Learning in the Dark

I met a social worker who has been working with under-privileged, abused, abandoned children for decades. When asked about how he manages to keep up his spirits in this overwhelming fight, he said he can’t. He finds it increasingly difficult to go on. Because in trying to solve one problem he finds twenty more-each with it’s own spiraling mess. He started with hope. Now he has lost the hope, but he still fights on, because he does not think giving up is an option.

I feel the same way about our education system.

It’s just getting more and more politicized. The oldest and the best institutions of our country-the ones who produced national leaders and international scientists, economists and graduates who work across the largest and the most influential corporations across the globe, are crumbling under increasing political interference. Most positions of control are filled through influence. Most admissions are through quotas and connections.

It’s getting more and more commercialized. The newer campuses are high-end townships; glittery and glamorous, exclusive and designed to impress. Education comes with a steep price tag.

And then there are the students forced to make choices that would affect their entire life at the age of at fifteen (in some schools they have to do it at thirteen). There is the flawed ‘board of education’ system with about 30 education ‘boards’ in the country-with archaic curricula, bureaucratic management, and of course political agendas.

Then come we the parents, armed with internet on tap, and the ambition to do our best for our children. (Can’t blame us, we were trained to keep doing our best since we were three-year-olds).

There is the problem of millions of children never getting and education.

And then there are millions who have not changed their mindset despite being educated.

Yes, I have lost hope. But I will go on questioning till I find some solution to some part of it, because giving up is not an option.

The College Admission Project: Different Shades

My college-admission research project started as a list, evolved to become a branched tree, grew some more roots and shoots and know resembles no known shape.  One of the branches was about talking to different people, to learn about different perspectives.

One of the interesting ones was that on ‘Management Quota’.

In our times (a quarter century ago) they were called ‘Donation seats’ and people going to Karnataka and Maharashtra for Engineering and Medical studies would hesitate to name their college. They would always be forced to explain that they were going to a ‘private college’ paying the insane but regular fees in response to the inevitable ‘Oh, Donation college!’ smirks.

Now there are private colleges in every state and not getting though JEE (now there are three of the JEE tests too), does not mean the end of the world.

There are hundreds of other colleges, many of them offering better education than some government colleges. They maintain quality by admitting a percentage of students through competitive entrance exams. They adhere to legislation by keeping a required percentage of seats for centralized entrance processes. And they manage their expenses by allocating a percentage of seats through highly prized Management Quota (not Donation) seats.

And then some seats are converted stealthily from one category to another.

“Well, we have worked hard all our life. Shouldn’t our children get some advantage because of it?”

“There are no seats in those colleges because of reservation, so what’s the option for people like us.”

“Yes, we too follow the required reservations. But then how many from the reserved quota would pay these fees?”

“Yeah. It was a steep amount. But since the placements are so good, the kids can recover it in the first couple of years’ CTCs.”

There was another option which came up in ‘our times’. The nearly bankrupt countries breaking out of the erstwhile Soviet Union started cashing on the Indian parent’s ability/desperation for Doctors/Engineers.

In spite of what the financial rating agencies say, the Indian Economy has evolved much since then. Universities from all over the world are setting up stalls at ‘Education Fairs’ (and no I didn’t make up that term) to woo our worthy students; and their parents who want to do their best for the children’s education.

A Whole New World

I visited the swanky campus of one of the new trendy colleges. Not as the parent of a prospective student, but as a friend of a faculty member. I got to interact informally with quite a few students and faculty members.

This was so different from the colleges my friends and I had studied in! Or maybe, it's just me! A dinosaur who had sauntered in from another era.

There are educational consultants who specialize in setting up these huge institutes. Some of the areas they work on are: getting a celebrity board of directors and faculty members; ensuring government clearances-land acquisitions, subsidies, land-use-change permissions, tax subsidies; connecting high net-worthy investors with promised returns and of course the marketing and promotion.

