If any of you have been reading my blogs over the years, you will know that education is, and has been, a pretty emotive topic for me. More so because very often I have found myself to be on the fringes of generally held opinions. As an outlier, I have touched on it in various blogs trying to be as objective as I can be, considering that I have two children in the system.
I think all of us are touched by education, either through our own experiences or our children's on-going tribulations. Almost every second person that I meet talks about it, and views can be as polarised as any item of discussion can ever be. For people in the Eastern hemisphere this is a highly charged issue, and as their children reach a stage where admissions for Universities are imminent, their voices become more shrill and anxious. Admissions into good colleges are extremely difficult, and to get a combination of a good college within the vicinity, even more challenging.
When I was in Bombay last month I read in the Times of India, of a college in Delhi which had announced their required percentage cut-off for admissions, at a 100%. A 100% !!!!! That is ridiculous by any standard, and even the Education Minister of India made a comment on it. During that trip every person I met, spoke about schooling, tuitions and education. It has permeated Indian society like no other issue has, and is definitely, by orders of magnitude, more of an issue than when we were growing up.
In the West it is slightly less of a concern, as the curriculums seem to be more flexible and the overall supply of good colleges meets the demand (I guess). Their entire system seems to be graded, and starts ratcheting up steeply in the more advanced classes. Their belief is that a six year old in not half a twelve year old, and the system reflects that philosophy somewhat.
However, in all of this brouhaha of education no one seems to question the foundations of that system. Nobody asks whether it is capable of preparing our children for a world that they will enter in the next few years, into an environment that even the brightest minds cannot predict or envisage.
Anyway enough of me - the purpose of this blog was to get you to view the attached talk by Sir Ken Robinson on YouTube. He questions "Do Schools kill Creativity?", and though it is for a duration of twenty minutes, the delivery, humour and insight makes it seem just too short.
I would strongly recommend this to all parents. If you have already seen this, see it again!
2 comments:
Simply Superb!! Had me in splits. But at the same time it taught me how narrow minded I have been about education.
Now I know why my creativity got lost ... could'nt write an essay to save my life ha ha
I am trying my best to encourage myself to tell Percy/Pari to do in life what they enjoy doing rather than the stereo type degrees... but at the same time i know this world does not see anything but degrees...
In fact the most successful people in this world have had least of education.
I so agree with you, and hence the reason for this post. I wish that more parents could see this and understand the futility of putting the pressure they put on children in their formative years. But again everyone's situation is different.
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