High time to take control of your kid's education

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-11/delhi/31049447_1_government-school-teachers-association-chennai-school-class-viii

It’s disturbing when you read articles like the above too often these days, and more disturbing is the fact that no one wants to take the responsibility of trying to correct the situation. I remember, a couple of days after the 9^th grader murdering his teacher took place in Chennai, all the channels were busy airing discussions, debates, etc. on the topic. There was one such show in which a school principal, a students’ union leader and a parent were invited to voice their opinions. That’s one of the crappiest shows I’ve ever seen, in which, each person’s aim was to throw the ball onto someone else’s court. Nobody seemed to discuss how the three of them could work together and find possible solutions to address such problems (Of course, I didn’t have the patience to watch the show until the end).

http://www.alliswellhelpline.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70:student-suicides-in-india-key-facts&catid=42:suicide-more-insights&Itemid=66

Not only murders, attacks and assaults, student suicides are also on the rise. The above article (though from a couple of years back) shows the statistical data on the increasing suicidal incidents among students.

Some of the reasons the stress in students can be attributed to:

1       The need to score good marks in ALL the subjects : How fair is that? A kid may be interested in Math more than he is in History, obviously he scores well in Math and manages to just pass in History. The teacher says “You are weak in History, better spend more time with your History.”  This is absurd. Anybody would want to spend more time on something that he likes and learn, research and improve on that. The system focusses on improving on weaknesses, rather than improving on strengths. Why is it not enough that I just pass in History, knowing only the basics, when I am not going to pursue it in the future? This brings the kids’ morale down, rather than boosting it.

2        Comparing marks with fellow students : I’ve heard parents and teachers say, “When he can do it, why can’t you?” or “Look at him!” and the like. But why should I be like someone else? Just let me be. Each kid is different in his own way, and comparing his performance with someone else’s, is like comparing apples with oranges. The right thing to do is compare his current performance with his previous performance and work out ways of improvement. The only comparison that can be made is with himself.

3       Need to pertain to the school’s syllabus/schedule : For instance, take the Math: History case. Since I am more interested in Math, I might want to learn it quicker. Being in sixth grade, I might have completed the entire Math that is required for that grade very early and would want to go to the next grade, but in History, I might be a little slower. The system doesn’t allow me to advance my Math by one grade and let me take my time with History. I have to wait for a year to pass on to the next level.

4       No time for other activities : The schools on an average function from 9am until 4pm. After school, you will only have time to work on what you did in school that day and prepare for the next day’s lessons. You might even be enrolled in some private lessons, because you are weak in some subject. I heard my cousin in Bangalore tell me that a lot of her son’s friends take up tuitions after school. Ask me what grade is her son in? – First grade. Tuitions for first grade? Ridiculous. Don’t we have the knowledge and time to teach a first grader? After all, we have also studied under the same system of education, and if we are not capable enough to teach a first grader, whats the whole point in toiling and finding your way through the education system? My cousin also says she is tensed as there are lots of portions to cover in first grade. Are we forgetting that we are talking about a five year old kid here? When he has a whole life ahead of him, why not let him learn and grow in his own pace? Aren’t we depriving a child of all that is supposed to experience at his age? When the focus is only on school-related stuff, where is there the time for family bonding, spirituality, reading other good books, nurturing the kid’s interests, etc?

5       No individual attention : In a class of 40 and odd kids, its impossible.  The so-called SMART KIDS become the teacher’s favorite and the other kids feel left out.

6       Independent thinking not encouraged : How often have we heard these? - “Just do as I say” or “I know what is good for you, you’d better listen”. With time, the child is tuned to just listening to what is being told to him, and he thinking for himself and being independent becomes difficult.

I’m sure we can all think of many more reasons. Its complicated to think about changing the whole system immediately. But we can surely think about taking the control of our kid’s life(in terms of how he should be molded) rather than focusing on the system as a whole. Little drops of water do make an ocean. 

Why don’t we let our kids grow up in their own pace rather than making them join the rat-race?

Revelations from last night's power cut

Its become more than normal to have power cuts in Chennai (Tamilnadu) these days. Initially there was about an hour's scheduled power cut, which has increased to two now. They attribute to this to the overall power shortage in the state and they are having to buy power from other states. Apart from the scheduled ones, there are these unexpected cuts which are probably attributed to increased load. With the surging heat this summer, the air-conditioners run non-stop, irrespective of whether its day or night. If any of you are on the lookout of starting a new business, think about selling inverters, they are on high demand.

The situation is worse in the rural areas. They have outages for hours together. By hours together, I mean 10-12 hours.

After a sultry day yesterday, profusely sweating until about 10 pm, I rejoiced on retiring to the comforts of the air-conditioned room, which is when there was a power cut. Obviously I was frustrated. Hoping that it might come up very soon, I lay on bed. In less than 10 minutes I was sweating badly, and there were no signs of the return of power supply. Being very tired, I tried to sleep, but it was so hot that I couldn't.