The courses are suggested by the consultant. But of course they are vetted by the faculty. The faculty themselves are dependent on the popularity of their courses-decided by the number of students opting for their courses and providing feedback. All great innovations to ensure transparency-except for the situations where a Prof who insists on rigour and discipline in a finance class, may get outbid by a course on exploring the links between Bollywood Music and Math.

This particular institution had on board a famous politician who owned a big chunk of the forested hill district. Well an institution this size will need to have political connections, I was told.

When a new course was being started-the teachers started suggesting with a class size of 30 so that they could build their facilities over time. The consultant insisted on a class size of 120 to ensure the ROI. The staff prepared the proposals hoping the government body which sanctions new courses would suggest trimming the proposed strength to 60. They got an approval for the full 120.

These 120 students have been selected after clearing an over-subscribed entrance test. There were many who could not make it.

The fees they’ll pay for a four-year course is more than what they will earn in the next ten years (as per average market standards). Their average recreational spend (travelling to the nearest city, eating and drinking out, watching a movie, gifting and other items that they didn’t want to detail) is more than the monthly income of many white-collar works in metros.

Most of them are not here to get a job (that’s so middle-class). They are still figuring out what they want to do with life, and the intensive education they will receive here will ensure they will do well with whatever they do.

Maybe the emperor is wearing special clothes-it's just me....

More on Colleges: Starting another search

Since the Junior kid is on a completely different career track than the Senior one, I have to do my college research again. I started with another excel sheet, looking up colleges and their admission process.

Has anyone of you noticed this: If you google up the name of any well-known college or entrance exam-what comes up highest in the search results are the coaching centres!

Yeah. Even AI knows that to get to a college in India, you first need to get to the right coaching centre. Some of them also have entrance tests and offer discounts to high scorers to ensure that they get the right potential candidates.
They have admission forms where the students are asked to add their photos and give full rights to the centre to use their photos in future advertisements (for life). I also know of students who did not attend coaching centres, but score well, being approached by centre reps in retrospect, and offered good incentives-in exchange of rights to their names and photos.

This is education in our country!

What is the alternative?

Compared to the cost of private education in the country, education in Canada, Europe, Australia and the old favourite U.S.A seems much more value for money, for those who can afford it. As a girl studying Computer Science in U.K (and doing an internship one break and planning to hike Kilimanjaro in the next break) explained to me: It’s too difficult to get admission in the best colleges here. And then you end up slogging all the time with no other activities. And the state of education in other colleges is just too bad.

I am glad she found an option that works for her.

Again, there is no answer for those who cannot afford this option too.

Watch what you like; but study what the system wants...

The last post triggered memories and alot of angst about the school-college education system in our country.

This whole subject-stream selection was traumatic for me. From wanting to study Literature and History, I qualified as an Engineer but never worked as one.

The elder kid went through the same difficulty during subject selection but luckily, she had only two possible streams of study in her shortlist.

The younger one had to make her choices last year, but she is still confused.

It is because, unlike DTH and Cable operators who were forced by TRAI to stop making us pay for ‘bundle packs’ and let us pick and choose the channels we wanted to watch; the education boards and colleges still insist on ‘bundles’. If you like Math -but select Economics instead of Chemistry or Physics in high school-you don’t qualify for any of the Engineering or Medical entrance exams. That’s another thing that you want to go to Engineering college because the top global banks go there for campus recruitment.

I thought times had changed. I though the ‘Doctor-Engineer-or nothing’ philosophy had faded away with the last century. Now the kids have choices. Now there are so many other options.

But when we got into the college application mode and I started looking up the numbers, I realized so much that had not changed. Law and Design have got added ‘acceptable’ careers. Liberal Arts has become a new entrant-but are still being looked upon as fancy-rich-kids colleges instead of something that can change a person’s life, lift a family out of poverty kind of a career. So, lakhs of students still spend the best years of their lives slogging to clear entrance test.

