Education!!

I am a student for the last 17 years of my life. I’ve already written about my concepts about education in some other post in this same blog. Today, it feels like I need to update my educational concept as it has changed a lot recently. What is the real aim of education? To gain knowledge? In my opinion, the real education should not concentrate only on knowledge. Success depends on how it is utilized in your life. The overall result of education must be wisdom! I always used to notice that there are still people in this world who are still motivating their child to memorize their lessons for examinations. I still remember when my mother used to teach me when I was in my primary school. Mugging up my lessons was a difficult task since I was 4 years old. I still remember the definition of “domestic animals” where my mother imitates my learning ability like this “Animals that we keeeeeeee(a pause of 5 seconds will end if my mother threatens me with a sharp look) ppatt our home are called domestic animals”. Actually, I was not aware that the words are “keep” and “at” I was just mugging up and I always used to mess up my examinations as the efforts given for it was too much to accept!!!
Today, I am nearing to a situation where I am implementing a new technique for education. “Use and throw” knowledge!!! That is what I call it! Memorizing things just to write an exam! After the exam, we can forget everything. Just as in the primary school, I am just mugging up! This is not what education is meant to be. The funniest part of education is not mugging up! It is a fact that the knowledge through education is used only up to 7.5 % in our job! Why should I waste my 92.5% of my efforts by learning irrelevant things? It doesn’t make any sense to me! It looks like, learning is just a waste of time if you consider the benefit you are about to receive. Learning irrelevant things in your life is simply a waste of time!! Do not waste your efforts and memory! The real education should concentrate on lot more than knowledge. It is the reason why I consider the job of a teacher as the most responsible one in this world. No one can predict how influential a teacher’s role is!! Thoughts of a teacher are the thoughts of the students and it must be. This must be the reason why I believe that the most influential teacher of my life is a teacher who hasn’t taken a book to teach me!!
In some aspects, there is a teacher in every single man in this world. What we have to do is to realize that you are influencing people around you and you are just doing the job of a teacher. If we see a movie, you may be inspired by the hero of that movie and you may have some tendency in copying him. Indirectly, he is going to be a teacher to you. I’ve noticed some actors in Malayalam cinema, who had taken an oath not to act the role of a drinker in their movies! But, one of our actors justified his part by saying that the liquor he used in movie is made up of just coco-cola and water! It doesn’t make any difference as the truth about his liquor is not known to any of his fans. Nobody is going to avoid liquor and drink coco-cola and water instead! The best thing that a teacher has to do in his life is to avoid being responsible for misguiding his students.
In the last day of my college life, I had an experience. It was a university exam where our invigilator told us a sentence like this “I will give you five minutes to copy the one word answers!”. May be, it will be the reason for this post at this time. It made me think about a lot. It is the biggest mistake that can ever do by a teacher. If I were him, I must feel shy of being a teacher. If a student gets motivated to stop learning by such an activity as they can earn free scores without even a risk or effort, a teacher is responsible for it! From my past experience, many of my school and college mates used to copy each others' papers just to pass their examinations. In the last exam of my college life, I didn’t do well just because I couldn’t stop thinking about the condition which I’m going through. If I can’t make myself believe that I really earned that degree, why should I waste my three years of life just by stealing other’s efforts? Some tried to dominate, others tried to survive but, what makes sense if both of them receive the same result?
I got a lot to talk about this subject. Let me shrink it a little. I was a student of an entrance exam coaching teacher who is renowned for his strictness. I went to his class for one year and left the place as I felt useless to be there. He was a devil to some of his students (I think, I can nearly replace the word “some” with “majority”). All he used to do is to threaten the students and thus the students will learn more efficiently. I remember my tuition teacher who used to praise him a lot because of this strictness but, I got no reason to praise him. I heard a lot about the abusive language which he uses to threaten the students. If I had an opportunity to meet him now, I will ask him whether he is ashamed of being a wrong teacher like this. Many parents are forcing their children to join this master of threatening in sake of a good engineer or doctor through entrance exams. The best way of education is to achieve it with your passion. If a teacher could motivate a student to follow his passion, he need not threaten the students to do his homework. Today, that master of threatening is a great inspiration!! Never ever be a teacher like him. Some teachers are like this they motivate us a lot by being a perfect model of what you should never be in your life.
Everybody have their own subjects of interest. A real teacher’s job is to nourish the student’s interest by making aware of his desire! One day or another, a student can reach his destiny if he is properly guided by someone. I remember a dialog from the movie matrix “I can show you the door, you have to open it!”. Being a worst professional which you have no interest is much worse than being a man with a small earnings. Today, I used to hear a lot about IT professionals who works more than 16 hours a day and earns a lot of money with short time. I accept that they are getting a lot of money but what will you do if there is no opportunity to use it. Never ever assess a job with salary, assess a job with the amount of satisfaction! To achieve that satisfaction, education is the base!
If I were a teacher, my primary objective will be to share my wisdom with my students. It is the best thing that can ever do by a teacher. Enlightenment is the purest motivation to achieve success. It can destroy immatureness and realize what life is! Some teachers may help students to achieve their success by their marks but, I do not like to assess a student by marks.Everybody is unique and different in their own ways so it is difficult to measure one’s wisdom as there is no measurement to compare!If a student can gain marks just by mugging up his notes, I know I am supposed to award him marks but, it is not just the way it should be because, that mugged up knowledge is not going to achieve anything in his life. Then why should he waste his efforts? "Hardwork has nothing to do without a little 'common sense'!! The real inspiration in one’s life will come from himself! If he defines his own rules and his own destiny, no one can ever stop him by any means! I do not know how many times I am referring the movie “School of Life” in this blog but, it is the most relevant time to refer it. If I am describing some valuable points from that movie, I may have to write 3/4th of the entire script of that movie. I do not know how many times I’ve watched that movie in my life. The most important quote in that movie is “You are your own teacher!”. So, just try to be a good student to yourself!

Faithfully

Raghu