As a parent and an educator, I have always carried the niggling discomfort with respect to our education system. The classrooms crammed with students, the same way of teaching all students, irrespective of their attention/intelligence/interest levels, the same repeating of lines (mugging up) after the teacher, the same this is what it is- learn it kid kind of attitude.
The conundrum is, I understand the why of this. There are so many children to be taught, they all need to know the same ABC and mathematics rules, who the hell has the time to teach them individually? Hence, I empathise with the system. I am okay sending my child to this system to learn. In fact, as a parent, I do my best to ensure she can adapt to the varied mass-bombing of learning she is and would be subjected to.
I am deeply interested in mythology. My latest obsession being the understanding of Vedas and Upanishads. So, here’s what I have learnt through them, which in some way, has given me new insights into the ways of education for our children.
What are Vedas & Upanishads?
For the uninitiated, Vedas are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts are the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. In the Hindu epic, Mahabharta, the creation of Vedas is credited to Brahma. However, it is sage Vyasa who is credited with compiling the Vedas. He arranged the texts into categories or four divisions- Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Atharvaveda and Samaveda. Hence his name Ved Vyasa! Vedas consist of mantras or prayers or hymns to be recited while doing various yagnas, sacrifices. It could be for celebrations (a baby’s birth, or a victory in battlefield) or it could be done to please Gods (rain god, fire god etc.) to get benefits in return. It also included hymns just to say thank you to the nature for the timely seasons, day, night etc.
Upanishads are part of Vedas that is more in story form. It basically forms the ideas or concepts from Vedas and has answers to complex questions of Who am I? How to live a good life? What is the purpose of my life? Why do we have seasons? Why do I have feelings etc. In fact, it is the Upanishads, on which the sacred text of Bhagvad Gita is based on. Lord Krishna persuading a distraught Arjun to kill his relatives because it is the call of the duty, the purpose of his existence and in the process laying down pearls of wisdom for all generations to follow later on.
The education system of those times
The word Upanishad is a combination of three Sanskrit syllables- upa which means to move closer to or be close to, ni which means at a lower level, and shad which means to sit. So, Upanishad literally translates to “sitting close to someone, at a lower level”. So, the story is that Upanishads and Vedas were never meant to be “read”, they were meant to be “heard”. The gurukuls, where a boy (yes, gender discrimination started then!) would enter when he was 12 years old and come out of it only when he has learnt all the scriptures (after 12 years) was where these texts were orally passed on to the young and curious minds. It was a fully residential course, where these boys would also help the Guru’s wife in household work of cleaning, cooking etc.
Most gurus did not take more than 12 students in one year. This was both for quantitative and qualitative purposes. The quantity of texts was too much, and the quality of teaching couldn’t be compromised. For Vedas to be learnt, the disciple not only had to learn the words, but also the sounds and the tone. Since each syllable of the verses was supposed to be pronounced a particular way, sung at a particular note position and held for a particular position, it was imperative that the Guru does all this orally. The Vedic hymns had to be memorized and the students were taught various ways of chanting these texts, it wasn’t always the sequential order. They had to master the hymns and hence the student had to chant it in different styles so that his memory is reinforced and not one word is ever lost. Even if you’d wake up a very sleepy boy and ask him to recite that specific mantra from third line onwards, he would be able to do it- that was the degree to which everything was ingrained in them!
What’s the connection between Vedas-Upanishads and today’s education system?
The two biggest connections are the presence of a teacher and a student to pass on the knowledge and the drilling of concepts in children (mugging up tables and word meanings till its mapped to their memory forever). Mugging up was an integral part of student life back then, and it remains so even today.
Going back to the niggling pain I talked about in the beginning of this write-up. I have always had problem with mugging up. I was a great student, scored good marks right throughout my school, it was because I could mug up well. I was a great mugger! To cite an example of my mugging prowess, I was shocked to see a book with almost 400 pages on Upanishads-Vedas, that too written for children (must read book by Roopa Pai) just recently. I said to myself- what’s in it to tell kids other than the four names of Vedas! I remembered the names of the four vedas very well, I knew they are an important part of our ancient history, but despite my best efforts, couldn’t remember what Upanishads were and what is actually written in both of them or how are they different! And imagine, I am a certified life coach, who has learnt techniques to be self-aware and purpose of life through a course. Only if I had “studied” Upanishads back then, I would have known where to seek these answers from!