I went to the balcony and luckily there was some breeze outside(I stopped sweating), and I sat there along with dad, waiting. It was about 11.30 pm then. There is a slum dwelling just opposite the house and I sat watching the happenings there. Visibly, most of the people were sleeping outside their houses. I could see a lot of them not even fully asleep, they were restless, owing to the heat, bugs, bad odour from garbage bins, there could be many more reasons. Lot of kids were cranky and I also saw a lady taking her kid for a walk as he couldn't sleep. And here I was, sitting in the comforts of home and brooding over a power cut, failing to enjoy the breeze even.

I felt ashamed of myself. Even though I have more than what is necessary for basic living, I still think that I will be happy only if I have something else. And this "something else" is always never ending. As I saw the trees swaying in front of me and the breeze hitting my face, I thought I should probably start enjoying the whole thing and make myself happy, rather than cribbing and feeling miserable. And believe me, it felt really good. We played some music and sat there enjoying the night.

It was 12.45 am when the power returned and I went to bed with no hard feelings.

P.S. - I started writing this post this morning and there has been 4 hrs of power cut since then.

Going to school - a nightmare!

I was thinking about how I would prefer educating a kid. Looking back at the way I was schooled(went to a regular full-time school), given an option, I would not recommend educating our kids that way. This is how my schooling was. The school gave a syllabus, the school gave the required books, the school chose what subjects I was supposed to learn, the school chose when I should learn what, and even more. The only thing that I was required to do was to implicitly obey what my school asked me to do. Come on, who likes to be forced into doing something all the time. As a matter of fact, if someone keeps pestering me to do something, even if I like doing it, I might not want to do it, maybe I don't like the pressure, maybe I want to annoy the person who is forcing me into it. No one wants to be forced. Be it kids or adults, if we do what we like doing, the results are amazing.

But forcing was the only thing that my school did to me. I was expected to keep scoring good marks all the time, not only by the school, but also by my dad. I was never given a chance to think for myself, think about what I like, think about what I want, in fact, I was never allowed to think. All that was required of me was mugging up a few subjects and scoring high marks. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was one among the crowd, in the race of scoring marks, because at the end of the day, what knowledge I gained never mattered, only the marks mattered. And, how much ever marks I scored, my dad would never be satisfied. I must admit that I was usually among the top 3 in the class in terms of MARKS. If I scored 92%, instead of appreciating what I have scored, my dad asks, "Why did you leave the rest of it?". So, whatever I did wasn't enough.

Of what use is all the hard work and all the marks and ranks I scored back the then, now? Absolutely useless, as don't remember much of what I studied. Ultimately the knowledge gained out of the 14 years of schooling is very meagre. I was just waiting to get out of school, and once in college, I hardly used to study, as I had an excuse that I worked hard for the past 14 years, and that I was totally burnt. And here I am, still wondering what I best like to do in life.

I really didn't like what I was doing, but I just did it, because I was expected to. All I did when I was in school was go to school, do my homework, study for tests, write exams, score marks. There was hardly any time for anything else, and even if there was, out of frustration, I didn't even feel or think that I might have an interest of my own that I have to pursue.

Worst of all is the competition. When parents choose a school, they check if there is "good competition" in the school. How the heck does that matter? Each kid is different, how is it fair to compare the performances of kids and rate them? If the comparison is in terms of his own past performances, it makes sense. He knows how he has performed, so he can think about ways of improving himself. First of all, the marks scored by kids must be confidential, it must not be made public and they must not be rated in comparison to others. Comparison de-motivates them. Teachers or parents ask the kids, what they think is a very simple and sensible question, but sadly, it is not. "How can that boy, who is of the same age and from the same background as you are, score so much, while you can't?" Yea right! If it is a subject that doesn't interest him, how can he?

The education is not rounded. The focus is only on the curriculum, but kids must know that there is more to life beyond just scoring marks. There is no scope for spiritual growth, physical and mental well-being. There might be a question, if schools are expected to do everything for the kid, why are parents there for? But, the school taxes the kids in such a way, that they don't have time for anything else.

I recently read a post on facebook that said "Our children must be taught how to think, and not what to think!", and I totally buy it. If you force what he has to think, you are just killing his individuality.

Freedom is the key to maximum productivity.

Mega Serials - Hell with them!

I was working on my computer this afternoon in the living room, while the TV was on and there was a Tamil serial going on. Though I wasn't concentrating on what was happening there, a little of it did hit my brain. Nothing else can annoy anyone so much. If the channel is changed during an ad break, the same kind of a different serial is telecast in another channel.