Private colleges step in to provide for the burgeoning numbers, at burgeoning fees. And as for those who cannot afford them, and do not manage to grab those 0.5% seats in good government institutions, what happens to them?

The Race

Do my blog posts give the impression that my life is one hectic race?

Compared to the life of sixteen and seventeen year-olds, it’s a walk on a travelator.

My younger kid has now reached the stage where she had to make life decisions. Which subject to choose? What does she want to become? Which ‘competitive exams’ is she going to prepare for?

My kid is very competitive; in sports. She has had meltdowns before tournament finals (now she is more mature, she just glowers at her opponent till the other person loses nerves). She feels like she will let her whole class down if she doesn’t win all the class events for them. She even aims at winning long-distance runs (geez, you aim at completing them, not winning, the other sibling is shocked). But when it comes to ‘competitive exams’ she blanks out.

And I don’t blame her.

I found the whole scene so sad when the elder one appeared for her entrance exams. This was the scene in front of one of the 'examination centres'. 

I couldn't click one of the the multiple training institutes who had set pop-up stores across the pavement and the guys passing around brochures and pamphlets with photos of alumni-top-scorers in entrance exams.

And those for entrance exams for design institutes. Just around 50,000 students competing for about 60 seats in the ‘General’ category. I was glad it was not Engineering with around 10, 00, 000 students in a blood bath for 7000 seats. I did not even look into the NEET numbers.

Why do things have to be this way?

Because we have the world’s fastest growing population!

And also, because the percentage of children fighting to go to good colleges is spiraling every day.

Children want to go to IIT because they are taught that’s the key to a golden future. How many of them want to get into IITs to become Engineers? How many of them even remain Engineers as professionals?

But then, I am told that they get the option of becoming Investment Bankers or even international journalists, because they went to IIT to become Engineers.

Where does this leave the ones who actually wanted to become Engineers? Oh, they should have worked harder then (attended 2 more coaching classes in parallel) or started earlier (moved to Kota in 4^th standard).

I can fully understand why the kid would rather run in a marathon.

My Story and Hers: Which way do we go?

This is a continuation of events from my previous post when my friend and I had decided we needed to change the ‘new’ school.

My mother said bye to me as usual as I left for school. Then she stood still with shock and screamed: You are wearing the wrong uniform. You have the grey-and-white uniform now.
(She had also given away my old blue uniform, I had to borrow one from a friend and it was two sizes bigger than my size).

I told her I am not going to the ‘grey-and-white uniform’ school anymore but my old blue uniform one.

Yes, I knew I could not just walk into a school like that.

My friend had spoken to the office staff and got my Transfer Certificate request cancelled.

I had visited the old school, met the Principal, the admin staff and my friends. My school had changed.

My parents had a conference between each other that day and they let me continue my way; probably because of the shock factor of the drastic step.

This was perhaps the first independent decision of my life. Was it the right one? It did feel right and I have never regretted it. I felt bad about the time and money lost in the school-change drama but was so glad, I could take the U-turn in time.

As a parent at the same stage now, I had the same doubts about my daughter continuing 11^th and 12^th grades from her school.  She had selected subjects that were considered 'tough'. She’ll be dealing with the ISC curriculum which again is a tough one. She’ll not have tutor support and she’ll be busy with sports, art, extra-curricular activities while most students of her age in city schools would be focusing entirely on academics.

She was sure she wanted to continue in her school.
Was it the right decision for her? I’m not sure.

But it is her life and her decision.

I can only be there to try and help it become the right one for her. And if it turns out to be a wrong one-we’ll just have to take a U-turn, together.

Restarting this blog (Again!)

This is another 'About-me' post to mark the new reboot attempt.

As you can see (read), I’m trying to pick up the threads and continue the stories in this blog after a long break.

