Attending school or being in class loads students with academic knowledge which is indeed important. It prepares one for life theoretically and for survival in the modern world. Academic track often helps students to get success in their chosen career.But the things they learn outside the classroom helps them to deal with situations, people, themselves and many more things. And that is even a vital learning and should be given due attention and recognition.
Life is not just about getting a job or surviving in this world. Life is much bigger and mysterious. The world and all its different aspects cannot be taught in a school or learnt from there alone. Academic knowledge is what we need as a base only to fit in the modern world. But there is much more to what life wants to teach us. And bookish knowledge alone or the school systems we have cannot really help much. All the experience one gets from life or goes through in life teaches a person on a bigger level.
To feel life or to have a wide experience of life, one has to keep one’s mind open. Schools hardly care about giving this sense or eyes to the children. In schools like ours, where they judge us just through scores and pass or fail, this broad perspective is even harder to come across. Both parents and teachers only discuss academic excellence and certificates. They show much concern for job and financial security. And also social prestige. This makes students helpless when they have a creative mind or an urge to find their own path in life. The entire social set up leaves students helpless as they also tend to believe that life is just a race.
Nobody tells us that life is actually precious in too many ways. We get a chance to grow and understand the vastness of life with the life we get. We can see, feel, experience so many things within and outside and that is wonderful. We can do this only when we have life. Life is to be lived meaningfully, to love and to appreciate. Life teaches us to be vast and compassionate, if we open our mind to it. Trying to understand things around, being kind and sensible are meaningful approaches to life. This begets peace and counters hatred.
More we live, the more we should try to better ourselves. If we do not do better as human beings, and tend to focus just on academics and financial success, we miss the beauty of life. We may also turn anxious or feel tense while trying to impress the society, people around us or the elders. We should be able to differentiate between sensible ideas and nonsense things. Nonsense values and practices only give us irritations. Young students should stick to real values and sincerity. Parents may or may not support us when we try to explore our own track, but we should have that clarity and guts to find our own paths.
The formal education makes us literate, but it cannot educate us unless we try to understand life. There are so many important aspects of our daily life and books or teachers hardly touch those. Sometimes unexpected things happen with us, and if we are only into books or bookish knowledge, we feel helpless. Classrooms do not teach us how to deal with different situations. The world outside or our life only teaches us how to be prepared for the most imagined things. Or how to act with common sense.
I believe that our schools should also recognize this gap and should look upon students with due respect even if they are not very good academically. This positive attitude of schools or teachers will make a child happy and confident. And a happy and confident person can do best in any field in future. At the core, what must be realized is schools or academics are for us and we don’t exist for them.
Anusha Thapa is a high school student who advocates reforms in school systems and education.
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