Lost Soul makes this point that “3 idiots” is a scathing indictment of our education system, and it is necessary to re-examine our present system with an open mind.
In the past few months, numerous times this conversation topic has come up (esp. with Mr. Sibal prancing like a monkey around a hoop), and I have always resisted speaking my mind because of an old world resolution (hic!!) I made some time ago – but that (hopefully) does not stop me from writing my views on the blog wall.
So here goes.
As a prima facie stand – I think there is very little wrong with our education system. Seriously, it requires a little tinkering, but then who does not? If I had kids, I would like them to go through this very same “system”.
Question is, what is the “system”? Is the content (books, assignments), is it the methodology (feed versus force to think), is the last mile delivery (teachers and administrators), is it the competition (students climbing over each other to get into a college), is it the wasted degree (why do an engineering and work as a sales exec)…..
All of it cannot be clubbed as the system, and even if it is, definitely all of it cannot be all wrong….I hope you get the drift.
Lets look at it one by one
1. Content – I think the content is necessary and correct. We need to know our history, sciences and mechanics…and we need to rote the basics of it. Without rote, I would have never imbibed the 3 laws of thermodynamics, infact without rote, I would have never learnt the alphabets. My opinion is, basics and foundation, need to be learnt so well, that they become second nature to you….once they become that, you shall constantly enrich them with real world relevance…..like for example, 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply only to chemistry, it applies to your and mine real life as well….but to see that you need to know the 2nd law and its nuances well enough.
2. Is the methodology wrong? I actually think, unless you force the basics, you can never get the next level of thought to be built on top of it. For example, if a person were to learn English as a language, he has to force learn the basics, he really cannot be taught to think or innovate at that point – only once he is familiar with it for over 5-10 years, if he has it in him, can he innovate….thats actually a function of the person and not the methodology.
3. Are the teachers the weak-link? Could be….but what more do you expect out of a society, that looks at teaching as a profession of second choice. Honest question to each of us, how many of us would willing choose teaching? (Don’t give me the crap argument that it does not pay well..even in the US, teaching does not pay as well as mainstream….Aswath Damodaran could make millions if he was part of Wall Street – he still chooses to teach at NYU Stern. Why?)
4. Competition. Lets not even talk about this, I think its the best part of our system, we tinker with it and we screw our children up. If you want a child to be a real world soldier, then nothing prepares him better for life than our schools. Of course, the school is not right for someone who wants to do poetry or theatre.
5. Wasting a degree….I think its idiotic to assume any knowledge is wasted. My mum always said, “acquire knowledge, you never know when it will come in handy” (Now you know I am a thair-saadummm Iyer !!)….but seriously, if you are an engineer doing sales….you can apply the structured thinking to sales and definitely be more effective, just as an MBA doing tech comes in with a sense of “wonder” and “excitement”, something we usually don’t see from engineers…..get the drift?
Having spoken of some of these issues…how many were even remotely addressed by 3 idiots. I would say none…not even superficially. All 3 idiots did was offer a moronic juvenile generalization, especially coming from the tacky Aamir, some of these sounded even more inane. 3 idiots to me felt like the misplaced self-help book like The Alchemist or Who moved my cheese, the books are “good”, thats primarily because you cannot disagree with such a feel good book, there is nothing to disagree, and yet conversely, nothing to take away or apply in real life.
My point is, agreed, there are problems, but they are deep rooted cultural and value based. They wont change by a movie or a book, they will only change, when each of us starts looking at schools/colleges at “basic education” and nothing more. If you still want to learn poetry or build an airplane, you have to do it out of school.
My fav statement remains, “I am what I am because (and inspite) of my schools and colleges.”. I chose to choose…..I think there is a basic paradox in the statement “why can’t schools teach us to think?”, if you were to be “taught” to “think”, then what use is that “thinking”?
Having said that, I still feel 3 idiots is the most half-baked, yet well made movie, in recent times. I agree with http://hakunaa-matataa.blogspot.com/2009/12/review-of-3-idiot-why-rancho-was-idiot_28.html completely.
Rancho was a crack-jack idiot….in fact he was equivalent in potency to all the 3 idiots put together. The title of the movie is only about Rancho :-)