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Thursday, 5 February 2015

We Aren't Kids Anymore

The education system in India is quite strange. I'm in my first year of college and yet I'm still being made to bring my parents to collect my memorandum of marks. I mean, really? I'm 19. They need to let go sometime.
While talking to my mom, who complained about having to come meet the teachers, she told me that the system has mollycoddled us to the point of suffocation. It doesn't let us make decisions for ourselves. It even commits the mistakes that we should have made ourselves to learn a lesson. What can the teachers tell my mother that she doesn't already know? You can't grasp our hands with an iron fist. We're no longer the little kids who need babysitting all the time. Sure, we won't make great decisions all the time. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't make them. When I was a little kid, probably 5-6 years old, I fell and scraped my knee pretty badly. My grandmother told me to stop crying, reasoning that I fell because it was life's way of toughening me up. We can't be protected from everything. As much as my mom would love to shelter me from the world, it isn't possible.
Now, I don't think this issue of the marks memo, arises out of some misplaced protective instinct. It arises out of the stupidity of our education system. We're all so set in our ways. Stick to the textbook. Nothing further. Your answers should be three sides at least. Doesn't matter if you fill it with crap as long as your subheadings are correct and its neat. We've become so focused on the textbooks that when it comes to practicality we're stumped. I'm not saying that being book smart isn't important. I value it above most things. But what's the point of being book smart if you can't explain it in your own style and actually implement it? Einstein once said that if you can't explain a matter in simple words, you haven't understood it. Exams are a test of memory and conceptual understanding. I think we also need to be taught how to actually use all those lessons that almost made us die of boredom. Coming back to my original point, do you want us to grow up or not? Do you want us to make you proud? Do you want us to smile and remember you fondly? If yes, let us go. We're not children anymore. And for god's sake, we can be trusted with a report card.

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