Who is the Father of my Nation?

Much has happened after the Hapsburgs or the first landing on the moon — and an education that says that my two fathers are not the same – The one who fathered my nation and the one who is the father of my nation.

For me, I have often wondered about my education. To Be or not to Be was not my question (Pardon me, Shakespeare, for the theatrics of life). Rather it has always been — Did I or did I not ?

Some time ago, some psychologists like Mark Rosenzweig, while experimenting (with rats), discovered a striking increase in the mass and thickness of the cerebral cortex as well as accompanying changes in brain chemistry in animals, when they were kept in a variety filled, lively, enriched environment. Since a more massive cerebral cortex would play a role in future learning, the importance of enriched childhood environments was clear.

That was when the play ground got replaced by the playschool.

Not mine.

Playschool deprivation, which I have because I didn’t go to playschool could be a major handicap. I am told that it is the reason for my lack of understanding of my co – humans. Also, my ignorance of drawing and nursery rhyme skills could be one of the reasons why I am not as talented as Bill Gates or Rowling.

My school - going son, who like me also has a problem about figuring out the utility of his education, is confident that he will be better off than me.

At least with the number of hours he puts into playing in his virtual playground, killing Jedis, Ninjas, other sundry good and bad guys and Lara Croft and other sexy girls on his T.V. and Computer- What he learns is much more relevant to survival in the social and corporate jungles, and of course he has in the process also learnt how to fly and crash all kinds of airplanes with admirable nonchalance.

And I am impressed. I never learnt to fly or crash a plane - virtual or otherwise.

Virtual problem solving is a great development of the modern times. And as usual we resist good ideas with great gusto. As modern parents, we are ready to buy the CD version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the advanced Math tutors, the National Geographic and wonder why it fails to either interest or impress our youngsters.

Is it only us, who make this merry – go – round, go round and round? Because we know no better?

Can we let go of what we know? We must. We no longer know how to educate them. We are offering knowledge that has no relevance to the kind of life they will lead. Even in terms of the future demands as employees or entrepreneurs, knowledge will be proved to be a handicap and hindrance to innovative ways of creative problem-solving that will have no past precedence for reference. If one plus one may not add up to two in some applications with different parameters in the future, we are better off in striking it off the curriculum today.

But we regard our educational curriculums as a precious heritage that has been nurtured and updated over the millenniums that we can’t let go. And worse, we have no idea what will replace it.

So we continue with what we have.

Writer A. Toffler was famous when I was in school. He wrote this.“Today, children who enter school quickly find themselves part of a standard and basically unvarying organizational structure: a teacher - led class. One adult and a certain number of subordinate young people, usually seated in fixed rows facing front, is a standardized basic unit of the industrial era school. As they move, grade by grade, to the higher levels, they remain in this same fixed organizational frame. They gain no experience with other forms of organization, or with the problems of shifting from one organizational form to another. They get no training for role versatility. And no advance experience of what they will face when they begin to move through the impermanent organizational geography of super- industrialism”.

Today my son studies in the same system that I did.

Do we really need the excuse of waiting for spring time to do a spring cleaning?

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

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