Education System – Way Forward

The Prevailing Status

You all might have seen that widely circulated cartoon on education system, where a bird, a monkey, an elephant, a fish in an aquarium, a penguin, a sea lion and a dog are standing in front of an examiner….and the examiner says; “For a fair selection, everybody has to take the same exam: You have to climb that tree. Whoever climbs the tree fastest is the winner and if anyone can’t, he is a failure!”

This gif, to the right, summarises the perils of the current education system. It is like an assembly line of a car manufacturing company where every piece of metal is made to undergo the same processing, producing cars, which are supposed to look the same, behave the same, deliver the same output and give the same mileage; basically, no car deviates too much from the average performance. But, we humans are not cars. Each of us is born with unique interests, inclinations, qualities, potential, and behavior. And yet, we are made to be processed like those auto parts on the conveyor belts, to behave in a certain desired ways. The Natural Variation, that nature has endowed each of us with, is smothered, nipped in the bud. And just like those cars emerging from the conveyor belts, we are supposed to not deviate too much!

This is the lacuna in the current education system. It is a standardised, one size fits all, kind of a system. There is no attempt made to identify the inborn talents and interests, if a child is good in sports, or music, or maths, or if she writes very good poems at a very young age. All the system cares is that the child goes through the grind of the assembly line and starts cramming all the subjects by rote. You can do anything in your life, you just can’t do everything. But, that’s exactly what is done. There is no attention given to the interests of a child. As the famous Spanish Painter, Sculptor said,

“Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once they grow up.”

Pablo Picasso

And that is exactly what my childhood friend & classmate struggled with. He was a state level chess champion for several years (FIDE Rating 2210 Elo points) in India. Even Vishwanathan Anand had some encouraging words to say to him, when he was a school kid.  If given good grooming, he could have developed into a really good chess player. Alas, he was born in a middle class service oriented family and the uncertainty of the future was telling. He was bright. He got into engineering, but soon realised that it was not his cup of tea. However, he didn’t have the gumption to leave it midway. So, he chose to row in two boats. Somehow, managed to get his degree, but got no support from the college to pursue his interests in Chess. Eventually, he ended up relinquishing his passion and becoming a lousy engineer.

Another example. My 12 year old nephew’s personality is very clear in his innate strengths & weaknesses. Unlike my chess playing friend, my nephew is a born engineer. As a two year old kid, he had a fascination for moving fans and wheels. He grew and with that his interests. He is good in Maths & Physics, lousy in literature & Social Science. He has his own laptop and learnt coding 4 years back on his own. He doesn’t play games, he creates them. He is passionate about bikes & cars and knows the specification and what they mean. He is shy. He’s mostly in his own world, observing electrical, mechanical and electronic devices and coding. He rarely interacts freely; speaks very fast, skips words, sometimes stammers in front of those he’s not very close with. He can teach a few things to his physics teacher but really struggles in literature, history, civics, Biology etc. In a few of years, he will be giving X grade board exams, whereupon he will be judged on his aggregate score. His classmates will get 95%+. I can’t see him getting that with such lop sided traits.

These two examples are real & up-close. There are several such cases all around us, where kids are forcefully passed through the same industrial conveyor belt procedure, with little cognizance of their innate passions. The output is invariably a lousy averaged out person, like my friend, who spends the rest of his life doing something he doesn’t enjoy, with layers of patina on their real passionate self. Money wise, they could still make it big by riding some large tailwinds, but deep inside, they live a hollow, boring life drowned in Zombiedom.

