The Student's paradise

Remember that teacher from school who inspired you to do every math problem in the book twice? Or the one who explained poems like never before? Oh, and there was also this teacher who felt so wonderful listening to us singing in the group that she couldn’t stop smiling! How many such teachers do you recall?

No, really. I want you to try and recall, how many? In 14 years of an average educational journey, we’re only able to recall those 5-6 people who really stood out. They made us feel like we were heroes doing a brilliant job at the subject.

Imagine a world where all your teachers were like that. The word “Teacher” immediately reminded you of the passion with which they convey their thoughts, the immense knowledge they possessed and the compassion with which they talked to you when you went to them with a question. You were given homework which allowed you to understand the topic in an entirely different way. It was magical. In an entire year of school, you were suddenly able to understand a lot of things with so much clarity and yet left with so many questions you wanted answers to. Exam Pressure? Well, the exams were merely friendly conversations with the teachers who were only trying to ensure that you understood the beauty of the content they were trying to convey.

Students weren’t grouped based on age. They were free to choose what they wanted to learn about. Nobody passed or failed. They just graduated when they had learnt about enough things.

“What do you want to be?”

The question was not answered based on the societal norms and how much you earned in different professions. It was a question of love. What did you love the most? Well, I loved Math and Poetry. No problem.

University education was a hub of people who wanted to conduct excellent research, people who dedicated their lives to the love of a subject or subjects. When a person wanted to study, it was more about the love of knowledge and less about the degree awarded with it.

It’s only a dream. Probably quite inefficient, quite debatable. That, however, is a conversation which must be done. We cannot mindlessly keep sending our children to schools which aim at teaching how to “pass”. The universities where people just come to get degrees, so they could get a job and survive life, waiting for their time to end. We want systems where people envision the small way in which they could change the world, the beauty in what they did everyday.