Education – 1

Education means to “to draw out”.

To draw out questions, to draw out vices in life and to draw out the already imbibed yet undrawn (hidden) qualities in a human being.

Keeping in context with the above definition, let us have a fair discussion about the same. First I raise a few questions.

Does our Education encourage curiosity?

Does our Education remove the vices from our life?

Does our education inculcate good qualities in us?

There can be many questions but I will stick to the above mentioned three.

Curiosity (the art of asking questions) is an inborn characteristic of a human being. It is out of curiosity, that human kind has developed and progresses to where it is. From the Stone age to the artificial intelligence age, it is this curious nature which has kept the humankind going and growing.

It is this curiosity which helped man discover the art of lighting a fire to lighting a bulb.

It is this curiosity which helped humankind, transcend the shackles of earth and even the solar system and move beyond it.

It is this curiosity that helped him looked outside as well as inside.

It is this curiosity which helped him to move to broad mindedness from narrow mindedness.

Does today’s education do this? The plain answer is yes and no both. The courses are designed in such a way that they do support a few questions coming to our minds. The teachers are well trained but do not have the time to answer each and every query of their students as they need to finish their portion in a stipulated time. So this acts as a hindrance in teaching.

Some schools, I have seen do not cover the whole portion and do a few chapters during the year, so at least the topics that are taught are taught nicely and at length. But then the other parts not covered are left behind, so the students missed out being exposed to them.

Also students learn in language that they do not speak at home. They think in their mother tongue and learn and write in another language which again psychologically possess a big problem. The problem of finding correct words to express themselves possess a problem due to lack of knowledge of words. At the same time we also know that learning different languages from a small age helps a lot. I know from my own example that from my childhood days, I was exposed to Gujarati (my mother tongue), Marathi, Hindi and English (my medium of learning). Later was exposed to French, Urdu and Kutcchi (a local dialect). Due to this it has helped me communiacte easily with people around me and understand them too.

According to psychologists there are 5 dimensions of curiosity:

1. Joyous Exploration – this is the prototype of curiosity – the recognition and desire to seek out new knowledge and information, and the subsequent joy of learning and growing. 

2. Deprivation Sensitivity – this dimension has a distinct emotional tone, with anxiety and tension being more prominent than joy – pondering abstract or complex ideas, trying to solve problems, and seeking to reduce gaps in knowledge.

3. Stress Tolerance – this dimension is about the willingness to embrace the doubt, confusion, anxiety, and other forms of distress that arise from exploring new, unexpected, complex, mysterious, or obscure events.

4. Social Curiosity – wanting to know what other people are thinking and doing by observing, talking, or listening in to conversations.

5. Thrill seeking – the willingness to take physical, social, and financial risks to acquire varied, complex, and intense experiences.

It is education which will help us inculcate these 5 dimensions in ourselves and our kids. The pshycologisys further go on to say that from their experiments, they have found evidence of 4 types of curious people:

1. The Fascinated – high on all dimensions of curiosity, particularly Joyous Exploration

2. Problem Solvers – high on Deprivation Sensitivity, medium on other dimensions 

3. Empathizers – high on Social Curiosity, medium on other dimensions

4. Avoiders – low on all dimensions, particularly Stress Tolerance

So now let’s decide how we want to be? How do we want to mould our life and that of our kids? And how can education help us with all this.

Shouldn’t we think together?