Another Brick in The Wall - Part 4 - Tue, Aug 25, 2020

Why Education ?

I you have been reading this blog or know me personally you might know I give a shit (or two) about education, specially the state of education in India. There are a lot of reasons behind it, but it mainly boils down to two big arguments. First, I wholeheartedly believe that quality holistic education, education with the development of the individual at it’s core, is one of, if not the biggest factor to sustainable development in this world. The other, my personal experiences in the Indian education system have not been great. There is only one script and the system is not built to accommodate any change from the status quo. Today I want to discuss the latter argument.

First a little bit (maybe a lot) of history. I have had a very erratic relationship with education. I was a pretty bright kid when I was young, did fairly well in school. As much as you can when you are in primary school, it’s mostly inconsequential. I was so obsessed with math that my family friends still talk about it when I meet them. Frankly it was just breezy stuff where I was learning something fun every other day, and relating it to my everyday world just made it so much better.

Then came 5th standard and things went a pretty much downhill after that. And I was reacting differently to everything that was being taught. Math concepts didn’t have any real world meaning anymore, language like always scared me, arts and sciences were fun but I had so many questions no one was willing to answer, and then there was Geography. Ugh Geography. Burn that shit to the ground.

I believe you can sense a trend here. It was long before things got better. I ended up opting for commerce against my parents “preferences”. Thanks to my amazing teachers I did pretty well. Another reason I managed was because things were making sense again, I somehow knew why I was learning any of that stuff.

Then came college, and after stressing and struggling through the percentage game at Delhi University I ended up choosing to study Statistics. Which turned out to be worst 3.5 (yeah I flunked a lot) years of my life. We were not as much as being taught, but made to recite new concepts every other day. And I can categorically remember never during that period any professor even once told us how this shit works in the real world. You just memorise and puke it all on the exam paper, that’s all that mattered. I struggled so much, to the point I was considering leaving the program and starting from scratch in a different one.

Some how I managed to get through and got my first job, a run of the mill uninspiring corporate gig. But for the first time, I could see everyone around me using the same shit I struggled to study for years to make something new, something beautiful, something inspiring. That just completely changed my world view, and I went from regretting studying statistics to learning every day and every night. To the point where my current job title is, you guessed it, Statistician. If someone would have asked me in college do I see myself in this space, I would have ran in the opposite direction. Today I love it to the point where I can’t stop talking about it.

And that is why I felt compelled to you tell my entire journey. The current education system is a fucked up unforgiving space and I don’t want anyone to experience what I did. I am glad I had the experiences I did, but they also takes a lot away from you. Examinations give me unmanageable anxiety now. That is why there is a need for education to made accessible for everyone. It’s a long journey with a lot of important steps along the way, but I hope there comes a day where my 1st world problem gets a chance to be heard.

There is a lot more I wanted to talk about which I couldn’t cover in this blog. Entrance exams, the bane of my existence, and so much more. But I would like to leave today with this. I would really love to study again, I hope I can do it, and do it my way.

TATA!

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This blog is a part of a series. Mostly my thoughts around education.