Education: What is the Point of it All?

The “Smart” kid.

That was me. The one who followed instructions. The one who answered questions. The one who always got the marks.

And this is me now. The confused one. The lost one. The one searching for answers – for a purpose.

For the last one year, I have been teaching a class. I have almost declared that I want to continue in the field of education. After all, it is such a noble profession. What could be more important that educating a child? Nobody has questioned the decision. Nobody has ever asked me: what is the point of education?

It was the one question I knew I would never have to answer. It was also the one question I never could answer.

What is the point of education?

So that I can quote Shakespeare.

So that I can tell you the exact date that Hitler displayed his massive army to the world.

So that I can solve for x.

What is the point of education?

So that I can go to college.

So that I can get a degree.

So that I can get a job.

So that I can get money.

What is the point of education?

So that I can get married.

So that I can have kids.

So that they can follow the same cycle.

So that my grandchildren can follow the same cycle.

What is the point of education?

So that when I lie in my grave, or feel my body burn to ashes, I have the comfort of knowing that I had  my grandchildren, my kids, a marriage, money, a job, a degree, college, the value of x, the date of the Nuremberg rally, Hamlet’s soliloquy.

I repeat, what is the point of education?

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I few days ago, I met and started working with a group of novice teachers – novice, I specify, because none of them have more than two years of teaching experience. They’re a group of unique individuals, with more differences than similarities. But they have one common cause that brought them together; a burning belief that education has a purpose: a purpose to understand self, others and life.

Self. Others. Life.

Three things that I think are worth knowing – or at least, worth attempting to know.

What is the point of Hamlet’s monologue? None, except that it helps me, as a person, understand the power of introspection and reflection of my own actions.

What is the point of knowing the date of Hitler’s Nuremberg rally? None, except that the context helps me see the impact of misconceptions and persuasion in the lives of the people who share this planet.

What is the point of knowing the value of x? None, except that it shows me that when faced with a problem I don’t know the answer to, I just need to begin with the things that I do know and work my way through [source: Gaurav Singh, 321].

Education is not about the marks; it’s not even about the content: it’s simply about what you can do with the content. It’s about what you learn.

Unfortunately, we live in a world that cares more about results than learning. Results can be measured. Learning cannot. Teaching, for that matter, cannot.

And so, we as Indians continue to pride ourselves on our ability to retain information beyond the point of saturation. And others in USA continue to pride themselves on having some of the best teaching institutions when it comes to student achievement results.

No one cares if I learned something today that made me question myself, understand the people around me, or probe life for further answers.

Why? That should matter.

What shouldn’t matter is whether I followed instructions. Whether I answered the questions. Whether I got the marks.

Whether I was the “smart” kid.

Discovering Pakistan

I’m obsessed with Pakistan. And no, I don’t mean I want to throw missiles at it. I’m obsessed with wanting to visit the country, with wanting to change people’s perception of that nation, and more importantly, I’m obsessed with the notion that just because I’m Indian, I’m not going to blindly hate Pakistan.

Of course, that kind of obsession is nothing sort of blasphemy in this country. How dare I pick Pakistan over India? Well, don’t force me to pick then.

It’s not easy for someone to understand why I’m so obsessed with our neighbouring enemy, because it’s not something I understand myself entirely. So in an attempt to understand, I decided to re-visit my life.

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I was a kid. I can’t even remember how old, maybe seven or eight. I just remember a typical match between India and Pakistan, where my entire family gathered around in Bangalore to cheer for India. I remember looking around at them, taking in their passionate love for India, and even more, their passionate hatred for Pakistan. And I remember thinking to myself how unfair it was that there was nobody around to support Pakistan. So I loudly proclaimed to everyone around that I would support Pakistan in the match, quite enjoying their looks of shock and outrage.

And that’s what I did. For that game and every game that was played thereafter. I think I was just supporting the underdog. But I had no idea that I was starting to walk down a path that I would never turn away from.

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Five years ago, I stepped onto the York University campus, having arrived fresh from India. Walking around, I came across a statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the library, and instantly felt a surge of pride. Then, walking outside, I came across another statue that made me stop suddenly with a frown on my face. It was the statue of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. I didn’t understand what it was doing here. Wasn’t he the man responsible for the partition of India and the subsequent massacre? Wasn’t he the biggest villain in Indian history? What were these people thinking, placing his statue – a considerably large one, at that – on campus?

