A world where fish are no longer forced to climb trees

Schindler Potsangbam *

Albert Einstein once said “Everybody’s a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Ladies and gentlemen, today we have modern-day schooling. Not only do they make a fish climb a tree, but they also make them do a 10-mile run. Turning millions into robots each and every day.

Do you realize how many kids relate to that fish, never finding their gifts, thinking they are stupid, and believing they are useless? Well, the time has come, no more excuses. I accuse the school of killing creativity, and individuality and being intellectually abusive. It is an ancient institution that has outlived its usage.

Richard Williams, a civil rights activist from St Louis, MO in his video once remarked and I quote

“Let's take a modern-day phone and a phone from 150 years back, big difference, right? Let's talk about a car from today and a car from 150 years ago, again a huge difference. Well then get this, look at a picture of today’s classroom and a classroom from 150 years ago. Now ain’t that a shame that literally more than a century and nothing has changed. Do you claim to prepare students for the future? But seeing the scenario, I must ask, ``Do you prepare the children for the future or the past?”

Now if we look back then we can conclude that schools were made to train people to work in factories which explains why they put students in straight roles nice and neat and tell them to sit still, raise their hands if they want to say or ask something, give them a 10 minutes break for lunch and for 8 hours a day tell them what to think and make them compete to get an ‘A’, a letter which determines product quality.

Now isn’t this insane? But I get it, then times were different and I myself have nothing to have a say in this but today we don’t need robot zombies or something like that. Society needs people who can connect and think creatively, rationally, innovatively, critically, and independently.

See we all know that every brain is different and so is every person and scientists have already confirmed that.

But then how come the school treats each and every student the same way? It is like you are giving the same size fits of clothes to all the customers or a doctor giving the same medicine to all the patients. And that's how we can explain why storms are named after people. It’s awful.

So when it comes to school it’s the exact thing that has been prevailing there for ages where one teacher stands in front of 60 kids each one having different goals, different dreams, different perspectives, and different capabilities. Yet they teach the same thing the same way.

Now that's a horrific, A system where nobody has a say and curriculums and policies are made by people most of which have never taught in their entire life and are just obsessed with standardized tests. But I guess it’s never too late to change. I have faith in humanity and I believe that this could still change. Let's give every gift an equal chance. Sure Maths is important but not more than dance or arts.

I know it sounds like a dream come true but countries like Finland are doing impressive things such as shorter school days, homework is non-existent and they focus on collaboration, not competition. And to be honest their educational system outperforms every other country in the world. Not only them, but countries like Singapore are also succeeding rapidly so on and so forth the list goes on.

Sure people are changing. So let's get moving because students may be 20% of the population but they are 100% of the future. In conclusion, I dream about an educational life where each and every soul is given priority to their dream and encouraged and backed up by the school itself and by their parents. This is a world in which I believe, a world where fish are no longer forced to climb trees.

“What makes a child gifted and talented may not be good grades in school, but a different way of looking at the world and learning.”
- Chuck Grassley.