When I go to schools today, and children do the repeated chorus like singing of “Good morning, how are you, I am fine, thank you”, it pains me immensely! Why? Why should they repeat this line every single time? I used to do it as a student, never gained anything out of it, 20 years down the line, the children are still made to do it? Poor kids, occasionally when they attend an evening picnic or party, and must greet a teacher, still say “Good Morning mam….!”
The blinkers! That’s what the problem is with the education system of today. Don’t make them learn with a myopic understanding of that particular concept.
After understanding the way Upanishads and Vedas were taught back then, I have come to terms with mugging up. I think it is still needed. I mean, no matter how much fun you can bring around mathematics, the fact of the matter is, you have to mug up the tables! However, what I fail to understand is why or how in this whole evolved education system, we missed the following vital aspects:
- Child-Teacher Ratio: it was 12:1 that time, its almost 30:1 now.
- Individual attention and hence increasing or decreasing the complexity of the knowledge passed to a child?
- Extracurricular Activities: Herding & milking cows, looking after the farm and the animals, chopping firewood, cleaning the house were all part of learning in those ancient times and today’s extracurricular activities include preparing children for competitions- debates, dance competition, taekwondo competition, this competition, that competition
- Sequential order of learning- a student couldn’t move on to the next chapter, till he has perfected the previous one in those times. However, now, since everything is graded and evaluated, it is fine if you still can’t write a grammatically correct sentence, till the time you are able to circle the adjectives and nouns correctly. You are still getting 25/30!!!
The most crucial one and hence I don’t want to bullet it but spend some time on is the questioning ability. It was okay, completely okay to seek answers to questions that were bothering a young one’s mind. He had the right to ask questions and the teacher provided him with all the answers till the student was satiated. Forget the connection between concepts to larger things, children these days go to tuition classes to understand what was taught in their classrooms! The point being, in the rush to finish off syllabus, there is no time to spend on the conceptual clarity and hence a poor child can’t understand why we need different measuring scales for liquids and solids and heights and weights. “Why can’t we just write 5 number every time, why do I need to write centimetre and metre!!” the little one will ask when the mother is preparing her for the exam.
So, what’s the point?
I am not the first one to rant against the education system and certainly won’t be the last. There are many new and upcoming schools which have taken cognizance of this situation and are claiming to be different in their way of teaching. They are claiming, they focus on opening of the mind and not on the completion of the syllabus.
So, the point is, there are many like me who are pained with where we are now. As a parent, knowing how my ancestors learnt things to how I or my child is learning things, I have made the following conclusions-
- It is okay to mug up concepts (keep saying C-A-T and S-I-T, my baby)
- While they will ask you to learn with blinkers on, I will try my best to show you (my child) the larger connection between a concept and its application (thanks to BYJU’s of the world!), in a way that 20 years down the line you don’t only remember the concept (Veda names in my case) but also the why and what of it!
- Your extracurricular activities are to help you have some relaxed and fun time, something that you enjoy and not something that is preparing you for a competition
- While getting medals and good marks is needed for your confidence and self-esteem, I will be happier to see your eagerness and interest in that subject/activity and not your proficiency levels
- It is alright if you don’t know all the things of your vast syllabus, and hence have not got the full marks, I would be happy with the realisation that you have understood the concept, even if you didn’t remember it during the exam
- I cannot send you for 12 years to learn under a guru, however I will be your guru which will provide you all the required and non-required experiences and knowledge and give you an environment to unabashedly ask questions and to think beyond what’s written and said and to get the ability to dream big and fly high
I am glad I wrote all this down. It would be my constant mantra while teaching my child, it is like making my own gurukul at home. I hope, this helps other parents write down their teaching mantras too. It surely is needed, we can’t leave our children to the herd and expect them to realise how uniquely gifted they are.
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