Enough of sending children to hopeless schools, parents need to come together and redesign school for their children

Sourav Dutta

The primary philosophy of schooling has not changed over the last century. This article is here but not to criticise schooling rather help you understand what best can you give to your child.

We all know Elon Musk very well. A few years back he pulled off his 5 children from their school & started his own school by the name Ad Astra, which means ‘to the stars’. Ask yourself, why the richest man in the world did so? He could have sent his children to the best schools in the world?

Ad Astra runs on two basic principals.

1.     It does not follow the assembly line model of education, that everyone has to learn the same thing at the same time. According to him, children might have varied interests like music, art, languages, maths, etc. Which is true. Hence, he ensures that Ad Astra caters its education to match kids’ aptitude, abilities & interests instead of trying to produce mindless, compliant workers.

2.   Education needs to have a purpose. He believes in making the students own their learning. It’s important to teach problem-solving using tools rather than just about the tools. This way the relevance of the tools becomes apparent, and the students realise the purpose of their learning. They own their learning & that is where the school system lags behind, in fact far behind.

The one & only survival strategy for the future generation is to take responsibility in our own hands. Parents must step forward and take strong decisions in their life. Community learning centres are the only solution that we can opt for. And we must do this as soon as possible.

Now if you are convinced, the next big question is how to start?

No matter where you live, you can always come up with a small space, gather parents and conduct regular sessions among each other. Discuss but never get into arguments. Your discussions must add up to solutions. Take your time, once you reach to a conclusion that you all are ready to form a learning centre, the next step is the research.

Take the journey of research as individual tasks. Say you are a group of 3 different parents. One may take up the research of finding the loopholes in the mainstream education system, the history of it. The chronic problems that our system is surviving with, and so on. One may travel or connect to parents who are already into alternative forms of education. Look out for small education centres. In the beginning, you won’t find one, but once you set out you will find many, and very inspiring. Once you get hold of them, explore their life in & out. The third parent can go for extra assistance, may take the task of documentation of the research or may choose anything new as well.

Once the research is done you will start to see new dimensions in your learning process. You will realise what all wrong is happening in the system. This is the phase of great realisation and then you start a new journey called ‘unlearning’. This journey of unlearning is like the foundation of your child’s future.

Soon you will realise what you need to focus on. Grades & numbers will fall short, as your priority will shift to happiness. You will see knowledge everywhere but not in the books. You will realise that life in itself is the best teacher. Soon you will acknowledge that every child is special, then why force them in one direction? You will understand knowledge comes from doing things & brightness of a child is her happiness but not the grades or certificates.

Freedom is the best education.

Generations of strong conditioning have kept us in darkness. But now you are in bright light & you know that children may learn everything if they are free, because knowledge is everywhere, free like air. Once the group of parents realise the same it’s just that they need to start a space and help facilitate the children rest will happen in the most beautiful way.