Education is one of the most vital part of our life. India today is the second largest higher education network in the world. Universities in India are set up by the Central or the State Governments by the means of legislation, while colleges are established by either State Governments or private bodies / trusts. All colleges are affiliated to some university. The structure of higher education consists of three years of education after 12 years of school education leading to arts and science and four-five years in professional fields like engineering and medical. But the system of education in India is not up to the mark. 25% of the Indian population is illiterate. Only 7% of the population that goes to school managed to graduate and only 15% of those who enrol manage to make it to high school and achieve a place in the higher education system. A few reasons why education in India is given less importance in some areas are as follows:
• 80% of schools are managed by the government. Private schools are expensive and out of reach of the poor.
• More hands to earn remains the mentality amongst many families and therefore little kids are set out to fend for the family over going to school to garner an adequate education, in the most literal sense of the word.
• Infrastructure facilities at schools across rural areas and in slums dispense very poor quality of education.
• The teachers are not well qualified and therefore not well paid and therefore are not willing to work hard enough. This has been a classical Catch-22 problem that the government has been trying hard to fight against.
Also in India, the system of education is mainly theoretical. Theory of a subject is very important, but unless and until one knows its practical application and how to apply it, the education is useless. This is so because the current market is fully practical oriented. And unless you r practically ready with your subjects, you have a very less chance of getting selected in any company. Moreover if one is having theoretical knowledge, it is not necessary that he will be able to do its practical, but the vice-versa is possible. So the education system in India should be changed in such a way that every gets education and they become ready to meet the current world necessities with their practical knowledge.
If let free, wouldn’t children just play around and have fun? Would they learn? This is a genuine concern that many parents have. Anyone who has been with a child knows that they just love to play, that if given the opportunity they will play all day long. I wonder why though? Why do children spend most of their time in play? Are they just wasting their time or is there something to play that we don’t truly appreciate.
After reading “Free to Learn” by Peter Gray I was introduced to the idea of learning without schools. The Idea that children are able to acquire the skills required to thrive in life without being ‘taught’ or ‘schooled’. We often think of education as something that’s done to children by Adults. Rarely do we think about education as an internal process. The Process of Wonder, Observation, Playfulness and Creative Imitation that every child is born with. A process that is capable of enabling children to excel at anything that’s around them, without the need for being ‘schooled’ or ‘taught’.
Let’s begin by looking at our notion of play. We define play as ‘not work’, work is productive, it makes you a functioning member of society. The idea of schooling is to upskill children so that they are able to work and earn a decent living. Earning a livelihood is a fundamental and important aspect of life and I’m in no way questioning it.
Yet, A Gallup study found that 51 Million Americans don’t like the work they do, they live waiting for weekends and holidays. Do we really want our children to go through life resented by what they do?
Then, there are people who love what they do and are consumed by it, for them work is not something they do because they have to, but because they want to. They find sheer joy and happiness in it. These people are often in the forefronts of their fields, truly leaving a mark on the world. Strangely enough, these people don’t have a distinction between work and play. They are in a state of flow or ‘playfulness’ like how children are.
Recently I was in the Village ‘Payyanur’ in Kerala, It’s a small community of artisans who work on Bell Metal Crafts. I was there with them for a week and I was curious as to how the children there learn craft making. Do adults teach them? Do children learn on their own? Is learning a chore for them like how ‘Schooling’ is for our children?
First off, Learning to make crafts is hard, it requires attention, persistence and mad practice to master. Without any form of compulsion or nudging would children engage in this seemingly hard and challenging ‘work’?
To my pleasant surprise after school, the children would come to the ‘Kovil’, where the Adults do craft making. Out of curiosity they come and observe what the adults make. There is zero to little verbal instructions or teaching present in the Kovil. No one is interested in ‘teaching’ children. Children through pure observation pickup the process. They start off by playing with the wax and attempt to build their own crafts. Initially they build seemingly simple crafts and these often lack detail. But no one asses their work, no child is graded or valued for their work. Nobody thinks it’s a good idea to carrot and stick children to improve their performance. They understand that there is an innate strive for mastery and excellence in children and that children learn best when left on their own. I found that children like to be challenged and pushed, these children practice hours on end trying to improve and master their craft. All these go against our popular notions of what drives learning and consequently our schooling practices. I was awestruck by the crafts these children are able to make, without any form of compulsion or teaching.
