What Education did to us ...

Should we be proud or ashamed for this picture ?

This picture which I came across in one of the forwards, which i guess was one of the entries to Best Photography contest.

This picture was then shared times and again on facebook. It did create a lot of proud and praise. All the comments about this picture on all the websites were very much in support of the mother and the need to get this young kid sent to school.

What are we talking about ? Homeless mother, who would be perhaps earning peanuts has been convinced by our system and the entire masses that the best use of that very hard earned money is to send the child to a school in school uniform. Whoa !

Our system has convinced, programmed even that poor mother that schooling is the best thing for our kids. The mother wants her child to be happy, live a life of dignity, not allow her to go through what she is going through and for all this she sees schooling as a viable option.  Infact, we have taken away all her choices. Schooling seems to be the only solution in today's scenario. Everyone wants their kid to go to a good school even if that means sacrificing all our needs and compromising with life.

Lets ask ourselves honestly, are our schools prepared to take care of such kids and such mother's dream ? Are we doing justice to meet the expectations parents have from our kids ? Are we really preparing our kids for a bright and happy future ?

 

 

 

 

Disruption is the Answer

Education does not need small incremental changes (even if they are called "innovations" ) but completely new solution, something that's disruptive of old order. We need a paradigm shift.

However no one except the ignored handfuls are talking about such transformation in education.  Most of the people including NGOs, Educationist, Diplomats and Gates are taking pride in small changes in education. Be it Teach for India/America or No Child Left Behind or a new Alternative school.

Most of the alternative schools are doing this and have been doing this for decade. They would do a small change to either improve curriculum, textbooks, teaching method or school facilities without caring about the larger picture. This hasn't help and can never help. This is like repairing a sinking shipwith 1000 holes. You fix 1,the other will create trouble and by the time you fix 42nd hole the first one is already leaking. Even if some god of repair comes and fixes all the holes, ship would still be weak, vulnerable, and would not be able to face storms that future might bring.
The titanic of education is bound to sink soon. We need a new ship or enough boats.

Among very few attempts to think anew one is spoken about in following Speech by Ricardo Semler -

Maverick - Ricardo Semler explains beautifully in the video (and its second part) some of the core issues in education and explains how they made a brave attempt to think about education from scratch.

This attempt never took off beyond certain point (what and why happened, i am still incapable of commenting as not enough material is available on it)  but it has left a ray of hope for the radical thinkers in education, the ignored handful.

Disruption is the only answer. We need groundbreaking solution to our ancient problem of education. This process would involve creating a force against existing systems, going through a void (when no better systems are available) and finally raising to the challenge of devising a new better system (or non-system) of education.

As a race, we are afraid of "voids" be it a personal void within us or a social void. Hence not many people can let go of existing system inspite of all its negative effects. We are happy blinding ourselves by the thoughts like - yes something is happening, things are improving.

Sorry ! its not , it'll not. Its just getting worse. Education, worldwide is just rotting further with each day. We need disruptive innovations in education. Not one but many. There is no other choice if we are to move away from the path of self destruction.