I need your help in the form of feedback-on the content, layout, structure, format, well on everything. I am especially weak on the technology, platform side of blogging. Thanks to those of you who responded immediately to my call for suggestions-taking out the time to go through my ramblings in spite of your schedules and coming back with your much valued inputs. Please bear with me as I try to categorize and arrange my posts in a coherent order.  Or should I just junk the effort and move to a new WordPress platform? Please keep the feedback flowing.

Having awesome friends has been my biggest strength in life and you’ll find that evidence scattered through my blog posts. It has helped my getting over so much more than technology issues and writing blocks: the insanity in the crazy-busy days of being a hands-on parent; the loneliness of ‘distance parenting’; and yes, even the darkness of an ongoing cancer battle in the family. Restarting this blog and my book project is my way of thanking them for being there for me.

My daughters have grown up into young adults since I started blogging-they don’t need me so much for the day to day logistics, but need me just as much for food when they come back from boarding. And yes for the debates, arguments, confrontations and some conversations. So the 'mom stories' remain the same.

Professionally, I am still in the learning industry, juggling within the different domains in corporate learning with an occasional stint in the social sector. And I am just as frustrated that with all the theories and strategies on learning, the tools and the technology, there has been so little change in the area where it is needed most-the way our children learn at school.

Where am I going?

“In my posts under ‘Exploring Education’ I am sharing my own experiences, dilemmas and questions on the system which needs to work better. I don’t have the answers. Just hoping and trying to influence some change, somewhere.

And then there is the book project-the stories of some mad girls in college. Too early to talk more about them, but we might meet them along the way in the coming posts. Tell me when you spot them :)

My Story: The High School Trauma

(This post is a continuation of my story from the earlier post  
This happened a generation ago. I have tried very hard not to repeat my parents’ mistakes. But I am sure; I have made plenty of different ones. I just hope that my daughters deal with them in a better way than I did. )

Mummy meant well. Being a teacher, she  was well-informed about the benefits of CBSE over the archaic state board syllabus and so she changed my school in 11^th standard. Yes she also wanted me to be away from the strong peer pressure, my existing group of friends, and begin again as a focused student.

I did not want to be a focused student. Getting better marks on subjects I anyway didn’t want to study didn’t make much sense. As a teenager who drew on the company of her friends for oxygen, it felt like the end of life to be forced to cope without them.

(My imagination and my emotions were always dramatic (rather melodramatic) as per conventional norms. But that’s how I think and feel. Yeah, even now J.)

I did try to fit in. I made a few friends, kept up with my studies, tried to do all the right things, but it was tough.

I missed my friends from the last ten years, practically my entire lifetime. I missed the old familiar school where each room, each corner was full of memories of growing together. I hated the new routines, the new uniform, just the feeling of going to this new school every morning.

I also felt harassed. I was the new girl in class. A class half-filled with hormonal boys, nurtured on bollywood notions which generally told youngsters that girls fall in love with you if you keep irritating them. I couldn’t discuss these nuisances at home. I had learnt that my parents’ way of protecting me was imprisoning me. There would be more questions, more restrictions more tension.

If I had friends to share the Archies greeting cards with the long, complicated proclamations or the torn slips of notebook with ‘shaayari’ sneaked into my bag, I might have seen the romantic or the comic side to things. But I was alone. And I felt hunted and miserable.

I called my friend and poured out all the angst. She agreed that I needed to take some drastic action.

We decided to change the school-back!

What followed after that phone call with my friend is coming up in the next post but the questions still remain:

The state board/CBSE/ICSE variances remain along with differences in their syllabi, their grading patterns, the different criteria colleges use to score these grades are still painful and so unnecessary. Why can't we have a uniform system?

We need the variances where they matter more-in the subjects a student wants to study.
We need variances in the way students with special needs are taught.

The world has changed in the last quarter of a century.
Why has nothing changed in this area?

My Story: How the High School subjects chose me/us

I am starting to write my own story here.

First, because my primary source of inspiration-my conversations (aka tirades, rants, clashes, slugfests) are so few and far between with the girls moving to boarding school.

