Break free in a closed education system

Studying all the time makes you dull. There is a saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Children need to play in school and when they are out of school in their homes. They need to play with friends as well as their siblings.

The education systems that are flourishing around the world puts a lot of focus on an ample amount of free time for their students with very little homework and no stress to perform with standardised tests. This video about an American visiting Finland to learn from how they overhauled their system sheds light on that very issue that all schools need addressing today.

That’s how education became revolutionary in Finland. The list goes on in this analysis video.

I was in an education system that was not modelled on the basis of equality. There were periodic exams that required us to score a certain mark to be labelled a good student. It discouraged group learning and Teachers were not considered friends.

How I found my way in a closed system?

I always preferred a good amount of play time after school and never thought homework should be a burden after we mentally and physically drain ourselves continuously in a place which we did not want to go since morning. Therefore, I mandatorily played sports after coming back from school every day. That filled me with different aspects of life. e.g. teamwork, planning, strategising to be successful, how to be persevering, how to keep on going strong with a will to win till the last moment, how not to panic if another person or team is about to win, how to remain calm till the last moment (how not to let the heart beat faster and let others know that I am worried) & how to absorb insult or procrastination. All this was part of the learning in sports. Almost all of those are critical things in life. Not learnt from school.

The only thing that helped me to have an unquenchable knowledge appetite was my passion for comic book creation. I would find myself creating stories for the comic book which I drew and coloured and that made me search for knowledge which was beyond the classroom. I was attracted to a great amount of detail or usage of science and physics often in the comic books which I bought and read in my primary school years. That’s what helped me attain true facts in my story.

Often I would visit public libraries and read about different tips and tricks of science concepts from the children supplement in newspapers. Also, parents didn’t stop me from exploring so many documentaries on our National TV Channel as well as Discovery Channel/Discovery Kids Channel. That gave me a lot of information and knowledge that I could grasp it visually and I could remember it for a long time.

My paintings and creatives helped me attain more knowledge of what I was attempting. Just so that drawings looked functional enough for someone who looks at it. So that I could answer any questions from the people who saw my creative works. Internet access was still very limited and limited to the wealthy and deserved, therefore, I had a collection of newspaper articles and photos carefully cut out and stored to look at it later.

I kept doing all those even if those things did not matter for me clearing the High School Certificate exams. And school education proved to be something where I could not fit myself into and I knew I was not studying like a machine or desperately trying to prove anything, therefore, I may not be an engineer or a doctor. My parents sent me for tuition for Maths and Physics. Almost everyone in my class was there. I believed if I truly liked something, I might not have needed the tuition. This is just for scoring high marks.

And expectedly, both my GCSE/High School and A-Levels/Senior School Certificate results were not great and were close to a disaster waiting to happen. And I was not sad that I did worse. Not scared that I won’t get admission to a good college.

Getting very less marks is not the end of the world.

Fewer Marks did not stop me! Since I had a great thirst for knowledge which was beyond the limited and one-sided education system in which I was in. That’s how I chose art and design. Once I was advised by my neighbour who was a respected retired Medical Doctor, that I won’t do much in life with art. Most likely, paint a few billboards. Earn a little money and will not do justice to the amount of money my parents spending on private education.

Today I am into digital design and art and I disagree in this day and age to the concepts that were taught to me in my school days. I disagreed then! I disagree now! I don’t know if I am successful like that Doctor who advised me, but I am following what I like and will keep on going.

Only this quest for knowledge has never died and it is still within me to constantly learn and see myself as a student of this world. Always remember that the learning never stops and there are so much more outside the boundaries of school and office workspace.