Now on the one off occasion when i do attend an English lecture i make sure that i pay attention, Why? Maybe because when i put all my efforts into trying to leave the classroom before the English lecturer comes in and fail in the process, i make sure i make the best out of it. So during this one lecture we were made to read an article and opine on it, no brainer innit? Yet for some reason the girl sitting a couple of desks away from me in the next row thought it would be a nice idea if she copies the whole damn summary from the text book. Now pardon the hypocrisy, since I am no stranger to copying in exams(though i try to keep it to a minimum), But the point i am trying to make is WHO COPIES A GODDAMNED SUMMARY! you are supposed to give an opinion on a certain issue, i fail to understand why you cannot make one for yourself. And also consider this, the girl in context happens to have come second in our college in the 1st semester papers. Now when such a student fails to give an opinion on something so trivial(the topic was on the perils of the internet) you have to question our education system our maybe even our very social system. Oh and by the way i hold no personal grudges against the aforementioned classmate, au contraire i think she is a kind and soft spoken person.
In my opinion our education system is marks oriented more than anything else and i am sure many people agree with me here. The teachers don't care if you understood shit, all they care about is how much you scored and maybe a greeting card you send after 10 years thanking them for 'shaping your future' and praising them on their 'teaching abilities', exceptions exist if any. But it is pointless putting all the blame on the teachers.
I don't want to look like an angst ridden teenager here but honestly speaking parents are equally responsible for binding the minds of children, restricting them from forming opinions, and punishing them for being creative. Especially in India where society tells us what to do and what not to do, students burdened by expectation have no option but to let go of their creative side in exchange for good marks and a lucrative career in XYZ company(again some students do enjoy the pressure, exceptions noted). Non Conformism is frowned upon, as if it is a moral sin, you don't like to study you are not going to be anything in life seems to be the preconceived notion generated by parents in India. A new trend seems to be emerging, or maybe it has always existed and i just did not observe, kids just don't want to study anymore and the reason once again are parents, in my opinion. Accept it, if you put too much pressure on your kids, at some point, all of it is going to come back to bite you in the ass. Students lose respect for subjects like Mathematics and Physics and you cannot blame the kids for that, maybe their brains weren't made for these subjects at all in the first place instead maybe they like painting or have a keen ear for good music.
Our society seems to have been divided into various factions, one group will become engineers, the other group doctors, the other group actors, politicians etc etc and more often than not an engineer, doctor or anyone in any field for that concern will not know anything from outside their field, i remember having read an article in Pune Mirror(or some other paper maybe, not a clear memory) in which they asked general knowledge question to a few students who were among the toppers in prestigious examination, and most of them could not answer even half of those questions, this just goes to show the point i made earlier about Indian education system being marks oriented. Parents seem to have an otherworldly obsession in sending their kids into top notch colleges, which is at least better than the college Mr D-bag-the next door neighbor's son Herp Derp goes to, Why? Because our son Herp Singh is better than Herp Derp, oh by the way have you, the parents bothered to ask what your son Herp Singh wants to do? Most probably not and maybe if he voluntarily comes to you and says he wants to be something else, maybe a writer or an actor you ridicule him and laugh at him, nothing can be worse than your own parents mocking you..
I don't want anyone to think this is a rant against my parents, no certainly not, they have given me my space and i can safely make an opinion while i am with them which often leads to an argument, but hey! no one's complaining. This is a rant about our current education system and our moral system which needs a total overhaul, otherwise we Indians will not progress to our full potential and trust me when i say we have a huge potential, we are Asians after all aren't we? Parents need to stop pestering their kids and teachers need to stop checking answers as per the text book definition and book publishers need to stop copying wikipedia articles and printing them on textbooks(oh yes they do that as is evident by the unedited citations :D) and maybe stop using google translate for Marathi to English conversion, some of the shit that makes way to the text books is downright outrageous.
Now some might find this article to be too opinionated, well i am definitely not trying to shove my ideals down your throat so feel free to comment otherwise(if you read it that is)
PS- Read this interesting article i came across on Wikipedia a couple of weeks ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
In my opinion our education system is marks oriented more than anything else and i am sure many people agree with me here. The teachers don't care if you understood shit, all they care about is how much you scored and maybe a greeting card you send after 10 years thanking them for 'shaping your future' and praising them on their 'teaching abilities', exceptions exist if any. But it is pointless putting all the blame on the teachers.
I don't want to look like an angst ridden teenager here but honestly speaking parents are equally responsible for binding the minds of children, restricting them from forming opinions, and punishing them for being creative. Especially in India where society tells us what to do and what not to do, students burdened by expectation have no option but to let go of their creative side in exchange for good marks and a lucrative career in XYZ company(again some students do enjoy the pressure, exceptions noted). Non Conformism is frowned upon, as if it is a moral sin, you don't like to study you are not going to be anything in life seems to be the preconceived notion generated by parents in India. A new trend seems to be emerging, or maybe it has always existed and i just did not observe, kids just don't want to study anymore and the reason once again are parents, in my opinion. Accept it, if you put too much pressure on your kids, at some point, all of it is going to come back to bite you in the ass. Students lose respect for subjects like Mathematics and Physics and you cannot blame the kids for that, maybe their brains weren't made for these subjects at all in the first place instead maybe they like painting or have a keen ear for good music.
Our society seems to have been divided into various factions, one group will become engineers, the other group doctors, the other group actors, politicians etc etc and more often than not an engineer, doctor or anyone in any field for that concern will not know anything from outside their field, i remember having read an article in Pune Mirror(or some other paper maybe, not a clear memory) in which they asked general knowledge question to a few students who were among the toppers in prestigious examination, and most of them could not answer even half of those questions, this just goes to show the point i made earlier about Indian education system being marks oriented. Parents seem to have an otherworldly obsession in sending their kids into top notch colleges, which is at least better than the college Mr D-bag-the next door neighbor's son Herp Derp goes to, Why? Because our son Herp Singh is better than Herp Derp, oh by the way have you, the parents bothered to ask what your son Herp Singh wants to do? Most probably not and maybe if he voluntarily comes to you and says he wants to be something else, maybe a writer or an actor you ridicule him and laugh at him, nothing can be worse than your own parents mocking you..
I don't want anyone to think this is a rant against my parents, no certainly not, they have given me my space and i can safely make an opinion while i am with them which often leads to an argument, but hey! no one's complaining. This is a rant about our current education system and our moral system which needs a total overhaul, otherwise we Indians will not progress to our full potential and trust me when i say we have a huge potential, we are Asians after all aren't we? Parents need to stop pestering their kids and teachers need to stop checking answers as per the text book definition and book publishers need to stop copying wikipedia articles and printing them on textbooks(oh yes they do that as is evident by the unedited citations :D) and maybe stop using google translate for Marathi to English conversion, some of the shit that makes way to the text books is downright outrageous.
Now some might find this article to be too opinionated, well i am definitely not trying to shove my ideals down your throat so feel free to comment otherwise(if you read it that is)
PS- Read this interesting article i came across on Wikipedia a couple of weeks ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
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