GREESHMA
THOMAS
A
woman had a pet dog and one day it fell sick. To save the dog, every day she
attempted to give a tablespoon of medicine down its throat, yet the dog
would always resist and pull away. One day when she took the bottle, it slipped
out her hands and the medicine spilled all over the floor. To her surprise, the
dog went over to the puddle and began lapping it up! In fact, here, the dog had
not been resisting to take the medicine. It was resisting the strategy that its
master had used– pushing it down its throat.
It
is a similar situation when we consider the pedagogy used in our schools. If
heavy subjects, other educational burdens along with parental compulsion and
peer pressures are push into children’s throat in the name of educational
therapy, many of the students will not be able to absorb them and they will
resist and vomit it, especially now, as
they are in the pandemic
situation.
During
this Covid-time, when students, teachers
and parents are all in a crisis
situation, the decision of the CBSE to reduce the syllabus for classes 9 to
12 by 30-percent this year, seems as a right strategy due to the trouble
caused by the COVID-19. It will certainly elevate students’ to a happy frame of
mind to study with earnestness.
The
CBSE in their process of trimming down about 190 subjects for classes 9-12, cut
various key chapters like secularism, democratic rights, religion, gender and
caste and food security, which create now a major controversy by some people.
However, there was a mixed response from various stakeholders as many school
representatives welcomed the move to decrease the course load on children,
while a section of academicians said it appeared to be ideologically driven.
Amidst
arguments, however, let us realize that education came to bring life and light
to people who have no vision or right vision of life. But so often, as we have
seen in the above story, we use the wrong method to force our
expectations down students’ throats instead of presenting it in such a way
that they will willingly receive it.
Parents also often make wrong decisions in their eagerness to give the
best opportunities for their children by giving unwanted compulsion in study
down their throat. What children should realize is that they are the ones
responsible for their own learning, homework as well.
With the CBSE’s decision by
reducing the heavy burdens for students at this juncture of Corona crisis, it
is necessary to teach the students the values of secularism, democratic rights,
religion, culture as well as the evils of gender and caste discrimination.
While reducing the syllabus, these lessons must find some place in the
syllabus, maybe in a shorter version.
Our first priority today is to save our world from the coronavirus
crisis and to look for ways to revitalize the economy, and our lives,
after this major crisis. Let the students now go for enjoying
the education with discerningly reduced syllabus and freedom!
