The marble index of a mind forever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.
Not too very long ago, I was a student grappling with my exams. I know that I did not really give my parents a comfortable time because I used to end up conducting experiments with the help of my science books, when I should have been mugging up facts. My worried mother had taken to spying on me, so that she could catch me doing ?what I should not be doing? and forcing me to ?study what I should study?.
It was hopeless. My parents were at a loss to understand me. I had been a bookworm all my life and frankly, parties, boys or freaking out had never interested me much. My parents have always been proud of my ?sensible? outlook. Give me a good book or a challenging puzzle and I would ask for no more. I was genuinely interested in studies, yet when I was forced to mug up facts and chronological dates, my mind would wander away. My parents wondered where their obedient, dutiful daughter had gone away ? leaving behind a confused and yet, defiant young rebel.
Board exams were bad enough. Entrance examinations were much worse.
They were a pain. A headache. Also, I felt that I was terribly ill-equipped to handle them. Having a mind that is tempting you to enjoy and experiment with studies is the worst predicament that you can have when you have exams that need you to simply study by rote.
You like to know how things work ? No time for it. Just mug up.
You want to know how this fits into that ? Forget it. Just cram it up.
You wish to see what happens when this goes that way ? That?s not your business.
You would give anything to know how?.
Curb your curiosity. Kill your queries. Stop asking ?silly? questions. There is no time ! No time ! No time ! Just mug it up. Say these lines ten times. Say them twenty times. Become a trained monkey. Transform into a talking parrot.
Memorizing facts is more important than questioning them. ?What is?is more final that ?What can be?. Cramming upis the need of the day. Understandingcan be done away with. No wonder then :
Work is not a pleasure. Learning is not rewarding.
Much to my surprise, I cleared some entrance examinations and found myself in a place which was like a dream come true for me. Finally, I was at the premier institute of India where, much to my happiness, learning was transformed into the most joyful quest of life.
?Simply follow the logic?.My Ph. D guide (now my boss) would say every time I went to him with some scientific query.
All at once, science was not just textbooks that have to be crammed in my memory. Science was in my hands ? I was floating theories, I was testing them, I was researching ! I was finally free ! Science was like a vast, new universe for me to explore and experiment. I was really loving it !
Somehow, it was too good to be true. Obviously. It was not. True.
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My children enrolled into schools which follow the same education system. They are just four and five years old respectively ? yet, I guess the education system has started ?catching them young? these days.
I found myself yelling at my daughter to simply ?do things as they are done. And FAST ! No wasting TIME !!?
I found myself getting stressed out when my daughter had limited time to prepare for a test and she wanted to while away the time in experimenting with her handwriting rather than memorizing that the opposite of ?over? is ?under? and the spelling of down is ?d-o-w-n?.
I wondered?..What?s the matter with me ? Am I not just like my parents ? Aren?t we all cut from the same cloth ?
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I realized that we want our children to succeed in life ? and we will do anything to make that happen. If mugging up is the key to their livelihood, so be it. If cramming up will lead to good colleges and then, subsequently, good jobs ? we shall make them cram up every word ten times over. I suppose till the system goes for a total overhaul, it?s really unfair to blame the parents who just want the best for their children.
However, till then it?s totally, totally unfair to compare your child with your neighbour?s, colleague?s, sister?s child. Make sure he/she is well equipped but do not compare his armaments with anyone else?s because every child is unique. Instill the values of discipline, hard work and dedication in him but you should know how far you can go, and when it?s time to back off.
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Sorry, but I just cannot resist writing my favorite lines on children by Kahlil Gibran :
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in you dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward not tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
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