Second (or maybe this is the primary reason) because as formal studies are taking over their life in a stronger grip (my last post);, I feel as if I am re-living that trauma again.

I wrote this part of the story first on a post for mycity4kids.

Reposting here..

At fifteen, Elena had to decide on her ‘subject-combination’.

 It took me back to the time when I had to make my choice. I had been  for waiting for months for the time where we get to choose which subjects to study.

I loved History and Literature and Geography. The combination wasn’t ‘available’ in our school so I had to pick the nearest available package. I think it was History, English and Home Science.

My parents were aghast. Their well-wishers (extended family, neighbors, friends, friends of friends, families and all) felt their pain and came together to support them.

‘She was such a good student! How did this happen?’

‘It is the age. You should check why she has lost interest in studies. Is she involved with…’

‘You can’t let her take such a decision; she is going to blame you for not guiding her when she was young.’

Their logic: If you score decent marks, you study science. And become a doctor or an engineer.

I vetoed the Doctor option outright-I could already imagine being surrounded by pain, illness and death. I would suffer more than the patients around me. That, they could understand.

And engineering wasn’t an option because I hated Math. That led to guffaws (nowadays you would called it LOL-ROFL) because I had scored 96/100.

They coaxed, cajoled, threatened and then compromised.

According to the logic(?) followed by our education system, a science student has the option of changing to non-science subjects but not vice-versa. If I studied science for just two years it would give me the option of selecting subjects of my choice two years later too.

Now, knowing how parents and well-wishers think, I guess they assumed/hoped I would realize the wisdom of studying engineering over history by then.

And so I ended up selecting ‘Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics’ over ‘History, Geography, Literature, Biology and others.’

A generation later, my daughter has picked the same core subjects.

I don't know if the decision will work for her or not. 

I wonder what she will be thinking a few decades down the line. Will she blame me for not ‘guiding’ her? Will she blame herself for not making the correct choice? Will she be thanking us/herself for making a great decision?

Or will she be just looking back and laughing about it, like me.

It's not funny that decades later our children are facing the same limitations.

Do we really need to make children choose between the categories of science/humanities/commerce at the age of fourteen or fifteen? And eliminate all other options?

Are these 'subjects' really so different from each other?

Why can't the student who loves Biology and History study both?

Da Vinci had interests in painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He painted the Mona Lisa and designed a prototype for the Helicopter in the 15th century.

Why are we denying our children that chance in the 21st century?

As they enter a new world

Kids grow up fast. I too had heard the cliché so many times. But sentences become clichés only because we use them so many times; live them so many times.

My daughters are in 8^th and 11^th grade now. Their world is so different from the one I used to blog about. It is beautiful in many ways, scary in many others.

Earlier I used to worry about day-care, maids, PTMs, sports days, birthday parties etc. etc.

Now I worry about the world outside, social media, their career decisions and higher education. In fact education is the biggest worry on my mind right now.

We were extremely lucky to find a school which imparts the kind of education we believed in. The girls grew up exploring, experiencing, and enjoying (well, most of the time) their education. But now the long tentacles of the formal education system, the ‘board exams’, the subject-package choices, and the college entrance systems are closing in.

I find it particularly scary because I remember what the system almost did to me.  It’s almost been a quarter of a century since then and it is still the same system— the one which we keep blaming the British for; the one which we haven’t done anything to change; the one which we ‘dealt with’ in our own ways; the one which now our children have to live through.

I wish I could do something to cause that change.

Since writing is what I can do, let me start with just that.

I, like many other students, did not get along with the system. I suffered and eventually 'dealt-with' it, but I still remember the pain. I’m trying to re-live and share those experiences here, in the hope that I can help my girls ‘deal with’ it in a better way. And maybe reach out to more parents, educators, students who can together create a new system—one which may not be perfect, but at least a lot better than our current one.