Today it is the concern of every parent that their children grow up to be well-educated human beings with certain values in their lives. These days if you ask children how many friends they have, they will count on their fingers- one, two, three, four, five… Not more than that. If you don’t know how to be friendly with the 40-50 children present in your classroom, how will you ever become friendly with the six billion people on this planet? The basic tendency to be friendly is lost somewhere in the pursuit of selfish education.
It is high time that we come together to identify ways and means of restoring the respect, honour and dignity that education has commanded historically. The need of the day is a broad-minded education accompanied by a warm heart. It is of no use if you acquire good education and then look down upon everybody else. A well-educated person is the one who is friendly and compassionate; who can be a ‘nobody’ with everybody. Obsolete principles, theories systems of education and methodologies of transmitting knowledge need to undergo a change. Today you need not memorise the multiplication table. If the same outdated method of education followed in our schools and colleges it is a waste of time. In this computer age, one can know all about history with just a click. Still children spend hours and hours learning when the mutiny happened and carry books on their backs- huge loads of books on irrelevant subjects. By the time a child enters colleges, he or she is already worn out.
We need to harness child’s capacities to digest more. Understand more instead of just bombarding them with a lot of unwanted information. Sadly, we have not done anything to increase the capacity of our consciousness. Creative methods of teaching will help children build their personalities. The education system should prevent people from becoming fanatics. The right education must harness a mind that is free, not obsessed with anything and neither angry about the past not worried about the future. A good system of education must instil self-esteem and creativity. We have to instil confidence in education, broaden the vision and deepen the roots. Everybody who has a stake in education must ponder on a holistic, healthy education system that will retain the virtues and values which we all are naturally endowed with. Education must attend to all facets of human life. The key is to harness the ancient and be innovative with the modern. Only an education that can nourish in built virtues can impart true intelligence. This has to be jointly accomplished by the parents and the teachers.
