“Don’t
worry about your marks. Just make sure you keep up with your work and that you
don’t have to repeat a year. But it’s not necessary to have good marks in
everything. You learn the most from things that you enjoy doing so much that
you don’t even notice time is passing. Often I’m so engrossed in my work that I
forget to eat lunch.” These words were written by the great physicist, Albert
Einstein in a letter to his son, Hans Albert. Einstein was not exceptional in
all the prescribed subjects during his school days. He was rather excellent in
physics and mathematics right from a very young age. We cannot even imagine the
thought process that Einstein had undergone at a young age to churn out such a
contribution to the history of physics. Einstein was a genius of his own
without a doubt. At the age of 9, he was shown a compass by his father and he
understood that there are forces that can’t be seen (magnetic forces). He had
extreme curiosity in physics, philosophy and mathematics. Max Talway, a friend
of his father and Jacob Einstein, his elder father helped him get all the
latest scientific and philosophical books that further kindled the boy’s
passion towards the field. Talent of Einstein was perfectly nurtured.
Coming to
our era now, we have school students breaking their brains to push in all the
matter from their textbooks and vomit them in examinations to score full marks
in their 10th and 12th standards. The alluring State
ranks drive most parents to put all the pressure on their wards. Students are
pathetically driven mad in order to fetch more marks and get into a better
college (Medicine and Engineering were always chocolate cakes.). Competition
has its nose at front always. Comparison of their wards with other students
makes parents’ day busy. Race is on for State ranks. Interest and thinking are
all secondary. Everybody forgets the question of “Why these students are sent
to school?” It is like a dog being trained to fetch a thrown ball. Schools end up
producing mark-obtaining mug-heads rather than innovative jackpots. Some
parents shuttle their wards for schools and tuitions right from morning 5am to
8pm. Does it not sound brutal? Money-making is priority for tuition centers.
The concept of tuition was started to support slow-learners in the classes. But
today main teaching happens only in tuition centers. School is only a formality
and a necessity for students as they pay fees. Parents and teachers need to
understand that students are humans at the end of the day. Each individual has
got a specific concentration time span in a day. Students get tired because of
previous day exhaustion and they fail to listen in schools. They always have
the option of listening in tuitions as lessons are taken twice. The purpose of
schools and tuitions is extremely misunderstood.
For
postulating, the General theory of relativity, he had to take the views of so
many physicists across the globe. Einstein was against competition. The
students bring in the culture of competition and spoon-feeding from their
schools. It becomes very difficult for the college lecturers and professors to
mould these students from mark-oriented racers to concept-oriented thinkers. The
stress takes a toll on the student, for the change demanded is drastic. By this
time, the student loses interest in whatever he/she is doing. Brain is only
trained to take in concepts with abstraction. Workplace expectations are
different altogether. Companies are happy to take in Einsteins straightaway. At
this stage, external world makes the individual succumb to economic pressure as
well. What is lost throughout this process is a “Thinking Individual” with the
potential of contributing to the larger world.
Education
is intuitive. It must flow in, stimulate a thought-process and push out
innovation or new thinking. Einstein said in one of his interviews that
“Education should train the mind to think beyond the things inside the book.” Education
is not hammered in. It is let in. The teachers are driven by the time frame and
the syllabus they need to hammer into the brain of the student. The student, on
the other hand, is stressed out with the abstraction of material. Finally, both
decide to work for the marks.
We need to
focus our education towards inculcating cognitive flexibility and towards
arousing the curiosity of the student. Passion was a by-product of Einstein’s
curiosity. That passion changed the fate of this world. The aim of every school
should be to create passion for the subjects. Though we cannot churn out
Einstein out of every student we can at the least stop churning out mechanical
mark-making machines.
-Satz
