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Our world values number 1 more than anything else. Everyone remembers Neil Armstrong as the first man on the moon. Who was the second? Any idea? It was a man named Buzz Aldrin who walked the moon just 20 minutes after Armstrong. Was his achievement any less? He took the same risks, went through the same rigorous training. He just happened to have been chosen to be the second person to step out of the Lunar Module of Apollo 11.
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Our world values number 1 more than anything else. Everyone remembers Neil Armstrong as the first man on the moon. Who was the second? Any idea? It was a man named Buzz Aldrin who walked the moon just 20 minutes after Armstrong. Was his achievement any less? He took the same risks, went through the same rigorous training. He just happened to have been chosen to be the second person to step out of the Lunar Module of Apollo 11.
The fact that fewer people know his name doesn’t make his achievement any lesser. That he gets much less recognition is a flaw of how we think. It is a terrible flaw that we need to save our kids from.
The rampant suicides after exam results are declared – even by kids getting marks in the mid-90s, is an outcome of this flawed thinking.
Our children need an inherent sense of self worth which comes from knowing that they are competent, creative, capable individuals. Their outdoing anyone else has nothing to do with that. Children need to know that they are much more than just the grades given to them by the “system”. While the grades are important and mean something, grades are simply one aspect of their personality. It is a mathematical fact that in any classroom half of the kids will be below average. We do the entire nation a dis-service by thinking of those students as somehow inferior, and conveying that sense to them.
There should be constructive things they do that they enjoy, because that makes life worth living. There should not be any guilt associated with having a good time.
Even the theory of multiple intelligences – much touted and talked about – essentially says the same thing. As also the saying – often wrongly credited to Einstein – that if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
We have to remember that school and academia is an imperfect system, and can never be a sole judge of our children. We are surrounded by examples of people who were unsuccessful at school but went on to achieve great things. Thomas Alva Edison, probably the greatest inventor ever, was told by his school teacher that he was “too stupid to learn anything”.
Einstein did badly in school, and some of his teachers thought he was retarded (mentally handicapped). Richard Branson dropped out of school at 15 because he had severe difficulties. Mark Twain barely had a formal education. And Winston Churchill hated math, did badly in school and was often punished. Yet he led his nation to victory in a world war, and also won a Nobel prize in literature.
Each child has potential adults can only envy. Each child has unique and special abilities. The ideal school is one that finds those special skills and makes them blossom instead of making every child into an academic automaton. Measuring everyone by the same measure is a terrible thing. Firstly, it simply isn’t possible to do. Secondly, way too much damage is done in attempting it.
Besides, how boring a world full of only academic automatons would be!
