Pressure of Education > Pleasure of Education???
Ideally an education system has to be designed in such a way that it suits the requirements of a student. Unfortunately that is not the case today in our country. For some absurd reason, the reality is converse. We are trying to hammer in young minds to fit the education system designed to suit our aspirations and expectations from our kids. When you try to fit a square peg into a round hole, by force, and by making all available holes round, it is imperative that the peg will experience immense pressure, and if it is a self conscious peg, it’ll try to squeeze itself into the round hole, due to its fear of being left out , or being labelled worthless. The fault is not of the square peg, but our inability of creating a square hole for it that has rendered it useless.
So what is the aim of an education system? It is two tier. First is to condition young minds with fundamental life skills inclusive of social, communication and problem solving skills, and most importantly moral and ethical values (one of the most neglected part of education today). The second aim is to identify, garner and channelize the specific kind of intelligence each child has.
In 1983 an American developmental psychologist Howard Gardener described 9 types of human intelligence as above.
Each child will possess only one or two of these nine as a dominant intelligence in his/her personality. Now if you judge a kid with a high degree of linguistic intelligence by his math score, and try to force him to top his math exam, he is bound to experience the pressure of performance. On the other hand, if the system identifies his intelligence, and primarily evaluates him by pegging him along with his peers with similar linguistic intelligence, then the pressure for performing will be replaced by a drive to perform and eventually leading to the pleasure of performance. And he will shape his intelligence accordingly and will be successful in doing what gives him joy in life.
The crux of the matter is that, the education system be designed in such a way, that knowledge about all aspects/subjects be delivered to the student, but along the way, the type of intelligence specific to his personality should be identified by the teachers, and important stages of evaluations like the board exams should be done after grouping the students as per their intelligence. This will help in minimizing the pressure of performance.
Article written by Lt Vijay Nair, Retired Indian Naval Officer, Columnist and Social Worker.
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