On education
Okay. So, in this blog, I am trying out something new. I want your opinion about the topic before I start babbling. So the question I have been thinking about is:
"Should education be competitive?"
Please think about your learning experiences, and those of others. Do you think that what we study is influenced by the requirement to test for it? Is that conducive to learning? Is that limited by the caliber of our testers? Could an environment be designed for learning for learning's sake? Would it create more confident and self driven people... these are just my questions. Yours could be different!
Please let your thoughts flow... I would like to hear your ideas.
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Both of the comments I received argued that competitive education is needed to land a good job. The premise being that companies like to hire people who have good education. I think we all agree that little of what we learn is actually applied in work environment. Companies hire from top universities perhaps because if a person has made it to this prestigious university one can implicitly assume that the person has risen through a lot of competition and is smart. So he/she will do your job well. So, getting into a good university is the entry ticket to livelihood, and no doubt it is important for existence.
But then, why do we study all that we study?
Say, a prestigious university gives you two options - either you pay their fees upfront and get a degree, or you slog there for four years, pay the fees and get the same degree. Which one would you take and why?
Going beyond the first job, it is one's smartness and hardwork that will bring career growth and wealth. So, I studied for 20 years for that first job. Was that my goal in those 20 years - that first and maybe the second job?
Judgement comes from experience. And experience comes from exposure. Education forms a huge part of nurture by exposing us to various stimuli. When we are learning, we gain a perspective and judgement.
Take for instance, English. To narrow it down, say poetry appreciation. I remember that we had these study guides which gave poem appreciations that one could learn and reproduce in tests and score wonderfully. But, then that person never learnt to understand poems. What skills would poetry appreciation hone in a person? Understanding a prose or poetry, making your own opinion, stating your opinion in logically in writing, judgement to understand what other person is saying without clouding it with your point of view... maybe? Or just the pure joy of appreciating poetry in later life?
Or a more concrete example - geography. I met a friend talking about global warming who did not know that global warming and ice age are long cycles spanning centuries. She thought of them in terms of a couple of years of warmth and then cold. Does that matter? No, not really. But it does matter that in all the "test focussed education", she never really trained herself to ask 'why?', to do some fact finding. So such people can be led, be fed with sound bites, be subjected to fear-mongering, be controlled easily.
Education is about training yourself to ask why, to find out for yourself, to be inquisitive. This engenders confidence in yourself and world around you. Because you are able to think and make your own decisions and conclusions. Yes, given our social structure, it is important in getting a job.
But can one do well in tests and really learn? Are the test-graders ready for openness of opinion? Are they ready to accept logical arguments that are different from their beliefs? Do they have the time and resources to care? From my educational experience, the answer is that lack of time and resources just overwhelms the basic premise of education and converts it into an algorithm to sort individuals into good-mediocre-bad. There is no space to recognize that every individual has a silver lining, and it may not be best demostrated in the ability to regurgiate the facts drilled into them. There is a certain dogma in education where students are given answers to memorize, not questions to ponder on.
Changing the system and its resources is daunting. But that is not an excuse for not educating yourself. Take a step back and wonder why? Why are you reading, learning, doing this? This is but one life that you have. Do you want to learn for knowledge or do you want study for being sorted into that higher pile? The rest is all analogous to 'volunteering for resume building'.
The thing that we call living isn't gold or fame at all,
It is laughter and contentment and the struggle for a goal,
It is everything that's needful to the shaping of a soul.
"Should education be competitive?"
Please think about your learning experiences, and those of others. Do you think that what we study is influenced by the requirement to test for it? Is that conducive to learning? Is that limited by the caliber of our testers? Could an environment be designed for learning for learning's sake? Would it create more confident and self driven people... these are just my questions. Yours could be different!
Please let your thoughts flow... I would like to hear your ideas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both of the comments I received argued that competitive education is needed to land a good job. The premise being that companies like to hire people who have good education. I think we all agree that little of what we learn is actually applied in work environment. Companies hire from top universities perhaps because if a person has made it to this prestigious university one can implicitly assume that the person has risen through a lot of competition and is smart. So he/she will do your job well. So, getting into a good university is the entry ticket to livelihood, and no doubt it is important for existence.
But then, why do we study all that we study?
Say, a prestigious university gives you two options - either you pay their fees upfront and get a degree, or you slog there for four years, pay the fees and get the same degree. Which one would you take and why?
