Education

Now here is this thing called “Education”. What is it? Literacy? Number of degrees? Yes all of that. I mean it is a great thing to be able to read and write. In this day of information and knowledge explosion, education opens up so many avenues. So, I’m all for it and don’t think we need to revert to the Stone Age sort of a thing but here are some myths I’d like to explore.

No. 1 Multiple Intelligence

You see some time back I came across a guitarist who was playing in a music band and we had a few arguments. Since I came out quite strongly in all my opinions, he got miffed with me and said that I thought he is dumb. Well, I had thought no such thing and told him "don’t blame me if ‘you’ think you are dumb". But in all honesty, I did not think he was dumb. Sure he could not discuss politics like me but I wouldn’t have been able to play a single cord on a guitar. His intelligence lay elsewhere and even for a moment I did not see how he could think he is dumb. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

So intelligence is not to be equated with academic excellence alone. If you are an actor, musician or sportsman, you have a different kind of talent and besides talent, it takes a lot of intelligence to succeed in any field. I once saw one of my aunts really push her son into studies when he was so good (actually excellent) at sports. He left sports because of that pressure but never became good at studies anyway.  So, it is good to understand the concept of multiple intelligences – children as well as adults are gifted differently and they do best when they harness that potential. A guitarist has different sort of musical intelligence from a journalist and a journalist from a mathematician.

No.2  Uneducated people are dumb

Are they really? Now I have had many a maid in India and China and they are clever to a dozen. I mean really clever and smart. I mean I felt dumb many a times. But yes, if they are absolutely illiterate, they would have some sort of complex about it. So, sure education will improve people’s chances and help them progress but the ones who are not educated are not really dumb either.

No. 3 Education versus Creativity

I have read this someplace, that people who are the absolute topmost in academics do worse than people who are second rung. Like people who score high marks but not the highest tend to do better in life. I saw this in reality too. I think some business schools in the US have a policy to recruit candidates across the percentile spectrum. I can understand the logic of it. I mean the ones who strive for top end academic excellence tend to become uni-dimensional and probably miss out learning other personality traits. The next rung guys and gals are smarter actually.

But apart from smartness, there is an element of creativity which is sacrificed sometimes through structured education. It was Einstein who said I think that it is a wonder how any creativity survives formal education.

Now the reason that is, is not because education per se is bad but perhaps it is too linear. Going back to the first concept, education is yet to truly catch up to the idea of multiple intelligences. It is important to recognize that different children are talented differently, and education needs to be a lot more varied to bring out the best in each. The whole idea of segregating winners from losers too early based on marks in mathematics is quite rudimentary.

No. 4 Charitable foundations around Education

Now here is a funny experience I want to share with you. I was in a setup and there was this thing about let us do some good to the society around (mainly the poor) and I was to lead that initiative. So we sat together and of course the  first thing we thought of was opening a school, in fact a mobile school with mid day meal sort of a thing. Highly excited we went around taking a rain check and to our dismay, we discovered that everybody was doing education. A builder had opened a school, a company had opened a school, there were government schools and you know just about everyone involved in doing some charity had first thought of a school. Well, ok, we realized that is not the stuff to go after then. 

Then we started doing some fieldwork and went to these hutments with a questionnaire and whatnot – proper research. And of course the first and foremost issue was lack of toilets verbalized strongly especially by women. I mean in villages and all it is still ok as there are a lot of open spaces but in large congested cities, women have a hard time even finding a space to use as an open site. It really looked like a crisis to us. And one, that is so hard to resolve. I mean if it is food or clothes, all you have to do is organize funds and distribute it to people (it is not that simple either but relatively speaking). In a toilet, there has to be a drainage system, some set up, water connection and it was really a mess we really had no answer to. Next big issue was access to water but most hutments had some access to shared water resource.

But I digress, now coming back to education. Not just during the course of this study but before also, most NGOs and charitable schools have the same problem – high dropout rate especially among boys. But nevertheless these schools were doing an ok job and actually at least in the city, it was heartening to see that there was actually a glut in the market.

In the rural areas of India illiteracy is high and very few schools really exist so that is where there is a need for a literacy drive. But in urban India access to schools is quite good and even among the poor, they like sending their kids to “English medium” schools.

Umm what more do I want to say.. well ok for the people who object to girls’ education that it would give them ideas sort of a thing, well be rest assured, that is not true. I have seen many an educated people who are highly regressive and some not so educated ones who are highly progressive. So, I’d say some basic education is a must to even survive in today’s world. But beyond that, it is not the be all and end all of everything. There are other character traits people need to develop. It is rather important to have a personality, some discernment and most importantly to be able to think for yourself. Education should build a knowledge base as ignorance is dangerous but it should not destroy people' ability to think.

Now who is truly educated? I personally like Aristotle’s idea on it who said that it is the mark of an educated mind to entertain and idea without first accepting it. Yes, knowledge is very important but it should never come at the expense of “openness”.

What do you think? You know what I mean

…“think”