Untangled to Entangled Education

"Education should cater to the uniqueness of every child.”

‘Education- an enlightening experience’. That’s what education is... Education was meant to enlighten our lives and personalities. Enlightenment since ages has personified happiness of the soul, of the inner self. But are we actually enlightened...? Are we really happy in the current education scenario...? Being a student and going through this phase of exams, I’ve come across many personalities who are unable to cope up with this stress and enter into the state of distress.

Everyone wants everything. However, it is an illusionary thought process. The ever growing population has led to depletion of resources where a single opportunity is chased by at least a million people at one go which ultimately leads to disturbance in the demand supply equilibrium. Aspirations of people are increasing by leaps and bounds which further boosts the urge of a human being to acquire infinity. Education has solely become a medium of obtaining all these materialistic pleasures in the process losing its actual role of imparting knowledge.

The other day I was around some kids of 9-10 years of age. One of those kids said to me, “Do you know, the boy sitting in front of you has never got an A1 grade. This is so shameful.” I was in a state of dilemma... I didn’t know what to say. I wondered how these little children were under so much of perfomance pressure that they had stopped relishing the precious joy of childhood... how they had  started judging their peers on the basis of their grades. Was that how bad it had gotten?

Since an early age parents start sowing the seeds of expectations into the minds of their little ones. They do not understand that these little minds are too fragile...they can break anytime being shattered right up till their mind,heart and soul. They carry these broken imprints inside them and as they reach teenage, they can no longer bear the burden of these expectations… They either lose trust in their own mettle and identity or they become mavericks. This is the stage…where parents try to repent and reverse things but unfortunately, sometimes, it’s too late.

Parents start treating their children as their medals or trophies...and of course, everyone wants a gold. And in their fancy of making their child a gold, they manipulate with the emotions of the child indirectly. In pursuit of achieving the goals set by their parents, exhibiting their performance and meeting their parents’ expectations children develop negative and malice feelings of jealousy and comparison. Now, they no longer compete with their own self... now they’re in the rat race with several other children who’re almost similar to them. The earlier healthy competition transforms itself into constant attempts of harming and pulling each other down to reach at the top.

Along with the pressure of parents and the pressure inside themselves, there is also a continuous societal pressure. The society is coming up with these unfeasible concepts of ‘All-rounders’ and ‘Multitaskers’. All such terms are not at all pragmatic and are somewhere unworldly. Children easily fall into the traps of such unreasonable terms and strive to become ‘all rounders’ and ‘multitaskers’. And while attempting to become someone else, these children lose their own skills. These concepts are clearly far away from reality...in reality each and every individual possesses his/her own skills and talents. These talents are yet to be seen by the world...

This world needs to realise this fact before it is too late...before we lose a whole generation of masterminds to this ‘pandemic’ of perfomance pressure and expectations. These masterminds deserve to be set free...they deserve to follow their hearts...they deserve to be what they actually are and not trophies or medals... It is imperative that we let them live and enjoy the valuable joys of their lives...