Blog Archives

“If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized.” – Sir Ken Robinson

Growing up, the unstated goal of schooling was to get into a good college which was a necessary requirement for a good life. This long term goal was translated into the near term goal of topping the class. Topping the class in the monthly, quarterly exams was practice that would enable me to top the class in the final examination. Topping the class in the final exam in the first grade, second grade and so on, was practice for besting the class, the city in high school. This in turn would lead to brilliant performances in university entrance exams which would lead to my being selected into a good engineering or medical college.

In the India I grew up in, you could get into undergraduate college based on your academic ability, as measured by tests such as the 2nd year pre-university exam, the engineering entrance examination and so on. The elite engineering and medical schools of the country had their own special entrance exams. The alternate form of entry was by paying a lot of money (called capitation fee) to get into private colleges. My parents couldn’t afford to pay for my entry, though I was sure my father would’ve somehow managed to raise the money, if that was the only choice left. But, i knew what a good child would do: enter on his own academic power rather his father’s economic might, real or borrowed.

“Every education system in the world has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn’t matter where you go. .. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts.” – Sir Ken Robinson

If I didn’t want to become an engineer or a doctor, then I was already on the road to failure (loser, if I knew the term then), a life away from the glitter and the glory. The whole thing was so ingrained in me, I involuntarily smirked at those who went to the arts school or to study say diploma. They were the paths of those who weren’t good enough. Also, arts was at the very bottom of the academic hierarchy. Saying that you had a B.A. or an M.A. was to declare your non-brahmanical status. While my dad yearned for me to learn the guitar, he was clear that he didn’t want me to pursue that as a career choice. As much as he encouraged me to write, he never suggested that writing could by vocation as well as my avocation.

I couldn’t stand the sight of blood and so engineering was my only other choice. Electronics and computers were becoming the subjects that students aspired to get into. For kids like me, in awe of gadgets such as TV and video and computers, these engineering fields were the way to do cool things, to impress girls. Of course, I didn’t consciously think like this. I thought that I loved to study about computers, to become a software engineer (I was enamored by software, not hardware as much). And I do love software. But like breathing air and never feeling it in the rush of daily living, I had unconsciously absorbed that the mansion on the hill was on the road to happiness and a good life and to get to that mansion, I had to study hard and be an engineer. That I liked the subject only made the task more enjoyable.

But what about those whose kids are not interested in the subjects that lead far more directly to the mansion on the hill ? What if they’ve decided that the mansion on the hill is not a sign of freedom, but bondage to a way of being ?

“And my contention is, all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.” – Sir Ken Robinson.

For sure, the kids these days have more choices than the duopoly of engineering and medicine, but that’s also because there are a few more subjects (such as finance)  that lead to what many consider a successful life. But even otherwise, teenagers seem to be aware of far more choices to pursue as a vocation. But even now, if the choices don’t lead to an hugely successful life, I see parents dissuade their children from pursuing them. In a subsequent TED talk, given a few years after his popular TED talk on how schools kill creativity, Sir Ken Robinson narrates the story of a person he met at a book signing event. That person was a fireman, had wanted to be a fireman from a very early age. But in school, a teacher made fun of him, of squandering his talent if he wanted to be a fireman. A friend told me the story of a school mate of his, someone who was brilliant with his hands and automobiles, but couldn’t get straight grades to get past high school. Today, he runs a successful auto mechanic store in Mumbai. I know of several people who fit this category of being borderline when it comes to academic ability, but are otherwise brilliant with their hands-on intelligence in the same subject.

Many might interject at this point arguing that schooling provides the opportunities, not the guarantees. That if the kids are not bright, then there is nothing that can be done. Look at all the brilliant kids who’ve come out of schooling, look at how they’ve changed the world. I have two questions for them. First, did they succeed despite schooling or because of it ? Second, how many equally talented children have we left behind because of schooling ? If you doubt this argument, think of what Einstein, considered by many to be the very idea of genius, said:
“One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.“

Sir Ken Robinson narrates the story of Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of musicals such as Andrew Llyod Webber’s Cats and Phantom of the Opera. She was underperforming in school and was classified as having learning disability (these days she might be labeled as having ADHD and given Ritalin). The doctor her mother took her to discovered her gift for dancing and asked her mother to enroll in a dancing school instead of a regular school. Lest you think this is uncommon, teachers are how most people learn that their kids have ADHD (read this CNN article or this one or read the brilliant Anatomy of an Epidemic).

How many more unsung people are out there, damaged or hobbled by schooling ?

Some say that the point of schooling is about imparting basic skills. But, schools fail to impart such basic skills as critical thinking and a deep understanding of the scientific method and basic scientific principles that we can use in our daily lives. How many of us are able to explain why intelligent design is not a scientific theory or separate pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo from real science. Books such as Innumeracy talk of our basic inability to even comprehend numbers in a meaningful way, something that is exploited in a subtle, subterfuge way by politicians and marketeers. Literacy maybe one skill that is taught by schooling, but it is clear that many public schools in this country, the US, fail even at that basic level.

So what is schooling good for then ?

“Our education system has mined our minds the way we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future it won’t serve us.” – Sir Ken Robinson.

I’ve often wondered if the schools are a rehearsal for the work life to come. Children have to be broken (similar to how dogs are house broken) to give up their aimless pursuit of wonder and trained to sit still in classrooms, much as we adults tend to do in cubicles and offices. The whole thing is so systemic, we don’t even see it as a problem. Just that sometimes in the night, or in the minutes just before we’re fully awake, we sense an undefined, vague malaise. But, of course, this is the small price for the comforts of our life, at our successes.

But, the world is changing far too rapidly than in the past, too rapidly for the ways of our parents and even our generation for us to accurately predict what the future will be like. Paths that were almost certain roads to middle class and beyond, are no longer so. When I was in India a couple of years back, I fell into a conversation with a stranger on the local city bus. He was lamenting how despite his getting a B.E in computer science from a locally reputed college, there were no jobs to be found, thanks to the recession. He mentioned how, a few years back, such a degree was a surefire path to success. Sir Ken Robinson calls this steady rise in the qualifications needed to get a job, academic inflation. So, in the coming world, creativity and critical thinking are far more important than pursuing well established ladders to economic success. Academic excellence may not be the best use of our children’s talents and abilities.

So then, how are we as parents to think about education ? What are we to do ?

Powered by ScribeFire.