The story of ScienceUtsav

Let’s ask ourselves. What is the reason we studied so many subjects when we were kids?? Generally, our generation’s honest answer will be that our schools/ parents made us study?? JJJ

How did we study??

We learnt paragraphs after paragraphs by heart striving for better marks!! Now looking back at those days we think about how silly it was to have mugged up without understanding the application and the importance of the subjects we studied!!!

For eg:

All of us studied the Newton’s laws but most do not remember it now!! Isn’t it??

How many of us remember Bernoulli’s theorem (That helps the planes to fly!!), refraction of light (This is the why a diamond sparkles), law of inertia (Reason why our cars skid when we brake)??!

We studied science, calculus, geography, etc by uploading a lot of information into our brains but forget everything once the exams were over!!

That was because we did not know why we need to remember or understand stuff!!

We were told that the particular law or theorem would be asked in the examination for 2 marks and all that we were interested in was to write the law in the examination exactly how it was given in the textbook!!

What we learnt from it was secondary!!

*******But that was our generation. That was the past.*******

Think about what is happening today..

The education system is becoming more and more westernized – marks oriented and kids are becoming busier and busier with curricular/co-curricular activities and tuitions. The team based learning is giving way to the competitive and monotonous lifestyle. Perhaps kids may have abundant knowledge but they lack the skill to apply the same in day to day life. Collective efforts are decreasing and kids are getting better at individual tasks.

Think about this!!

It is very disgraceful that our bridges are constructed by an arts graduate; software applications coded by a mechanical engineer; roads built by an illiterate contractor; and we all know who the today s leaders are..

Don’t you think there is lack of value based thinking in the new generation?

Here is the first step at ScienceUtsav^TM to change the way people look at the term EDUCATION… It is a fascinating adventure of sorts to help the children see the way they want to see the world rather have them see the world from the eyes of Text book !!

History Of Indian Education

Indian education was well known and flourishing during the prosperous era of Nalanda, Takshila, Ujjain, & Vikramshila Universities. Art, Architecture, Painting, Logic, Grammar, Philosophy, Astronomy, Literature, Buddhism, Hinduism, Arthashastra (Economics & Politics), Law, Social science and Medicine were among the subjects taught and each university specialized in a particular field of study. Takshila specialized in the study of medicine, while Ujjain laid emphasis on astronomy. Nalanda, being the biggest centre, handled all branches of knowledge, and housed up to 10,000 students at its peak.

The whole world looked upon India as a hub for education. But with the separation of states, policies of rulers and kings and the British invasion there was dilution of the intense and value based Indian education.

Even till the British invasion indigenous education was widespread with a school for every temple, mosque or village in most regions of the country. The subjects taught included Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Theology, Law, Astronomy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Science, and Religion.

The face of education changed drastically with the adaptation of western education in India. The value system was taken off and the whole system was changed to a marks-based one. The subjects and the lessons taught became more standardized but the quality and penetration came down drastically.

Today s education is highly competitive and Indian children and made to mug up the facts and figures without showing the overall picture of what they are studying. Today any child will be able to give the exact definition of the term friction but will not be able to relate the brakes that he uses in his bicycle in day to day life to the term friction. Today s student will be able to give you a line by line recap of what happened with Gandhiji during the train travel in South Africa but there is no learning for him from that. He does not take home the lessons of leadership and intolerance to injustice but all he does is to remember the story to procure good marks in the exams!! This is the state because of the education system being very rigid and inflexible.