QUOTATIONS

The difference between school and life? School teaches you a lesson, and then gives you a
test. Life tests you and then teaches you a lesson.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education Mark Twain.

What are books but folly, and what is an education but an arrant hypocrisy, and what is art but a curse when
they touch not the heart and impel it not toaction? Louis Sullivan

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell,

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet
entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation,
stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very
grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means
of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a
healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the
beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under
such coercion, were to be selected accordingly.
- Albert Einstein; quoted in "Autobiographical Notes", Albert Einstein:
Philosopher-Scientist, Paul Schilpp, ed. (1951), pp. 17-19.

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These days quality education has become a means for discrimination. As if the regular economic
and social barriers werent enough, now the level of education and place from where it has been
obtained, have become valid grounds for looking down upon people. As has been claimed by an Ivy
League graduate himself, an elite education has its own inadequacies. The atmosphere in which
these elite students are instructed and taught brings upon most a sense of false achievement and
superiority which widens the chasm between members of society. People who attend other less
prestigious schools are regarded with disdain and the entire concept of self-worth is derived
from the grade or CGPA system. People are judged by the numbers they carry around GPAs, ranks,
grades which may not be a wholesome representation of who they are or what their potential is.
Although it is no crime to nurture excellence, refraining from making it a criterion to judge
people on is important.

Students are not graded for those flashes of brilliance that they display outside the exam
hall or are not relevant to the syllabus. Grades are not awarded for the achievements of

students during their free time, what they do as hobbies. After all, most inventions and
discoveries in many fields have been accidental, and not prepared beforehand by the Board.

Thousands of students have to learn the EXACT SAME THINGS that others learn, somewhat like
the production of Ford's Model T's. For example, in Nature, there are millions of diverse
species, out of which there are 7 billion humans a single species. And of those 7
billion species, each 1 is unique, in all physical appearances. But, by the day, mentally,
they are all becoming one Everyone knows the same stuff. Everyone thinks the same way.
Everyone does the same things what do you want to become when you grow up? Doctor?
Engineer? No? Maybe lawyer? That's what is the consequence of going with the herd
/*Instead, go with the NERD :p */. Instead of developing individual techniques, one is
required to learn the methods of those before them. They are not assessed on how they
MODIFY that technique to suit themselves or develop it further, but on how they reproduce
that technique in the Exam.
So what scope for progress?

The world has become highly competitive. Pressure on the school system is transferred to
the student. Instead of school education going parallelly with other stuff, school
education is given maximum priority Hobbies are given little priority. In which universe
can we call this all round development as a human being? A student is made to choose not
that which is best for him, but that which pleases others the most.

school requires that learning take place in a defined place at a defined time. It brings together
a group of people who do not necessarily have anything in common apart from their ignorance, and
requires them to learn a subject through a sequence of arbitrarily defined attendance slots in a
physical setting selected for the convenience of time-table administration rather than any but
token consideration of how people naturally learn.
The experience of schooling throughout their childhood has usually taught students not only what
to expect in practical terms, but also created a emotional mind-set towards the learning
environment, for better or for worse. The last thing many people want to feel is that "I have to
learn this...". They would rather feel they were doing something, and "learning as I go along".
But the former message is the one which is received most strongly.
In order to construct a taught curriculum, teachers have first to isolate what needs to be
taught, and then put it in a teachable order. They have to isolate elements because what has to
be taught has by definition to be new. We do not waste time on teaching things which people
already know. But, in the real world, everything we undertake as we acquire new skills and
knowledge is a combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar.
If a student undertakes a project on his own initiative, he can perceive the objective, the
context and the rationale. It would present him with a challenge to learn that thing. On the
other hand, if he takes a course on that subject, he'll have to wait for anywhere between 6
months to a couple of years. He would have to waste his time messing around with things he does
not need to or want to learn, in the interests of progressing logically through the syllabus.

One of the few practical applications is the so-called "communicative" or "direct" approach to
second (or third...) language learning. Here there is an attempt to put language in context, and
to provide learners with tools to get by in specific contexts, such as "in the restaurant".
Unfortunately it doesn't work.
The phrases work as long as the other person in the foreign country plays the game and give a
standard response. In such a case, wildly gesticulating provides a much more effective result.

Schools sometimes treat creativity as a bad habit rather than as a good one. And the world of
conventional standardized tests we have invented does just that . If students try being creative on
standardized tests, they will get slapped down just as soon as they get their score. That will likely
teach them not to try again.

Educational practices that seem to promote learning may inadvertently suppress creativity,
for the same reasons that environmental circumstances can suppress any habit.
The increasingly massive and far-reaching use of conventional standardized tests is one of
the most effective, if unintentional, vehicles this country has created for suppressing creativity. I say
conventional because the problem is not with standardized tests, per se, but rather, with the kinds
of tests we use. And teacher-made tests can be just as much of a problem.
Many conventional standardized tests encourage a certain kind of learning and thinkingin
particular, the kind of learning and thinking for which there is a right answer and many wrong
answers . Put another way, problems that require divergent thinking are inadvertently devalued by
the use of standardized tests.
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