A few dashes of magic please… in the pot of primary education?

The narrator of the book Ice Candy Man – an extremely bright nine year old girl from a wealthy family - comments at one point of time in the book that she learnt from many things. From observing the people around her, from walking on the streets, from watching the birds and animals. She also says that even when she was in class, reciting multiplication tables, she did not let that get in the way of her education.

About this time last year, I had 2 very interesting conversations. Juxtaposed against personal reflections, it led to some interesting questions – I say questions because the answers unfortunately are not straightforward and I don’t think I have them.

One of the conversations was with a young, beautiful, intelligent woman. 24 years old. I will call her Poornima. 2 years out of IIT, she had quit her job with a reputed firm and was planning to start shadowing a professional interior designer with the objective of discovering whether interior designing was her true calling. My first reaction was an incredulous what!?! Why?!?! She went on to explain that she realized about 6 months ago that she never wanted to be an engineer. She had been through the 8 year grind of topping in school, studying for JEE, doing engineering physics at IIT and doing an analytics job because that was what she thought she was supposed to do as a bright student. It had all been a way of proving herself to herself and the world. I would say - not an unworthy goal for anyone and especially for someone who has the additional stereotypes linked to her gender thrown in.

The other conversation was with my 14 year old cousin who is in the process of deciding what to do after her class X exams. I asked her if she had made up her mind. She said, “Yes, I want to do non-medical.” Non-medical in my view is not a profession. I probed a little further, “So, you want to be an engineer?” She replied monosyllabically “yes”. My next question was “Why?” Her unconvincing reply was that she did not want to be a doctor like her parents and she did not really mind the life that she saw me and my husband lead (we are both engineers and MBAs) and she was too smart to do arts and commerce and even if she wanted to, her parents will not allow her to do arts. As she said this, I saw another Poornima in the making.

This world is full of Poornimas. Women, maybe many men as well, but especially women who spend their formative and educational years obtaining degrees and becoming a top-end professional in a particular field. However, they also very quickly realize that what they have worked for all their lives and chosen isn't ‘the right one’ or ‘the final one’. The onset of this feeling brings with it over time a lack of passion and perhaps in extreme circumstances even self sabotaging behaviors at the workplace. At that time some of these women start to look around for something more, something creative and something in line with true passions, these true passions often unknown and hard to discover at this stage in life.

Why are there so many Poornimas around? I think there are 2 reasons:

Firstly, our education system does not, at least did not 20 years ago, allow children self discovery. A system which could have and should have taught curiosity, experimentation, and creativity largely focused on discipline and relative competitiveness. Seemingly important then, it is not difficult today to question the relevance of focusing on topping the class by learning where rice grows in India and how to solve trigonometrical problems without understanding their real applications. The creative classes – arts, crafts, sports, music - while considered fun in junior years often made way for revision classes for board exams in senior years. There was often limited time and even more limited access to resources and information outside of school. Thus a majority of the children finished school and stepped into professional courses with no real discovery of themselves, their talents and their passions. The choice of professional courses was driven down to, “I like biology, so I am going to be a doctor” or worse “Both my parents are doctors, and I don't want to be one, so I will take engineering.”

Secondly, even if a child is in touch with his/her passions, often concerns around financial stability and independence, living a good life, being seen as a success by society influence career decisions much more than inherent interests and capabilities. Hence the higher preference for engineering, medicine, CA and civil services amongst young adults who know next to nothing of these professions.

What follows is predictable. An engineering degree from the IITs or other good colleges, an MBBS from a top medicine school, followed by a few years of work, followed by great disillusionment with work and an even greater lack of clarity on where to go. Some are courageous enough to leave their professions and experiment, like Poornima, their end destination being one of frustration or fulfillment, only time will tell. Others linger on somewhat dully in their professions, treating it as a way to spend some time, a way to make some money.

Is Poornima’s journey through IIT, an uninspiring career and finally a path of experimentation, an aberration that needs to be addressed or is it the natural course of self-discovery that should be allowed to flourish? The need for addressal could be from one of two points of view: Is she wasting top notch educational resources which should go to someone who will cherish them and use them longer? Is she wasting her own talents/passions by not discovering and exploring them early enough?

On the first one, one can argue that in a country so short of top quality higher education programs, Poornima wasted a precious seat at IIT and 8 years of her life doing things that she later realized were not her long term calling. Shouldn’t that seat at IIT have gone to someone who was going to make the most of it for a long time to come? Shouldn't there be a bond or something equivalent which states that unless for pressing reasons, you must make full use of your degree for a period of at least 5 years. This is what the Singapore Government does for many students who get scholarships to study in Singapore. However, the flip side of that is that even if it wasn't her long term ambition, Poornima’s journey, what she learnt at IIT and at work from a set of brilliant peers and teachers, her experiences, all of that make her who she is and she and the society will definitely benefit from that one day in one way or the other. Maybe, this is a hard to answer question.

However, the question that is definitely not hard to answer is the other one. Yes, Poornima should have had the opportunity to develop her tastes/skills much earlier. Yes, she should have been helped and encouraged as a child to figure out where her interests lie. Yes, if she had discovered her interest in interior designing, she should have chosen an arts school over an engineering school at 18. Poornima would have been so much more talented and skilled then. Our society would have had another brilliant artist then.

Shouldn't our education system and at least the financially secure upper class of our society at some point of time change - change the way we bring up our children, to allow for a lot more self-discovery, self-expression, a little bit of exploration, some unhurried, non-competitive moments of creativity and curiosity? Shouldn't there be a just a little bit of time for every child to discover his/her own inner magic which keeps him/her spellbound forever?