An Educational Head Ache

“Why does a person who wants to become a doctor, have to learn about the boer war?” My trouble making cousin got kicked out of his history class over this silly, yet meaningful question. He told me the teachers reply was, that he had to study it because to become a doctor he first needed to pass 10th class, and in order to do that he had to pass history with good marks. I can’t help but wonder, “has education really come to this?” marks determine which job a person does, not his interest, not his grasp of the practical aspect of it; but marks. Up until my days in the 10th standard my ambition was clear, I wanted to become an archeologist. But like Einstein said you always hate the subject if you hate the teacher.  . .

                                                

Yes, I hated my history miss, she branded me a dull student based on one bad performance in one test, and any number of good performances I put up in her subject simply went unnoticed. The hard to digest part is, 3 years after ditching the subject I was asked to present a seminar on the “British rule in India” in my college’s history department ( I don’t even have history on my syllabus. the history department HOD had an debate with me on how the British changed India for the better. It started with a friendly talk with him- and he liked me so much that I wound up presenting a seminar on a topic I don’t study, in a class I would otherwise have no reason to enter)

Similarly, why does a person who wants to become a musician have to waste his valuable time studying organic chemistry or the morphology of a star fish?

                                          

                                              In USA they have the Julliard academy where they are guided towards what they originally set out to become. But here the opportunities are snatched away from many talented musicians who go unnoticed or in this case unheard into the dark. Every parent wants their child to grow up to be a doctor or an engineer. And yes the children admit that they want to become one of the two choices as their aim in life (they have no other choice, the poor kids are brainwashed into the idea before they could even stand up on two feet) but what if they are not happy doing that job, even if they are good at it?

                                           There are a lot of things one can do in today’s world, there are thousands of unique avenues a person can work in. And even if the children are allowed to study and choose their own careers, the education board teaches them stuff that’s been taught without change in the textbook for decades. They teach stuff that is at the best obsolete, yes the basics never change but are the kids learning anything more?                
                                                

                                                      My classmate in college asked my English professor grammar questions for the exam, my teacher of course gave him a format and a few examples of each question. But he was shocked to find that none of the questions from the teacher’s examples came for the test (in which I got all of the ‘elementary’ grammar right) his argument with the professor was, she gave me the right question to study and she gave him the wrong questions. Kerala University has the least number of students passing each year, and an estimated 30% of students attending the university exams each year fail in the English paper.

                                                  

                                                     And by my experience writing one of the exams and going through a few question papers form before, the question asked in Kerala University are easier than the 8th Standard English tests I have attended in Tamil Nadu. It just shows how the basics are left out at schools and how children who have to mug up even the grammar questions because of government school teachers who teach subjects, they have absolutely no knowledge in and as a whole a bad teaching system.