The True Purpose of Learning What We Are Being Taught In School

As part of my introductory seminar class for our Environmental Studies Course, I prepared the following to speak about ‘Why’ we need to be learning EVS in college when we have already spent a decade and a half or more learning the same in school or even more so, on this planet, observing our surroundings. The text that follows is just how I started class after our professor was seated and everyone was blankly staring at what was to come and thinking the same question WHY! (Although more painfully bored than curious.) However, the class ended on a much brighter note!

Caring for What Sustains Us

We have all at least once taken part in 'cleanup campaigns' for Environment Day; either because of school or college or as part of any other form of organization. But, have you ever wondered WHY we need such campaigns? WHY on the 5th of June, suddenly everyone wants to cleanup places? Or rather, why only on this particular day? 

Have you ever thought that instead of running these mundane campaigns once in a blue moon we should look for something which is not so temporary? Something that will stay deep rooted.

What if no one ever littered? Would we have to run such boring campaigns which are a very temporary solution to the problem? If everyone kept their surroundings clean and tidy, if everyone thought not just about themselves, if everyone did a campaign mentally to NOT litter and cleanup whatever little area they have nobody would ever have to run these campaigns, would they!?

Everything begins with YOU, everything MUST begin from you. Let that be our motto! Do your little part in whatever way that is to keep your city clean. WE are the change. We being the future citizens of this country, of this planet and thus, WE must take every step it takes to make our planet better. Our families, our future children, we are capable of planting the seed in them to be the change they want to see too.

Let's not blame the governments and various other organizations and authorities for what they haven't acted upon, instead share and care and nurture whatever we have in our hands.

Whenever it comes to learning EVS (environmental studies) in a closed classroom, often the topic in itself is considered lesser than the other subjects. Unknowingly so, this is the same attitude we carry forward when it is time to act. I sincerely hope that the topic is considered more seriously in our education system. At least now that we are getting one more chance at it, we ought to comprehend better. We must indulge in looking at it from different perspectives, ones which we never noticed before. I believe, although there isn't much time, we must at first understand our environment before we talk about saving it and that’s why we need to learn EVS.

That was session one and then I moved on to my allotted topic from the book.

x-o-x

After this class on why we need to learn EVS, it was natural to think the same way for all the other subjects as well. In fact even question, why even study or come to school at all. How are we using the knowledge in our day to day life? What sort of a man goes to the market to buy 50 watermelons and 100 oranges and 30 apples unless he runs a shop? Eventually concluding it is an utter waste. Education seems to have made its own very purpose disappear.

As young individuals, we are all very eagerly excited to announce ourselves as ‘independent’. We start demanding ‘freedom’ and ‘privacy’ with the most common and amusing reason that “Now I'm 18, and I even having voting rights” the voting rights part of it is still very questionably a matter of deeper discussion. Like, really just the right to vote makes you wise and knowledgeable even if you don’t know your basic rights, really!? But how independent are we? Are we even really independent, when you happily eat readymade food served on table by loving mother and when all your luxurious wants and needs are fulfilled by hard earned money of caring parents? 

On the other hand, it could be taken as standard of maturity and awareness that you are expected to have by the time you are 18 like in most foreign countries, where you might even get pushed out of your own home by your own parents to see and learn from the real world and fend for yourselves. Even the education in most of these foreign countries is broadly open minded to the students narrowing down into their area of interest from a much younger class than how our Indian system works.

They work like ‘learn it when you need it’, while in India, very much like how our culture is different from theirs, we believe in a strong base full of deep roots, understanding the interdisciplinary nature of many subjects and having a good foundation on them. In India not many parents encourage children leaving home at 18 or even after being much older, which also explains the unity we share within the family, everyone is there for everyone (although maybe not in the right time or space or with the right sort of help always).

Even after all this, we still miss the point of teaching the subjects that we learn today in school. It is the norm and everyone is just following it, to get to the secure job that someone else has already decided for them. Unless you are thinking about what you like or what you want, no one gets to the extent of thinking about its purpose.

Coming to my point, I feel there are a lot of constraints that bound free thinking, creative thinking from a young age, not just in homes with the presence of maybe not just parents but an extended group of people who could be called relatives, but also in schools where writing a different answer from what the teacher gave will not ‘score you marks’ no matter how better or comprehensive your answer is. 

