Recently watched this TED Talk and thought to share my views about this.
First of all, this talk is incredibly humorous. The speaker is exceptionally adept at making people laugh, and at the same time, conveyed his views about schooling and creativity quite eloquently. While watching TED talks, I suffer from lack of patience, and if I find speaker or the topic boring, I have the habit to stop watching the talk within 2-3 minutes. But this talk made me glued to the speaker, and I simply admire the way he cracked jokes and expressed his views.
After listening the talk, I agree that the schooling or even the entire education system seems to have lost its real purpose with time. The education system which is still being implemented all over the world was started with the purpose to provide skilled workforce during the industrial revolution. During first industrial revolution, it was the need of civil, mechanical engineers who would build ships, railways, bridges, canals etc. Especially for the European and later American colonialism it was the need of the hour. They need to build ships to go to India, Africa and East Asia, and bring the looted resources back to their country. The requirement of not just engineers but also managers grew during second industrial revolution with the introduction of assembly line in manufacturing, to increase productivity by managing workers, and thereby reaping profits. All this needed the right kind of people who had a habit to listen, to obey, to fear failure in real life because that’s what is needed in factories, and companies.
Later, during the third industrial revolution, the same pattern followed except the techno savvy minds needed to be created, and hence, we see kids being taught to learn programming. Going to B School became a fashion, as it not only paid well, but it also allowed only those people to excel who were obedient, hard working, servile to the company and boss, and did not think out of box. Ironic it may be, but the third industrial revolution which introduced computers, telecom, social media, Iphone to the world, was started by those guys who either did not graduate from grad school or college. The list consists of giants like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and many more. They all were creative and yet dropped out. Why? May be because they did not feel that going to school or college will enhance their knowledge or boost their creativity. That’s why, Peter Thiel has started the “The Thiel Fellowship” which grants $100000 to those young people who would not go to a 4 year college, and instead build something innovative!
In India, we see creativity and schooling are in mutually exclusive zone. The system seldom encourages students to think out of the box, or work on some innovative projects, though there are always few exceptions. More than building something, its the mindset of students which needs to be worked on. We see students are compelled to follow the standard routes of education, which is primarily engineering or medical. Only in rare cases, where the family owns a business, are the kids allowed to study commerce/business. The subject “Arts” doesn’t exist in the dictionary of parents. And that’s why only those students who get less grades( or those who graduate at the bottom of the class) are sent to study Arts. How would a creative artist be born if he/she is convinced that the only reason to study arts was because of their failure to get good grades in high school. Why wouldn’t they consider studying arts as a punishment which in J K Rowling words “that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension”. That’s why India hasn’t produced any excellent painters, writers( not many still), poets and philosophers, and neither has India won any Nobel prize for literature after Tagore won last time in 1913.
To be continued…
AbhiKNotes - The blog of Abhishek Karadkar 