From Competitiveness to Excellence

Competitiveness, so rampant today, is not an inherent Indian value. We haven't historically been a nation too big on sports or other competitions. Our insistence had mostly been on excellence - one that emerges from the union of body, mind and spirit. This is the land that invented chess, Ayurveda and Yoga. This is the land that produced the finest poets, architects and mathematicians. Even in the context of Mahabharata, the largest war in our mythology, Krishna preached Arjuna to give his best effort without focusing on the outcome (or the victory).
But somewhere in history, after several conquests and wars, the focus on excellence was lost. The Mughals and the British, being our conquerers and rulers, imported and imposed their ideals on the Indian society. And the new ideals were triumph and victory over peers.
This eventually resulted in a society engaged in a blind rat race, deprived of its true identity. This is evident from the enormous level of competitiveness in today's schools and entrance exams that is not really contributing to the welfare or progress of the society.
Could we build an education system that would help students identify their true interests and potentials, and train them to pursue excellence in the domain of their passion; a system that could provide attractive opportunities to artists as well as sportsmen, as much as it would to doctors and statisticians? Such a system will force the people to stop evaluating themselves against others and will bring out the best talents in the society. How would we implement such a system? Will including yoga and meditation in the curriculum help? Will the inclusion of non-religious spirituality be helpful (or even possible in this country)? A few tough questions need to be answered before we can dream of building a system that nourishes and rewards pure excellence.


Inspiration:
3 Idiots
Ancient Indian Gurukul Tradition

Specialization vs Cross-disciplinary education

Has our education system become too appreciative of the specialists? While a move towards specialization of the curricula promises a more efficient division of labor in the society, it certainly overlooks the dangers associated with narrower outlook. We could hypothesize that the incidence of various international challenges - be it environmental pollution, increasing cancer rates or even wars - can in part be attributed to narrow perspective of the engineers, industrialists, policy makers, diplomats etc. Had we cared about things outside our focus areas, we'd have created more responsible solutions.

But wouldn't going cross-disciplinary vastly diminish the value that experts are able to bring? Well, we certainly need to draw a new line. 'Where' and 'how' still need to be figured out.

Inspiration:
Ted Conference - A call to reinvent liberal arts education

The "I can" bug

Case: Riverside School founded by Kiran Bir Sethi

She advocates that blurring the boundaries between school and life can help bring better and deeper learning. At her school, they observe a three step process to inculcate confidence in the students that they can, in fact, change the world.

• Kids  become AWARE that a change is needed (for example, by making them feel the plight of child laborers by letting them live or observe that lifestyle)
• Kids feel ENABLED to bring a change (for example, by allowing them to wander in the streets and talking to the employers of working children)
• Kids feel EMPOWERED, bitten by the "I Can" bug

This approach not only helps students gain confidence in general, it also motivates them to do better at academics, as proven by the students of Riverside School in the Asset Exam. The change brought about by some kids also attracts greater respect and admiration from adults towards kids. 

Sources:
Ted Conference - Teaching kids to take charge
Riverside School
aProCH - A Protagonist in every Child