Margaret Mead said, "Children must be taught how to think, not what to think." If so, are we teaching our children to use knowledge to explore the boundaries of their intellect or are we teaching them to use knowledge simply as a means to ace exams and tests?
As a rule, the Indian Education System is centred around testing. We have a rigid, structured syllabus that renders it impossible or at least extremely difficult for teachers to be creative or innovative in their teaching. The whole point of both teaching and learning is to write exams. This kind of exam-oriented education constraints and hinders learning, to say the least.
Because all learning is thus oriented towards exams, we have made the biggest blunder of all. We have forgotten the very purpose of education- to hone the child's natural abilities, to enrich his intellect and enable him to think rationally and with creativity. Instead of focusing on the child, we have spent our energies on creating an inflexible system and expecting the child to live up to it.
I wonder how many children throughout the years have been damaged by the shortcomings of our school system and how many were unable to reach their true potential. How many dreams have been crushed and how many have lived their lives thinking they were failures? Sadly, our education system tries to make each child fit into a perfectly tailored box and any child who cannot be chiselled into shape is rejected and labelled.
What we especially fail to realise is that each child is uniquely different with different strengths, different aptitudes and interests, different perspectives and a singularly unique way of learning. In the face of this diversity, we simply cannot afford to practice inflexibility in education. In the words of Albert Einstein, " Everybody is a genius, but if you force a fish to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing that it is stupid."
When learning is child-oriented, educators can focus on the intellectual stimulation and enrichment of the child rather than on making him absorb the syllabus so that he can cough it up during exams. Moreover, flexibility will allow teachers to make lessons more interesting by using creative and out-of-the-box methods that can capture the child's interest. As opposed to the rigid and constricted atmosphere of exam-oriented learning, child-oriented learning can create an open and invigorating atmosphere which sparks genuine curiosity, discussion and intellectual arousal that truly teaches children how to think, and not what to think.
Must we then do away with exams altogether? While the idea sounds attractive, it is certainly not practical. Children must be tested on what they have learnt and understood. What I propose is that exams must be considered not as the final goal or the purpose of learning but simply as a part of the process of education.
Today, what is necessitated is for us to evolve a better, if not perfect balance between all the elements of education, one made with the realisation that learning in itself is too significant and valuable to be overshadowed by something less important.
Socrates spoke like a true philosopher when he said, " learning is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." John F Kennedy said,"The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth." According to MarianWright, "Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it." None of these people who have done quite well in life seem to have said that the purpose of learning is to do well in exams! But then,maybe this is why Albert Einstein comments,"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
Do we then not have a responsibility to ensure that the education that our children receive kindles a flame in them instead of interfering with their learning? Let us then refuse to conform to the outdated and impractical norms of our education system but rather call for a complete redefinition of what education truly is.
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