What annoyed me so much about the whole serial concept is that a simple situation is exaggerated to a level that you can never imagine - and that simple situation is usually a family problem or a relationship problem. I would appreciate them, if they were suggesting solutions to these problems, but I don't think that ever happens. All they do is blow up the whole situation, have dialogues that boosts the ego of all the characters involved and not only make it emotional, but also magnify each person's emotions. It's comparatively fine if a lighter moment is exaggerated, but you can never tolerate the way a bad situation is portrayed - everybody crying, complimented by heavy, loud and sad music. Intolerable is the so-called romantic scenes they have - you would literally feel like puking on seeing them. To top it all, rarely an actor acts naturally. They would have a look of surprise or shock throughout.

Since everything is prolonged and dragging, the people who watch it, literally go into it and start identifying themselves with one of the characters, without analyzing if that character's actions are sane or not. And the worst part is, they don't have even a slightest idea that the serials have influenced them so much that all their thoughts, words and actions are connected to one serial or the other.

Movies also influence people, but since they have only a couple of hours to tell you a whole story, things are rarely as intense and you would know the climax in a  couple of hours, and not a couple of years.

I don't even support anyone who argues saying these serials generate huge employment opportunities. The whole serial concept thrives on using the weakness of the people, and any employment opportunity generated hence, is surely not healthy.

You try telling these heavy mega serial watchers to stop watching, all you get in return is one of those serial dialogues.

Please, please, please, stop watching these things. If you are bored, spend your time usefully by sleeping.

Charity begins at home - really???

If this means that without satisfying the wants of the people at your own house/family, there is no point in helping others outside, I wouldn’t really support it.

Whose wants are limited? They are always never-ending.

Consider this situation. I work five days a week, 9 hours a day(plus 3 hours for commuting to work). By the time I’m back home, I’m all exhausted and I have the time only to eat and sleep. Weekends are all that I have to do whatever I feel like doing - from shopping to hanging out with friends, from cooking elaborate meals at home to spending quality time with the family, and its obvious that 2 days per week isn’t enough for all this. So when do I have the time for outside charity, when 2 days per week isn’t enough to satisfy me, my own family and friends?

I can never think beyond my home, if I go with “Charity begins at home”.

There should always be a balance between the time you spend for charity at home, and outside. I would say irrespective of whether you can satisfy the people at home or not, dedicate at-least half a day out of the 2 days for outside charity, thereby balancing both.

So, make sure that charity begins at home, but doesn’t end there!

Learning music

Finally, enrolled in Carnatic music lessons today. I was forced to learn from mom when young. I did learn the basics, but wasn't patient enough to go through each step of proper learning. I used to hear my friends at school sing something, and I would want my mom to teach me the same stuff. As the academic stress increased, I had to give up on learning music, of-course, I wasn't much interested too.

A couple of months ago, I suddenly developed interest in learning music. I thought that since I already knew the basics, I'd straight away learn some songs, so its eay that way.

I had my first class this morning and met my Guru. As I started talking to her, I knew that there was more than music that I had to learn from her.

She wakes up at 4am, does her exercise, after bath, recites slogams and cooks. She also has a very healty diet. She's done with everything by 8.30am, leaves home between 9-10am, and its almost 8pm by the time she returns. She says, music is her passion and stress-buster and hence, despite working throughout the day for several years doing the same work, she has never felt bored or tired. She loves what she does and looks forward to everyday. When I was still wondering how old she might be, she herself said she was 68, after my wrong guess that she was 60. Wow! I can't even imagine being like her when I am that old.

When she can be so active and enthusiastic for her age, I thought how much more active should I be.

She told me, that I'd better learn the basics again, so I can sing anything with ease. She also said, nothing comes easy. If you want to be a good singer, you have to go the hard way.

Well, I did buy her idea.

Self-motivation....

....is exactly what I need right now.

Reading inspirational books/quotes, listening to motivational speeches or a friend's pep-talk do help, but unless I take some time to motivate myself, nothing works, because its me who best knows what I want.

I think, spending some time alone everyday towards self-development is essential. That's when we have to talk to ourselves, watch the unwanted thoughts that crop up and try to kill them. I'm still in the process of understanding what I really like doing, so that I can proceed towards that.

Atleast now I know what I don't like doing. I don't like doing what I was doing for 5 years now. Its not worth it to do something just because it fetches you money. You should look forward to doing it and doing it for a long time should not stress you out. You should not be in a position where you keep checking your watch to see how long it is before you have to leave your work-place. Happiness is the key.

Now is the real challenge of figuring out what to do and how to do it. The first step is to make sure that I'm not distracted at all, which I become very easily. Its good not to heed to others' opinions about you. You cannot please everybody. And, by trying to please someone else, you are only going to feel miserable, because it would amount to you doing certain things that you don't personally like doing.

Its not all about feeling secured in getting a guaranteed salary at the beginning of the month. I have known of some engineers, who after a career in the software industry, chose to quit and work in the media field. It really takes a lot of guts to take a decision like this, when they don't even know if the change of their career path would pay them anything. These guys are real motivators for me.

Writing all this out now helps me understand how very confused I am at this point in time, but I'm gonna hit it and see what happens.

Motivating myself and staying focussed is the need of the hour.

Happy Diwali to you guys!