Stop this harassment! A cry for deschooling India

My daughter has never been in the list of toppers in her class. As any middle class parent, my wife and I  tried all strategies on her: Inspirational stories of great people, our own educational adventures with exaggeration, ghastly stories of students who failed to get good marks in public examinations, paper cuttings of achievers pasted all around inside the house, and many more. Our anxiety even led us to tell her about the plight of our maid since she didn't study well in her school. To this, my daughter just laughed. None of these tactics worked so far. She continued to be where she could as per her capacity, interest and inclination.

She is put in a Public School next to the apartment complex where we stay. That has made our life easy since we could go and see the Vice Principal whenever she calls us, mostly after every unit test. As we both wait in the reception of the school like ‘guilty parents’ waiting for the judgment, there is a little solace; the sight of many such couples sitting there, without uttering a word between them or between the couples. Not even a smile was exchanged! All prefer to be busy tracking their office work through SMS. When we are called, we go and sit before the vice principal or the class teacher just like students who are caught for not doing their homework. As we sit on the chair leaning forward attentively, we could hear the heart beats of each other. I have never seen my wife sitting so obediently anywhere. 

After perusing the big file filled with my daughter’s answer sheets, assignments, etc., when the vice principal says, ‘I see a lot of improvement in your daughter’s performance’, we both take a normal breath instantly. But the vice principal continues: ‘But this is not at all enough!’  He will give very sincere suggestions for improvement and we hear and accept every word. We are amazed at the personal supervision on each student and the commitment of the teachers and the vice principal. We assure him that all efforts will be taken by us to ensure more marks for the next test and leave the place thanking him. Once out, we both discuss the issues at length and take important resolutions. The resolutions are the same always: a) Don’t send her for basket ball b) Allow outdoor play only on weekends c) Make her adhere to the home time table d) Exclude her whenever we go for any family functions, dine-outs and so on. 

(Favole13.deviantart.com)

Killing the creativity

My daughter is passionate about her basket ball coaching. We stopped it and she cried. She is a good athlete. We restricted her outdoor play. She likes to watch TV programs. We curtailed her TV watching timings. She wants to play and chat with her cousins and friends. We curbed that. She loves to go for tours to the houses of our relatives and spent time with them. We reduced our outstation trips. All these restrictions were enforced not because we were convinced of these. We never wanted her to be insulted and ignored by her teachers in the school because of not meeting their expectations in her academic performance. As educated parents, we knew that all these restrictions are futile and would only kill her creativity further. But the schools think that all students in a class are of same competence and all are expected to get high grades. (If you don't like, remove your child to another school!)

Except for our unhappiness because of our fear of reprimands, threats, and dissatisfaction of school authorities, we are extremely delighted with her overall performance and behaviour. She had very emotional and social quotient, very empathetic to others, loving, and has a lot of leadership qualities and social skills. She never utters anything negative about anyone. But we are really destroying her beautiful childhood. The academic pressure from the school, the competitive environment, our own apprehensions about securing a career that would give her financial independence: all these force us to put up the mask of ferocious tigers at home. It is like a battlefield at home in the evenings. I tell my wife, when will we sit and watch a comedy movie all together in front of the TV and laugh until our belly hurts? 

Stuffing everything under the sun

I have started hating the Indian Schooling system that is hell bent on stuffing everything under the sun which they call ‘knowledge’ on the hapless students. Forget about my school Chemistry, I don’t remember anything even of my college Chemistry syllabus. When the Class VIII student seeks help from her father who is a Chemistry graduate to decipher the composition of aromatic compounds, he tries hard to remember what he learnt for several years. Other than a vague memory of Benzene and double bond, nothing else has been retained. How much of what we have studied during the school and college days do we remember now? How much of what we have studied have been useful or found essential, directly or indirectly to lead our life?

Ivan Illich in his book ‘Deschooling  Society’ elaborated upon the absurdity of schooling. According to Illich, the compulsory school education system is aimed at making a society that is consumerist, packaged, institutionalized, and impoverished.

Teachers are policemen in the current Indian schooling system and parents are military officials. Both work hand in hand with the same common objective of making children study. All students are made to slog promising a goal that is impossible for the majority to attain. Even the poor are coerced to learn by giving a false hope that there are secured seats to pursue courses that make them doctors and engineers. Today’s compulsory public school system for all children, indeed gives false promises to the children and ultimately don’t give them further opportunities in higher education. The school uniform, the tie, and the ‘English’ manners and demeanours taught to them become meaningless while they end up as labourers, house maids, etc.

Nurturing de-socialization and personality deformation

Earlier, Socialization and all round development of personality were considered as the main aims of schooling. Now, what is happening is de-socialization and personality deformation. Today, school education is like fast food. It doesn’t facilitate creativity. In the name of creativity, teachers give projects that can be completed only by replicating what is in the web, or by taking substantial help from the parents.  Childhood is the time for children to play and learn from nature and society. This is the age and stage of life when they should ideally spend more of their time with parents, grandparents and relatives, not to hear their yelling, but to hear from them about their life.

  

The need to de-institutionalize higher education

Learning is actually a lifelong process. It can never be forced on oneself through an institutional process. Isn't it a waste of time if a person studied for 5 years for engineering and another 2 to 3 years for Post-Graduation and then get into a job where he would use just a very small specialized portion of the course? Instead, he could have joined as an apprentice in the area he was interested and he could sharpen his skills later as the job required. He could become an expert in that field much early and save several years which he would have otherwise devoted to class room learning. These courses are deliberately made lengthy just to maintain and expand the business of education and to provide teaching jobs to people with no net productive gain for the economy. It is high time employers test the candidate’s skill for a job rather than selecting him on the basis of the degrees he has earned. We can find even in premier institutes like IIMs and IITs, professors with PhDs and hundreds of research publications, yet with very poor teaching skills!

Let me conclude.  I need to quickly get back to yell at my daughter to push her to the study table. 

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