The true purpose of education thus seems to have changed from gaining knowledge and wisdom to just mugging up facts and figures which you would anyway forget after an exam. Clearly, with the aid of technology, anyone can access ‘facts and figures’ from Google where information is at your fingertips.

But Google doesn't teach you ‘How to’ process all the information that you receive. It doesn't teach you ‘how’ a particular theory can be applied in real life or how it should be changing your current view or perspective or perception of your surroundings.

That’s what teachers ought to do in school; share their wisdom and ages of experience in this world and make it more practicable for the new generation. Showing students ‘why’ this is necessary for them and ‘how’ they could use their knowledge to their advantage like a tactic to master many other things in life. Education has been reduced to just a set of portions that need to be covered within a span of time after which you will have a memory test about how well you can keep it. By the time you are done with college, you start hating words like ‘study’ and ‘learn’. Education being a lifelong process is strictly cut out and now the new goal becomes getting a high salary job, where you don’t have to break much head, at least not every day.

Keeping the spirits high to keep learning in life, I believe has a lot to do with how a particular subject is taught back in school. Science is not a subject that can be understood fully within the four walls of the classroom. It could be made more exciting with a tour around one’s own school campus observing plants and insects (if not animals), understating shadow and light or how the bus wheels turn, observing how cement once mixed hardens or how the football shrinks, how the flame dances or how the bird’s song from afar reaches you! How a subject is being taught definitely plays a role in developing a child’s interest and curiosity in that area.

Since it’s a proven fact that it is easier for children to pick up learning something new than most adults can, it is a necessity that certain essential subjects are taught from younger classes until you have at least a basic knowledge.

Moreover, no subject is boring with the right teacher who uses the most creative ways to explain the most difficult topics to his or her students. The best teachers also leave children curious enough for them to keep thinking about it and discovering their own answers through observation or experiments.

 Introducing new subjects to broaden their perspective is a great idea to make them think differently and also find their key area of interest, which might become their future top skill, talent, knowledge base or job opportunity.

The purpose of Social Sciences to enhance your understanding of life itself; the subject’s importance and the immediate influence it has; the impact it has on an individual and his or her worldview; is not fully communicated across to students is my opinion.

Developing an interest in these subjects just like for the others is not a complete reality yet. Maybe because schools are busy offering what parents are demanding, which is majorly still a preference for science and commerce, a doctor or an engineer or a charted accountant or banker when it comes to future jobs.

These perceptions need to change. The ample opportunities at hand when you learn something you like and work in it is not yet understood. The familial or societal negative influence and pressure on children to become doctors and engineers need to end. Even in these fields, if you are truly passionate about them, if the lifelong process part of education is served, then one never stops learning and researching and making new discoveries.

The true purpose of education makes you down to earth and humble. How much more thankful we ought to be, once we realise our interdependence on one another as social beings, to unknown people from unknown lands and unspecified times who probably made so many sacrifices , spent days and nights shedding blood and sweat to get us a plate of healthy food, clean drinking water and a newspaper to read?

 All we probably only see is that mother spent roughly an hour in the kitchen to cook food, the vegetables for which father bought with his money, the same money with which he buys the newspaper. We fail to see the numerous other hands at work, the shopkeeper, the newspaper boy, freedom fighters who fought to educate themselves and start printing press, the vegetable vendor, going backwards all the middle men who transferred the goods to the shop from a farmer, the farmer who spent hours in all sorts of weather tending for his crop in somebody else’s soil.

Mother Earth, our most accessible resource and the sun, which we often forget is the only reason for our continued existence on this planet. We ought to be thankful to all of them, their sacrifices and their hard work. The only way you can payback is by learning, realising every individual’s contributions, acknowledging them, and giving back to the society in your own ways.

Once a child is shown this perspective, they would at first awe at it, they become curious to understand the process, with sufficient knowledge at hand, and they would become equipped to put in their helping hand to serve at an area of interest for the same process and thus naturally becoming more responsible citizens and human beings. Of course not every subject is everyone’s cup of tea, but offering them is showing a guiding light and way - the biggest purpose a facilitator or teacher has, ultimately of that of education too.