Going beyond the first job, it is one's smartness and hardwork that will bring career growth and wealth. So, I studied for 20 years for that first job. Was that my goal in those 20 years - that first and maybe the second job?
Judgement comes from experience. And experience comes from exposure. Education forms a huge part of nurture by exposing us to various stimuli. When we are learning, we gain a perspective and judgement.
Take for instance, English. To narrow it down, say poetry appreciation. I remember that we had these study guides which gave poem appreciations that one could learn and reproduce in tests and score wonderfully. But, then that person never learnt to understand poems. What skills would poetry appreciation hone in a person? Understanding a prose or poetry, making your own opinion, stating your opinion in logically in writing, judgement to understand what other person is saying without clouding it with your point of view... maybe? Or just the pure joy of appreciating poetry in later life?
Or a more concrete example - geography. I met a friend talking about global warming who did not know that global warming and ice age are long cycles spanning centuries. She thought of them in terms of a couple of years of warmth and then cold. Does that matter? No, not really. But it does matter that in all the "test focussed education", she never really trained herself to ask 'why?', to do some fact finding. So such people can be led, be fed with sound bites, be subjected to fear-mongering, be controlled easily.
Education is about training yourself to ask why, to find out for yourself, to be inquisitive. This engenders confidence in yourself and world around you. Because you are able to think and make your own decisions and conclusions. Yes, given our social structure, it is important in getting a job.
But can one do well in tests and really learn? Are the test-graders ready for openness of opinion? Are they ready to accept logical arguments that are different from their beliefs? Do they have the time and resources to care? From my educational experience, the answer is that lack of time and resources just overwhelms the basic premise of education and converts it into an algorithm to sort individuals into good-mediocre-bad. There is no space to recognize that every individual has a silver lining, and it may not be best demostrated in the ability to regurgiate the facts drilled into them. There is a certain dogma in education where students are given answers to memorize, not questions to ponder on.
Changing the system and its resources is daunting. But that is not an excuse for not educating yourself. Take a step back and wonder why? Why are you reading, learning, doing this? This is but one life that you have. Do you want to learn for knowledge or do you want study for being sorted into that higher pile? The rest is all analogous to 'volunteering for resume building'.
The thing that we call living isn't gold or fame at all,
It is laughter and contentment and the struggle for a goal,
It is everything that's needful to the shaping of a soul.
Comments
This is laziness, you should be writing blogs and we should be reading them.
On education.
What is the purpose of childhood education? Is it to make someone a better person by giving him skills/knowledge or to bring out workers for the society? In the later case there needs to be competition, in the first case there should not be any. As it stands now, the purpose of the education in childhood is to keep testing your potential for the "real thing", and in the process if you are better person then thats a good side effect.
Learning for learning sake sounds good, and if someone wants to do that, then he can spend 15 years on competitive education and he can learn what he wants in rest of his life.
Of course tests tune what we study, but then again the tests should measure what is required from a person. For example, I am weak in English/literature in general--even though I knew learning them is important--since JEE did not require English test I didn't study for it.
I think the problem lies with the tests and lack of opportunities than in competition. Many tests don't really test what they are supposed to test, and some cannot possibly do it in one hour. Secondly, in India/China, the opportunities are so scarce that one test depends on the other. If you don't do well in school, you cannot go to a good college, if you don't do good in college, you can't get a good university etc. etc. This creates a pyramid structure, that I think is the root of all educational problems in India/China If the tests in one level are screwed up then the entire structure above that level is also screwed up.
hmm... that did not come out as organized as I would have liked to. But, thats the best I can do now. Have a test to appear in :)
No this is not laziness. I really want to hear what you guys have to say. Practical comments...
Personally, I feel that the 'really inclined' can indeed pursue 'Learning for the sake of learning' when they are secure in their careers or are well-to-do. And it would be all the more enjoyable then. If u have mouths to feed, dependents, rents or EMI's to be paid every month, rarely can one focus on one's true likings and hobbies without feeling the heat of competition or without sacrifices or without feeling the urgency to secure that 1st job. I believe, it would be slightly easier in the West or the other developed countries wherein the Govt. does indeed take care of the citizens basic welfare. So the race for education is not meant to get that first job, but to truly educate oneself.
I totally agree with Dash's observation of the pyramidal structure of educational opportunities in India. U screw up the Board exams or any other entrance exams and all of a sudden quite a few doors are closed. How I welcome the Govt.'s move to reduce competition at least at school level by introducing the grades instead of marks & percentages.
Education has to be fun. And I'd so look forward to the day when it really would be!
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