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A few weeks later, a friend of mine, introduced me to another group of first-year students. I was really apprehensive and shy about meeting people in this new country, but one glance at the group and I sighed in relief. The dark hair, the skin tone and the unmistakable language gave it away. I felt myself relaxing without even trying to. Turning to the girl standing next to me, I asked – India? Without missing a beat or faltering in her smile, the girl who would soon become my closest friend in college shook her head and said – Pakistan.

*******

Towards the end of the first year, the Pakistani Students’ Association screened a movie on campus called “Jinnah.” By this time, my circle of friends included a mix of Indians and Pakistanis, so I was comfortable enough to admit that I really wanted to understand this subject more. Who was this Jinnah person really? And why was he called Quaid-e-Azam? I needed to solve this quandary before I could understand head or tail of Pakistan. Moreover, I told myself, if Shashi Kapoor – a famous Indian actor – was a part of this film, it couldn’t entirely be Pakistani propaganda, could it?

So I went to watch the film. And it turned out to be a film that left me feeling like I had just been punched in the stomach. It showed me a version of history that I could never have imagined even existed. It made me realize just how biased my own history classes had been. Of course, the film itself was far from unbiased. But it managed to imbibe in me a mindset that has not yet left me: that there can be more than one side to a story.

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Just before I started my third year, Jaswant Singh, an Indian politician, was expelled from the BJP party because he wrote a “controversial” book on Jinnah. His book was even banned in the state of Gujarat. Regardless of the contents of the book (which shockingly did not put the entire partition blame on Jinnah), that event really shook me. Banning a book? Firing a person for speaking out in a different light? Was this the same country that specifically gave us all freedom of speech in its constitution? I’m not saying Indians should forget all their history in a spur of the moments and turn 360 degrees in their thoughts, but not allowing people to voice out their thoughts because they went against the accepted public view was plain dictatorship. It didn’t exactly increase my faith in this nation.

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During my fourth year, I shared an apartment with the aforementioned Pakistani friend. One random day, I can’t remember why, but we were going over the map of India and Pakistan. And very soon, we got into an argument. We were pointing to the same area on the map, but she kept insisting that it was called Azaad Kashmir, while I resolutely said it was Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). We were sure the other person was wrong, because this was a fact that we had both grown up with, so there was no way we could be wrong. Finally, Wikipedia solved our quandary. Both of us were right. It was the same area – just called by two different names, depending on the nation we belonged to.

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The end of my final year in college was marked by the cricket world cup, where India and Pakistan met each other in the Semi-Finals. The tension brewing on campus was quite palpable. My roommate and I decided it was time for us to act appropriately as rivals, and so divided up our house into Azaad Bathroom and Pakistan Occupied Kitchen.

Not wanting a massacre, the match was screened in two separate rooms on campus. Yet they were close enough for me to jump back and forth. Every time I entered the “Pakistani room”, I was met with waves and cheers and half-hearted jeers. I think it was in the midst of throwing insults at each other with big smiles on our faces that I realized I felt more comfortable in this room than the other.

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Just before I left Canada to join Teach for India, another Pakistani friend of mine said to me, “I know there will be at least one classroom in all of India where the children will not see or hate Pakistan as the enemy.”

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Since I was teaching Std. 2, I told myself these kids were too young to be discussing heavy topics like India and Pakistan. So I ignored the subject altogether.

Six months after I started teaching my Std. 2 kids, one boy came up to me with a drawing and started explaining it to me proudly – “Yeh India hai. Yeh Pakistan hai. Aur yeh India Pakistan par missile daal raha hai.”

I had no reply for him.

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My friend and I had been planning a trip to Goa for a while, yet it kept getting postponed for some reason or the other. Last week, he told me that it would have to be pushed further back, because he had just got his visa for Pakistan and was planning to visit there. He seemed really apologetic. So I said to him, “Dude. Chill. Goa or Pakistan? No competition.”

Just before we hung up, he said, “Ruch, you realize we’re probably the only two people in India who would think that?”

I wish we weren’t.