Schools Kill Curiosity
by Abhishek
I realized this late but I never really enjoyed the “study” part of the school. I love sports and I played pretty good Football (Soccer) during my schooling so I don’t regret that time of my life but I surely feel, it could have been much better.
People who know me will be horrified if I say I wasted my time in school from the academic perspective. I was always a ranker (in top 3) so how do you explain that?
The problem is, somewhere, the school killed my curiosity. I honestly don’t remember if I was curious as a kid but I was certainly not curious when I came out of the school. If the school didn’t kill my curiosity, it also never tried to arouse it in me.
Result: Somebody who did good in studies from the perspective of our society but never really learned anything.
I always wanted to confess this and a recent article about Aaron Swartz made me do that.
In his own words
“If you watch little kids, they are intensely curious, always exploring and trying to figure out how things work. The problem is that school drives all that curiosity out. Instead of letting you explore things for yourself, it tells you that you have to read these particular books and answer these particular questions. And if you try to do something else instead, you’ll get in trouble. Very few people’s curiosity can survive that. But, due to some accident, mine did.”
Don’t take a chance with your kids. They may not be able to survive. Please stop sending them to schools which tells them that they have to read these particular books and answer these particular questions.
I certainly don’t want my kids to write similar article when they are 30, I hope you agree.
Very good post abhishek.
Agree 100% only issue would be there is certain level of education according to the societal norms , how will we define that ?
We should probably have a basic education (Have to define what it is) and enable kids to develop skills than just read books and conform to the norms.
One example in India,
It is easy to find a software engineer than a plumber 🙁 think about it.
Hope we change our perception.
Nice article!
I am glad you liked it Husain. It means a lot. Hope you enjoy reading my other articles too!
yes definitely our educational system is somewhere faulty when it comes to practicality. It is so important that a child must be guided properly so as to furnish and develop his/her hidden potential but the way it looks, schools and even colleges,they tend to restrict the students by pressurizing them. I feel schools should focus more on innovative ideas and implementation and encouraging students about it.
our educational system and schools need to change their methodology and make it more interactive and fun-oriented so that a child will never hate going to school.
Amen