Let’s dig deeper into this. Picture a two year old child. The child cries only when she is hungry or sleepy. All the other times, the child is a bundle of joy and vivacity. What are the most visible traits of a child – Curiosity and fearlessness. A child is driven by curiosity; curiosity to touch and feel everything around, to put things in mouth, to throw them, squeeze them, break them, and make some sounds. The child does what interests her and resists what doesn’t. The child is not afraid to do so. Fear of Failure has not entered in her traits yet. The child does not compare herself to other children playing around. This is the most basic version of learning. And this is how, as I am going to illustrate soon, the people with biggest achievements have operated even as adults. The most successful people, who have contributed to the success of nations, broken records, achieved new heights, discovered new things, invented new things and in the process changed the course of history of mankind have learned things this way. Leave the big successes, even smaller ones, like success in business by your next door neighbours, have come through learning this way.

Let’s go back to this child again. The child is now 5 years old, and gets into schooling. As she grows, she is forced to do things, which she does not like inherently. She is repeatedly told that failure is bad. Failure is infact ridiculed. Every evaluation result is a judgement on her. The fear of failure creeps in, and in order to avoid being ridiculed, the child starts falling in line. She starts suppressing her curiosity and starts forcing herself in areas she was originally not interested. Gradually, the education system also forces the child into tests, grades etc. The child falls in line further, eliminating all the outlier activities, which she originally identifies with, and just doing what gets her acceptable grades. Get good marks, get a good job and live a “safe” life becomes a norm. The child thus transforms from being a bundle of joy & vivacity to a timid creature that goes into a shell and just focuses on surviving.

Learning vs Education

Do not get me wrong, I am not against learning. I am just distinguishing between formal education system and learning. I am all for learning. Learning is a continuous process where one enriches oneself in the pursuit of wisdom gained from empirical experiences through trial and error originating out of curiosity. It is not, a forceful cramming of knowledge gained through mindless rote. You follow learning you become an inventor, a successful leader, a big businessman, a sportsman. You follow latter, you become a mindless, dependent beast of burden.

America’s greatest inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, had a fomal education, only for a few months. Most of his learning was through autodidaction and trial and error. He apparently failed some ten thousand times before eventually inventing the electric bulb. He once quipped, “I have not failed, I have just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.”

Let’s look at some of the other examples of extremely successful people.

Our own God of Cricket, Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin Tendulkar followed his passion, cricket. He left studies even before graduation and focused on his passion for 12 hours a day! And the rest is history.

Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, was a bright student, and a voracious reader, was originally pursuing a career in Law. He would cram for a test and pass by a reasonable grade. But his interests lay elsewhere. Much to the dismay of his parents, he dropped out of college to pursue his business, Microsoft and the field of his choice, software development. In the process, he founded and built the largest software company in the world and ended up serving his nation and humanity to great effect. Steve Jobs dropped out of college after 1st semester, but aparently stayed in the area and attended classes that interested him!

Incidentally, Steve Jobs’ friend and Apple co-founder, Steve Woznaik, was in India in the month of February 2020. When asked about his views on India, he said,

“The culture here is one of success based on academic excellence, studying, and having a good job. Study, work hard, get an MBA, and you will have a Mercedes, but where is the creativity. The creativity gets left out when your behaviour is too predictable and structured. Everyone is similar.”

Bingo! Woz has hit the nail on the head! The education system produces mediocre people with mediocre traits, who can work hard 12 hours a day for an IT firm, but lack the free spiritedness that God has bestowed them with. A classroom asphyxiates this free spiritedness and curiosity….and moulds them into mediocre human beings, average in everything, excelling at nothing.

Imagine, how Sachin would have contributed to the nation, if he had sacrificed his passion to follow the curriculum, wore an empty suit and tie and worked for a bank….throwing financial gobbledygook at you….”Mutual Fund Investments are subject to market risks, blah blah blah”. But this is exactly what our education system does to lakhs of children every year (including my chess playing friend!). It is foolhardy to accept that in a country of 132 crores, we can produce only one Sachin Tendulkar, only one Vishwanathan Anand, only one Mukesh Ambani, only one A R Rahman, only one Amitabh Bachchan and only one Abdul Kalam. These are more of an exception for our society than rule. As a rule, we produce frightened, low spirited, frustrated, dependent, average, mediocre, ordinary, slogging, timid, complaining and repenting beasts of burden.

