Sunday, January 10, 2010

Score Carding... again


At every stage in life, we pocket a different learning and here I really mean that mental note we make, the anecdote we'd wish to tell our children and their children. Wow!!! inked testiminials of wisdom for posterity!

So in a spurt of iconic wisdom and higher level of intelligence I chose to quit my job as a journalist and follow the pursuit of happiness! (whatever that means). I travelled, read and found out courses that would help me enhance my skills (yeah I do embody a few skills, specially the kinds that make me a highly curious but confused individual).

Somehow I zeroed in on a course that majority of the population in the country would crave to do (at least their dear parents would want them to.). So yeah I decided on doing an MBA (so much for the research.) Now this is where the action begins, here I am in this institution with all my heart and might and an earnest intention to LEARN and how?

I learnt about accounts, finance, debit, credit, GDP, public speaking et al. But in case you thought this was the epicenter of things, u may be in for well, a very predictable but nevertheless surprise! I learnt that the only faint fossil of learning was turning out to be a string of grades and marks.

Really it was all and nothing more than marks. So was I learning much or anything that I hadn’t before? At 29, was I not just revising lessons my teachers gave me on getting a high score? Was I not simply getting a high intensity skill on fetching scores and beating the other rat in the race?

Gazing haplessly, at my peers’ enthusiasm after taking their exam, their flabbergasting responses to all correct answers and their euphoria of relative success. I couldn’t relate to any of this, or may be I didn’t want to. For this is not why I stepped in to the classroom, or may be I was suffering from another theoretical dilemma called ‘Idealism’.

Irony is this- - I didn’t see an iota of this excitement in them after attending a single lecture. I didn’t see any of this excitement after learning any of the earlier mentioned traits! As for me, I continued to grope in the bright light of super intellectuals and economists.

And this is in the least a hangover of “5 Point someone or 3 Idiots”. It’s my story, my mental note, my agony that after slogging my butt for 17 years of schooling, graduating, post graduating , I chose to re postgraduate in the same thing….SCORE CARD!!!

But I am an adamant, obtuse case, so I refuse to learn it, accept it or even acknowledge it. And though I like to stay at bay from political comments, I'd want to second Kapil Sibal’s concerns and efforts on eradicating class ten exams.

Coming back to the mental note…would I want to tell my children and theirs that I loved studying but somehow lost it to a fight for better scores! Are we promoting education here or nurturing a breed of numerically frenzied ideas? So much for having a taste for education!!!!

10 comments:

  1. Hey shevta, I completely agree to you. Its all about marks and grades. No one here is interested in learning more than just books. Its also about competing with one another and in this call you loose out on major happiness of life. We can ask God " Give us some sun shine , give us some rain, give us another chance to grow up once again".

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  2. Nice post di...I believe that the road of learning is a road that is always under construction....You don't becum succeeful after you come first in class or after you have scored a 100/100.I have come to this conclusion that biggest lessons in life come after you have met the biggest failure of your life.Success i think is overhyped and measured on absolutely wrong metrics....

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  3. Totally agree.. exams have never been and cannot be a judge of a
    person's real abilities. In fact they aid in supressing the learning
    of creative brains. Many bright students do get discouraged by the
    inconsequential results of inconsequential exams. It reminds me of an
    interesting story though..I remember the time when biology used to
    freak me out and I could never understand why I am being forced to
    study a subject that makes little sense to me. Plant and Animal cells.
    Protozoa and Marsupials..what sh**

    And then it happened, I scored a zero in a bio exam. This is KV Shimla
    where I joined as a topper of class 10th. And here I am .. a big
    zero.. Unda.. got a lot of wierd looks from my bio teacher.. and was
    totally discouraged. I managed well in other exams..but this
    unda..always haunted me. So much that my overall confidence in studies
    started going down. At times while studying, it would haunt me and I
    wouldnt be able to study further. I was asking myself.. what
    difference does it make really..I am in engineering.. nothing to do
    with Biology.. i will never ever have to study it again.. but its
    still hauting me. What the hell.. That Unda..how will it leave me.
    Then the Unde ka funda struck me. Everytime the big Zero used to haunt
    me.. I would imagin that as an Unda.. and I would crack it up and make
    into a nice omlette..add lots of green chilly..and coriandar and eat
    it with great taste. simply delicious..I started loving that Unda..
    and it stopped bothering me. Crazy stuff :)

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  4. yo jiju :) Loved the story and the omelette.
    Waise main omelette bhi nahi khata :)

    So so true ....we don't need to win each of our battles...just figure out the ones which matter to you and enjoy the omlette out of the rest.

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  5. :) Guys i can understand your emotions on the topic and i'm sure we have a great gang of alike thinkers...so let's just promote and encourage education and not the damn exams...Thank you so much for your all inputs...keep filling in and getting back to this space;)

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  6. Score-Carding - Wow I love your post theme ... add me too in the gang and 3 cheers for 'no more exams' :))

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  7. Any time Sir,we need some innovative thinkers around here...education system needs a good revamp in not functioning but thinking...Thank you for sparing your time...

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  8. id say... pick a subject with no competition! watch how that works. u'd get an odd stare or two..but if u enjoy the subject, you couldn't really care...
    watch me doing "ethnic minorities and the law"... in a batch of 300 LLM-ites, only one is giving this paper. :)

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  9. Better ask me about score card..it's horrible to take it...not because i m not having good marks but because i am not at the top position...

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  10. @ K?K! point is to stay away/above the competition!
    @Ankita just follow your own path and make that your destiny...not a bunch of grades!

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