School or Beyond School
Watched her in and out of the door of her house post 4pm and started wondering why was she so active towards evening. As a young mother, her hands and mind seemed full of planning, managing calendars, schedules and instructions. Her driver, who would sit listlessly in the garage till evening, would sprite to life towards evening. The car would return home only at 8pm and just in time for the cook to serve her dinner. Last Saturday afternoon got me in conversation with her as she watched her little girl play in the park. During our polite conversation, she spoke about she had been very choosy about her child’s school. When prodded further as to what were the criteria for selecting the rather elitist school as claimed by her; she spoke about
- Distance to the campus
- Reputation of the school
- Her friends and their children had picked the school
- Relaxed pace of study
- Stress-free schooling where her child could enjoy school
- Non-competitive environment
- No homework pressure
- Focus on other activities
So did she find all of these in one school…the answer was ‘almost’. Why was the child then not allowed to play with her friends and neighbourhood children in the evening, I wondered. Curiosity got me engaging and listening to whatever further she had to share about the girl. Evenings, the child would take lessons twice a week in basketball, twice in piano, twice in music and skating and also tuition for reading and numeracy support. So, where was play time? Play time was half an hour every day near the park before it was time for bed and thereafter the routine continued.
Thoughts……
In retrospect, our gurukul system aligned with this system of study, except for the technology part of the study. The old system of study worked on the mental ability of every scholar, paced education as per the requirements of the learner. In contrast, however, our history of ancient Indian education shows that our Vedas, Upanishads or any other scripture has been focussed on rote learning and memory and by the end of every period of learning, the scholar is expected to recite the entire portion of study. This built on the memory of the scholar and recitation, voice modulation, reinforcement of the learning and also retrieval of the learning was the outcome based on this examination. Technology has replaced all of this and calculations and mental math has parents searching for vedic math classes and additional tuition hours. What is it then that young parents consider a relaxed pace of work? Is the stress from school now being transferred home?
The Gurukul system focussed on skill-based learning and every scholar was expected to learn all forms of warfare: archery, wrestling, sword fighting and other strategies. Strategies required creative thinking and poetry and prose was always integrated with all learning, whether the sciences or philosophy or art or warfare, and was customized to suit the trade and the strata from which the scholar hailed from. Hence, a prince would focus more on strategies and warfare skills, which was based on critical thinking and practical application of their knowledge, while a brahmin would focus on the scriptures and rituals, but with some learning of warfare, strategies and also games and physical activity. The NEP has in its very essence this learning from the Gurukul system of India, which was inter-disciplinary in nature: skills of archery and strategic thinking, and also multidisciplinary in nature, in terms of skills of archery and poetry appreciation at the same time, and transdisciplinary, too, for, along with archery and poetry one also learnt to dance and understand astrology. While in the ashram, the scholars learnt gardening, carpentry, pottery, and painting, all of which come under the vocational skills and learning of modern India under the NEP 2020. Hence, my point of view is that the NEP 2020 has redesigned the entire structure of education with a focus on holistic development of students and, through this, has actually reinforced our ancient learning system into education in order to improve the learning process. Then where lies the difference in the expectation setting between the school and the parent?
Reservations will always remain between the parent and the school and this will continue to be as is. However, what I notice is that there is a rush from parents to equip the young child with all the skills possible from a very young phase. What schools otherwise invested time, in terms of after-school music, dance, basketball, bulbuls, guides and other team building activities, has moved to the home front. So, the relaxed pace as expected from schools, has now drifted to the parent.
Any thoughts on how there is a major paradigm shift in today’s education, especially in the K12 domain, your welcome to write back and share your comments……