Imagine what the destiny of such a nation will be where the citizens have lost their ardour and zeal at the age of 5!

What we get out of our education system is a nation full of dull, hardworking sloggers, who lose their gusto at the threshold of the school, and get dressed like a dapper in empty suits and ties and slog aimlessly in their Zombiedom.

Suggestions

The modern education system has emerged and evolved basically to cater to a job culture that initiated with the Industrial Revolution and segued into the Knowledge Revolution. It has been a perfect backward integration for the Industry set up that we have had for last couple of centuries. The corporate world needed a continuous supply of beasts of burden, that’s exactly what the education system has delivered. I want to make a few suggestions to reorient the objective, key characteristics and methodologies.

First, the objectives

The objective of the formal education system is to be beyond a mere supplier of beasts of burden for the corporate world. It needs to zoom out and treat an individual as an individual. We are all made unique by the grace of nature, and the education system needs to recognise that. Rather than offering a one size fits all offering, it needs to me malleable to take that uniqueness of an individual in consideration. The focus of the education system must be to help a child identify and harness her innate interests, talents and passions.

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

– Plutarch

There has to be an element of customisation based on the identification of the uniqueness of a child. The path of a child naturally good in Mathematics needs to vary with the path of a child naturally good in literature.

The objective of the education system, in my humble opinion, should be to provide a bespoke learning system which customises according to the personality & innate talents of a child, rather than one size fits all, run of the mill rigid & deterministic structure. It should recognize the uniqueness each of us is born with and look to enhance it like a rough diamond is cut & polished. Thus, indirectly, the objective of the education system is to keep the flame of curiosity in a child burning even as she grows and not let her fall in a state of zombiedom.

Key Characteristics of the Proposed System

I am conceptualising a bespoke, self-evolving and autopoietic process – one, which is capable of self-creating and maintaining.

It should have Darwinian evolutionary traits, as against the existing deterministic ones, evolving for each child independently. I am trying to draw a parallel with speciation – how biological species evolved from Luca – the last common universal ancestor. Life emerged in a diverse, self-evolving way through recognising natural variation and enhancing it in due course of generations. Each natural variation is allowed to take its natural course and not forced into a deterministic path saying, “Hey, you can’t evolve to become a monkey…you have to evolve into a banana”!

In a similar vein, the education system should recognise the natural variation in each child and look to nudge each of them towards their own strengths. Thus, going back to the animal cartoon analogy, instead of every animal being made to go through a standardised competition, is nudged into the direction of their strengths. Thus, a monkey is nudged into climbing trees, a penguin is sent to Antarctica, a fish is nudged into swimming…so on & so forth. Each of the animals end up doing what comes naturally to them. A fish (just for argument sake) may turn out to be more successful (in whatever terms) than say a monkey, but irrespective of that, each of them will live a life of its choice…a life that it will not regret living…a life that will not push it into Zombiedom.

Here’s a step wise process, I’m conceptualising

Step 1: Expose & Explore

This is pretty much in line with what is the existing system for kindergarten / pre-primary kids. Kids are exposed to the building blocks of learning. The kids are then monitored closely for their innate talents & interests. These innate talents & interests are akin to the Darwinian natural variations. It is from the subsequent step that the proposed system starts doing things differently.

Step 2: Self-Evolve

The standardised system smothers the natural variations as the kids are made to “fall in line”. In the proposed system, the natural variations are not only noticed but nurtured & enhanced. The system notices the innate interests in a kid and forms a hypothesis about the direction the kid will naturally like to go. In due course of years, the system tinkers with the depth & exposure of the domains in such a manner that it nudges the child towards her strengths, while keeping her exposed to other domains at a fundamental level. Thus, the weightage of domains/subjects start varying for kids gradually over the years. 

