Isn’t education all about students growing into concerned citizens?
In
response to the last fortnight’s column, many people wrote in with
examples of how they had been able to either stand up for certain ideals
or intervene in the system and force positive change. However, these
brave people seem to be the exception rather than the norm, and I’m sure
many of us have been in situations where we have stood by feeling
helpless and unable to do anything.
While some of
this has to do with how we are socialised — in the home and among our
peers — a good chunk of it might also have to do with how we are
educated. Even a cursory look at the
adjectives that are used to sell
educational institutions of every hue will reveal a dominance of words
that relate to the idea of competence. Schools and colleges build
skills, provide knowledge, make young people market ready, create
leaders and achievers, people who can stay ahead of the race.
We’re
all so busy running the race that we forget why and what we are going
to do when we reach the finish line, or what we become in the process.
It’s
not very fashionable these days to talk about human values. I’m not
getting into a morality lecture here but it strikes me that in all this
selling of education as competence-building, we lose sight of that other
major task of education—of humanity-building. Our time in school and
college is supposed to open our minds to the rest of the world, to make
us realize and appreciate the connectedness of things, so that when we
become part of the working world, we understand the consequences of what
we do and how it affects other people.
To some
extent, we become inured to all the talk about being considerate and
kind because it is couched in a self-righteous language that makes us
want to rebel. The other problem is that kindness is often mistaken for
weakness. We wish to be seen as strong and confident, sure about our
actions.
Kindness makes us pause and shift our focus
from ourselves to those around us. It can demand discomfort. It can
mean we put ourselves and our professional development on hold at least
temporarily while we re-chart our decisions.
Of
course, all kind acts do not demand that we give up something. But we
often set aside kindness because we are afraid that it might take
something from us, that we might lose out in the race if we pay too much
attention to such things.
In fact, most parents
focus almost entirely on academic achievement during the school and
college going years, and show little or no interest in whether the young
person is also growing to be a caring community member or concerned
citizen. We all assume that this aspect of personality evolves naturally
— but does it, really?
Our years in school and
college are certainly about building skills and knowledge. But they're
also about growing into balanced, healthy individuals who can contribute
intellectually, physically and psychologically to the world we live in.
An over emphasis on mental development does an injustice to the other
aspects of life. We do have the mandatory “socially useful productive
work” or outreach programmes designed to build empathy, but these too
end up being about marks and grades rather than anything else. Students
who do find these enriching are the exception. This is partly why there
is a flourishing extra-curricular business in teaching life-skills and
building emotional intelligence — our schooling effectively removes
these aspects from our personalities.
It's a sad
commentary on the world we live in that we need to “teach” and “learn”
something that ought to be taken for granted. Yes, technical competence
is extremely important, and I am in no way suggesting that we downplay
that. But it has no meaning if it is not accompanied by a good measure
of kindness. This is something that is worth keeping in the face of a
system designed to rob us of it!
