bored because they are ahead, or confused because they are behind! Because of the web and digital media, our students have at their fingertips, all the information in the world.
Technology has made it possible for anyone to find out anything, except for fear of losing control, the system isn’t leveraging these incredible resources. Our system of education, which evolved within the industrial age, has become outdated and ineffective. If we want our children to be ready for the modern world, if we wish to the learning of the system to be useful and engaging, then there is no doubt that we will have to change our policy of education fundamentally.
The Indian Education system just focuses on theory lectures and learning. Students are not encouraged to go for physical fitness. This has created a gap between sports and students. They seem to be sluggish and lazy almost all the time. Because they are taught just to sit in a class for five hours a day. There should be equal importance given to sports education also so that the students’ minds and bodies can remain active all the time.
Your friends are your most prominent teachers. You will learn more from your friends than you ever learned from your teachers. Your teachers might teach you how to work hard, and if they are outstanding, they might teach you ethics, they might teach you morals in life. But your peers or your friends will show you the skills that are going to help you get ahead in your career.
The biggest skill required in any job is your communication skills! How well you can talk to people and how you can present your thoughts is an essential skill in any job. This skill can be developed by peer learning.
The trend of taking admission in private coaching classes is increasing day by day! There is an endless competition occurring among the students to get higher scores in different competitive exams. So, they join private classes to crack these exams. This has resulted in the demotion of conventional schooling. The students also stay tensed and depressed due to the pressure of exams.
In our system, the government schools are believed to be made for children with poor background only! And the condition of these schools is also like that only. The teachers of the government schools do not even care to come to the school regularly. This, in turn, leaves a negative impact on the children coming to a government school. This should be prevented by continuous monitoring and making strict rules and regulations.