I take inspiration from the popular game Minecraft – players have the freedom to build whatever they want by breaking and placing blocks. There’s no set path to take or rigid objectives to guide you. Instead, players are allowed and encouraged to use their creativity to make the game whatever they want.

Players can create their own worlds and experiences where the possibilities are truly limitless. Unlike normal video games, Minecraft allows you to be in control of the game.

Going back to my animal analogy, in the proposed system, a monkey is trained & groomed for climbing trees, while given a basic understanding of swimming; whereas a fish is primarily trained & groomed for swimming, while given a basic understanding of climbing trees. (We do this, because while in this analogy, we have the definite knowledge that we are dealing with monkey & fish, in real life, we are trying to explore & discover the kids’ specialities. We must follow the observations, but must leave the room for errors).

I”ll give another metaphorical explanation. Imagine the first step of exploration as the snow capped Himalayas. As we progress to the second step, the snow starts melting and flowing freely in different directions, depending on the terrain.

Step 3 – Bespoke Evaluation

All comparative ranking and grading systems should make way to self-improvement scores. The only competition for a child must be her yesterday-self! A standard evaluation is no longer possible. The evaluation in the proposed model is bespoke. It evaluates the performance of the child vs the hypothesis set at the first step based on the observations then. For example, if the hypothesis was that Kid A was a good monkey, her education weighed on training her to climb. The evaluation for her, will test her skill development & interests levels in tree climbing as per an expectation chart (a chart similar to a paediatrician’s chart for expected growth of weight & height of a child). Kid B, good at being fish, was groomed to be a good swimmer, will be tested for her “fish” skill development.

Step 4 – Course Correction

In the snow metaphor, the water streams course correct as per the terrain. They water streams flow freely, often splitting and merging again.

Evaluation, in Step 3, acts as a feedback. If the system observed and noticed the kid’s interests correctly, the kid should shine in the bespoke evaluation. If that doesn’t happen, it acts as a feedback that the system made an error in the talent discovery and calls for a course correction. If the kid shines, it can be concluded that the hypothesis the system established was correct and should continue with its nudge & reinforcements and build on it in due course of years.

Take a breath and notice something revolutionary here…

The bespoke evaluation results become a judgement of the education system and not the kid. This is a far cry from the prevailing system of standardised evaluation, where the evaluation result is a judgement of the kid! A failure in a bespoke test is a failure of the system, and in no means an attack on the kid’s self esteem. A failure in a test, forces the system to fall in line, not the kid!

This to my mind, is a profound & telling difference. After a few trial & errors, the bespoke system will find the right mix, unique for each child. The education that started on the same platform, will evolve for each child based on the display of her interests and results. The child will start excelling in domains where she is naturally interested in. (The river streams, in the snow metaphor, will gain strength; they will chart their own course & destiny in forming splendid rivers!) It could be sports for some, science for others, arts for some, public speaking for some others etc. The curriculum should evolve in a customised manner for each child such that while basic hygiene is maintained in all domains, there’s a natural specialisation that is evolved for each child in due course of time. Each child creates specific knowledge in the field of her choice, while accumulating the most fundamental building blocks from the worldly wisdom (as Charlie Munger calls it) from other domains.

This methodology will ensure that we create adults, who are happy, passionate, curious, creative and lively. They will not suffer from zombiedom and will not have to settle for a compromised life. What we want is to build a nation (& world!) with people full of enterprise, grit, curiosity, rational risk seeking and perseverance. The ideal school would treat each child independently. It would be self-paced. It would show opposing ideas and students would self-verify truth. No grades, no tests, no diplomas, just learning and self improvement. The era of formal education should segue into an era of bespoke, self evolving autodidaction.

This article is on the basis of my own thoughts & conscious deliberation and my own experience. The ideas are nebulous at this stage. They are just a set of principles that have evolutionary logic and can work wonders in my personal opinion. However, the ideas need the rigour of in depth conceptualisation and execution. I hope it reaches the relevant people someday, who can make a difference!