Beyond the Blackboard

Swati, a Class X student of a reputed English medium school in Delhi, took her own life fearing she would obtain less marks in her Board exams. One would never know what propelled her to take the extreme step, but there are a few credible explanations; she could have been scared of facing the wrath of her family, or she may have just tried to avoid turning into a laughingstock among her friends, all of whom would be high-scorers, no doubt. Alternately, she might have crumbled under the pressure from her teachers to over-perform. One would never know for sure. But what one does know, is that there should not be any more Swatis. The education process, which exists to open up the mind of students, should never be allowed to become so hollow that it stops that same mind from thinking rationally.
The thinking writer Ayn Rand wrote, quite insightfully:
"The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life - by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past - and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort."
Webster defines education as the process of educating or teaching (as though that's of any use!) Educate is further defined as "to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of...". Thus, from these definitions, we might assume that the purpose of education is to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of students. Unfortunately, this definition is found sadly lacking unless we further define words such as develop, knowledge, and character.
It is indeed alarming, the way we have conveniently strung together a collection of unmemorable, bleary sentences to derive the definition of education. In fact, we have totally confused the meaning, purpose and function of education. The students are no more learners, but target-seeking missiles, launched with the intention of locking over and making explosive contact with their targets. What does it matter if they could have had a shot at a different life? How does it matter that they were manoeuvred into unidirectional trajectory by their "learned" teachers? One could always spoon-feed them and ask them to mug up the most important of information; information that passes off for "knowledge" these days. That would keep them occupied, wouldn't it!
In ancient Greece, Socrates argued that education was about drawing out what was already within the student. In fact, the word education comes from the Latin educere, meaning "to lead out". Giving due credit to the origin of the term and concept of education, if - for a lack of other worthy suppositions - we work on the premise that education does actually mean "to bring forth what is within", then how do we so unscrupulously leave behind the other inherent components of our personality that make us complete? Spirituality is one of them.
Then again, what is spirituality? If you ask five people, you will get five different meanings of spirituality, every meaning centred on the respective person's individual belief. For some, spirituality is a way of life, while for others, it is the prime factor that differentiates man from animal. Still others would say spirituality is the ultimate goal of existence, a balance of the self and the outside environment.
And this spirituality is eluding the education process today. When we say there are no values left in the society, no morals and ethics to talk of, we essentially point at a glaring lack of spirituality in the formative years of a generation. The rising number of delinquents indicts the present education system. The increasing instances of crime and corruption are nothing if not a by-product of a hollow learning process.
In their early years, students are taught to focus on the goal, to recoil at the notion of making mistakes, to prepare themselves for the stress they would invariably encounter later in life, and to outdo each other no matter what the cost!
Contemporary formal education - by placing the control of learning in the hands of teachers and administrators, and imposing rules and requirements on students - is stifling the natural love for learning.
"Even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat!" said a very smart person, and at no other time has this statement been more relevant than now. Why be a rat then, when we can be so much better?
"The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men," said Bill Beattie. If that is so, then why do we wax eloquent about terms and phrases like "gratification", "goal achievement", "right way to think", "curriculum-based study", etc? Drawing again on the dictionary meaning of education, we have changed "the process of educating or teaching" to "the process of instructing and imposing".
The learners are as much to be blamed as the educators, one may reason. True, there has been a paradigm shift in the preferential constitution of the student brigade. With techno-crazy trends inundating the society and everyday lives of at least two consecutive generations, it does not come as a big surprise that students are exhibiting shorter attention span, less discipline, declined sense of comprehension and reduced scope of interest. They are, in general, loath to try out things outside their own comfort zone, and the constant race to emerge as "winners" has left them exhausted and stressed out.
But all said and done, students are young, impressionable. With age comes experience and with experience comes maturity. The onus to rectify and improve the learning process does not - and should not - lie on the students and learners. It is upon the parents, educators, teachers, guides and gurus to right this wrong, to water the seeds of free thinking, to encourage the students to explore the boundaries of their own minds, and most of all, to let the learners be. Education should - in plain words - transcend the structured environment of the classroom.
Thus the need for spirituality. An ability to discern between right and wrong. A power to make our own choices. A freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. And most importantly, a right to carve our own fate!