"Change our Mindsets about Education"

I was going through the CBSE history book of my son in 8th grade and was pleasantly surprised to see the contents and read the chapter "British & Education" and How the British viewed Indians and how they slowly decimated a glorious education system of our own country. We never had this in our history books, and that shows a positive shift in the way text books are being written in today's system. However, when you speak to children, they still seem to be talking as if British were the people responsible for developing our country, maybe because the teachers have been taught this in their school days, and the whole effect of writing these text books is getting nullified. What astonishes me is that how strategic and conniving the British system was in decimating our roots to the extent that even after more than 70 years of independence, we still believe what has been brainwashed into our people stating that only English speaking people are well educated.

The other day, I saw my son viewing a serial "OMG, Yeh Mera India" and the episode was on a village called "Mattur" near Hubli in Karnataka where only Sanskrit is spoken and written and the place is actually a heavenly place. Foreigners flock to the place to learn Sanskrit, and there are no charges to learn, even the stay and food is looked after by the residents of the village. They still follow the ancient Gurukul concept and live harmoniously and peacefully, is what was being shown. I have made a decision that as soon as possible, I and wife are planning to go and learn Sanskrit in 20 days, and that is what they promise you that you will achieve easily as everyone speaks in Sanskrit.

Macaulay had his way and made it difficult for Sanskrit Gurukuls to survive and the entire British Government slowly and steadily brain washed our people by actually creating divisions among castes and make them believe that one caste was superior to another. This was a huge strategic conspiracy and insidious dastardly long term game played by them to divide Indians into different castes and make the superior castes oppressive and then play the saviour to the lower castes. The political class also connived along and played their part and few of them became heroes, came to the rescue of the oppressed and saved them by introducing Reservations et al.

English remains a major part of our education and we tend to believe that formal knowledge of English is essential to be educated. Just for information, we have employed many people from rural India who know scarce English, but are the best in their fields in Technology , be it graphic design or software programming. All our programs are coded in-house by a bunch of these brilliant guys, who are rural Maharashtrians, and have learnt English on the go as they worked.

Today, even after 70 years of independence, we are still slaves to the same "Indian Education Act" made by the dastardly British Government and only replaced it with the name of ICSE or CBSE. If we read the present NCERT books carefully, the authors have clearly brought out the glory of the Indian Gurukul system which was completely a functional education system linked with the day to day life of the citizens and was locally customized to the need of the respective communities at work. Even the British Government was astounded by the efficiency of such a large diverse system of localized education centers called "pathshalas" and since they had no clue how to manage the diversity, decided to standardize the entire education system and made English speaking compulsory, and removed the importance of Sanskrit from our education.

India is well known for its diversity in languages, culture and social behaviours and we should be proud of this diversity rather than try and standardize it. Because nature is diverse and not uniform and in this entire world, it is only India in this whole world which is closest to nature as far as human beings are concerned. You cannot force one Gulmohar tree to grow in the same pattern as another Gulmohar tree, just to cite an example. Being from the same family also, they are completely different in the way they branch out and grow taller.

Then why do we expect our children to behave and perform like robots in school? If a child is slower than another child, why does our system not respect that and give more time to the child? Why do we "label" children early in their life as "learning disability". 'dyslexic' and so on? All these medical terminologies have come from the West due to vested interests of the "psychiatrists" and "medical mercenaries" and the "education mercenaries" who want to earn money by injecting fear into your and your child's brain calling you a 'diseased' person, when there is nothing wrong with your child. The child is simply differently wired as is anything in this beautiful world of ours, and needs support and encouragement by positive words using appreciation for what the child does well, and not by sending the child to improve in areas he/ she is not good at. Fear has never caused anyone to excel. "Creative Tension" is different from Fear and should not be mixed. When a child aspires to achieve a great and a large goal, there is bound to be creative tension, but a negative fear needs to be avoided at all costs. The creative tension is self generated and driven by a large Self Goal and not a "comparison" of marks or position.

We should train our teachers and parents to understand the simple fact that a child needs appreciation for whatever the child is good at, and that needs to be leveraged on to set highest goals and facilitate the child to perform and fail and also again get up and perform till they reach success, all this being done with positive words of appreciation and encouragement. No word like "disability" or "problem" should ever be associated with any child ever in their growing days. Because there is a formula for the potential of a child:-

Potential = Self Esteem x Competence

While the present system of education is completely focussed on improving the competence of children, the comparison of children in a class room in our present system of grading and marks destroys their "self esteem". Especially when they reach closer to Xth standard and XII standard. Every child has Unlimited potential, provided we are able to harness it by building their self esteem as they achieve competence in their own inherent interest areas as per their own aspirations and choice. Strength Based appreciation techniques and goal setting can change the way the world sees the child, and make the child feel unique and powerful in his/her own way.

The point to ponder is when will our present educators understand this basic concept and stop instilling "fear" into a child and start "encouraging" every child with their unique "strength analysis" and positive words which boosts the self esteem of every child and builds the competence of each one of them in their own fields of interest. Competition and insecurity of survival gets sorted out automatically when a child starts focussing early in life and achieves excellence in whatever they are good at. Can we all get together and build a beautiful India together by enabling our next generation with positive encouragement and goal setting rather than driving them to achieve marks and scores only? Yes, we definitely need to provide a proper system for execution of this idea, and till the time the education system gets sorted out on its own organically, we have created an intervention system into this education system which works beautifully with students and parents. Dheya Career Mentors has developed a unique system formulated on the principles of Bhagwad Gita to match the "Swabhava" with "Swadharma" and special behavioural orientation programs to enable children and parents to build their lives with positivity and hope and become achievers of excellence in their own unique way.

I am glad that I am making a change in whatever small way I can through Dheya to impact children and parents who come to us in building their aspirations and help them to do well in whichever field they choose to select and possibly become the BEST in that!! Hope to have many more people join me in this noble cause to make our country the Best in the world once again through our next generation!!

"BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THIS WORLD"- Mahatma Gandhi

"Charity Begins at Home, so start with yourself first before you try to change someone else" - Anonymous