With reference to my earlier post ‘Education v/s Educating’, let us spend some time on discussing the differences and pros and cons of both, the skill driven learning and result oriented education.
Today education is mainly driven with the prospect of a desired result in view or at least in expectation, without keeping in view or disregarding the importance of skill. The most common and obvious reasons for this, are the lack of opportunities, unequal distribution of resources to develop opportunities in various areas and the intense competition in prelevant areas of opportunities. With such a scenario it would not be completely wrong to say that education should be imparted while keeping in mind the desired result. But when we look deeper into this, what we find is a completely wrong approach. If this was true then every family should be churning out IAS officers, engineers, doctors, or MBAs. But that does not happen. Why? The result oriented approach of education directs you towards a certain stream or course of education which you may not be good for or which may not be good for you. This pushing attitude does push the kid towards a certain goal but in the path, kills his/her ability to learn, explore and fight, there by also killing the inherent skill of that kid. What we get after attaining a result is another generation ready to push their kids down the same path of result oriented education.
Skill driven learning is the other option, where you really identify, analyze, nurture and grow the interest and skill of your kid. This brings out the desire to learn and explore, there by giving the ability to discover and invent new avenues in any area of interest. ‘Expertise’ itself is a word that pertains to skill driven learning rather than result oriented education. In result oriented education once the result is achieved there is no importance or motive of learning further, while in skill driven learning as the level of skill enhances, the desire to garner more skill enhances, there by giving birth to expertise in a specific area.
This also brings us to another question. Many of us may debate that skill driven learning has no practical relevance as long as it does not give a desired result. I would love to differ on this view. While on one hand, I, to a certain extent, agree with the view, but on the other, I strongly believe that the meaning of ‘desired result’ is itself a very debatable topic. Let me give an example. If someone finds that his kid has excellent abilities in mathematics, for him the desired result would probably be a PhD or some big degree in mathematics and then a teaching job. Quite rarely would someone even think that, for a kid who is good in mathematics, what could be the other options to nurture his skills and also earn a living out it. This view limits the meaning of desired result.
It is not only the preconceived and unidirectional mentality but also the ignorance and the fear of trying something new, which plays an important part in the way education, is perceived. Also I believe that there is no set standard or rule which can be implemented generically in all the cases. The strength to think out of the box, to experiment, to dare oneself is required to make learning possible and not just to educate, and this applies for the parents, teachers, students and also the administrators of institutions, alike.
Seems like there is a long way to go, but isn’t the journey always more enjoyable than the destination. As someone had said, "Life is a journey, not a destination", hope to see you soon at some other time in this journey of educating and learning.
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