Home School Home
After spending 14 years in school, and learning what I could have in about 6 years, I was reminded of this quote by William Glasser :
Image Credits – ~3-a-p-a-3-a
“There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done: school and prison.”
The education system of India, which was crafted ages ago with the Guru and the Shishya concept in mind, was “reformed” with the emergence of the British Raj. The word “reformed” is ironic, because all my knowledge about the current education system in India directs me to believe that nothing has changed, and all my knowledge about the British education system back then is limited to the song “Another Brick In The Wall Part 2” by Pink Floyd.
The recent celebration about the fact that Mr. Kapil Sibbal decided to end the 10th Class Board examination is all but a fail show. The CCE (Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation) will change nothing, except that students will now be super duper regular in school and teachers will be all buttered up.
The basic problem with the Indian Education System is that it is not dynamic. It is too rigid for the modern world. The only choice I got in my whole schooling was after my 10th Boards, where I decided to have a life and took commerce.
As I looked back to my school days, I couldn’t help but wonder, as to why things which are so important in life were not even discussed properly in school? We spent more than five years learning “Civics”, but not once a discussion on Terrorism was there, not once we spent time as to how we can make sure law gets enforced. No, that time was spent mugging up the number of seats in the parliament and how a President is elected. What does a president do after the election? Well that’s something we don’t need to know.
I know you have heard this cheesy line before in many articles but here we go again; What the Indian Education System needs is a complete revamp. We need to make everything elective. Let the child and his parents decide what he wants to do in life, right from Class 1. Let him make the choices. Expand the number of subjects and divide them into as many classes as possible. If someone wants to be an Architect let him become one from school itself. Stop generalizing everyone.
Instead of waiting for this to happen in a country which hasn’t even allowed VoIP yet, I became a fan of the idea of Home Schooling.
If the parents have enough time in their hands and are capable of teaching, Home schooling is a no-brainer. Sure, you need to send out your child to socialize. But the individual attention the child gets would be completely worth it. In schools, rarely the pace of studies is according to the student. It is either slow, or fast. If it is slow, the child has no motivation to learn and do things faster. If fast, the student feels inferior of himself. Home schooling eliminates all of this.
Even the curriculum is all up to the parents and the child. The best strategy would be to teach him the basics and teach him the specifics according to his interest and inclination. For recognition he should appear in the Senior Secondary Examination and later on join a college (or better yet correspondence 
).
The whole concept changes, if the school is actually good and the parents can afford that. But since that number is equal to the number of good teachers in Government schools, we can ignore that for this post.
There are so many factors into this which cannot be discussed in one post. At the end of it all, only the following questions remain:
Unless the school is really good, is sending the child to the school worth it?
Are schools wasting our time?
Can’t he learn more by himself and his parents and utilize his time more efficiently?
Let me know your opinions in the comment. By the way, Happy Teachers Day! (I know!)
Minty
7 Sep, 2009 at 9:58 am
Good thinking..
Akash
7 Sep, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Home schooling will not work as you see it. I am not a big fan of the Indian educational system but I am pretty sure this is the only way that works for everyone. Home schooling is all well and good, but the student has to go out there and interact with people (Including the countless idiots and other strange people) to actually learn anything. Real world experience is much more important than the lessons that schools provide. I do agree on the point that subjects must be more dynamic and the parents and students must decide their own path. But, do parents and small children really know what is needed or an institution who has been in the business all this time? Remember, churning out good products is vital for all organizations. If schools only produce poor students with a bad attitude who don’t help society – they have failed. However evil and money grabbing schools may seem, the reason they got into the business is to educate young people. And it’s been working out quite well for a long time now.
PS: The song of the day hasn’t been updated. Lazy fool.
Kritesh
7 Sep, 2009 at 3:21 pm
@Akash
I had mentioned the interaction part in post. There can be an easy workaround to that. Parents (Ones who are following home schooling) can arrange a meet or something for their children, to get to know what the others are doing. Also, the child is going out to play, he’ll get to see idiots there.
Parents can research on what is needed, if the get to know towards what their child is inclined to. I am not saying that Home schooling would be easy, it might just be way more difficult than normal schooling.
“However evil and money grabbing schools may seem, the reason they got into the business is to educate young people.”
Yes, I agree. But, what if that education is going to waste? Maybe what the institution thinks is worth teaching, isn’t practically useful?
P.S.: I had forgotten about the song of the day thing
I’ll update. Thanks 
@Minty
Thanks
Manali
9 Sep, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Hmm.. while I agree that the Indian education system isn’t the best, I don’t quite agree on the idea of home schooling.
And it’s too much effort anyway. Just don’t have any kids. No kat kat.
Kritesh
10 Sep, 2009 at 12:50 am
Well, if you don’t agree because its “too much effort”, let it be
And no kids? O_o How do you think you came into being?
Priya
17 Sep, 2009 at 8:31 am
Hmm..I am not a big fan of the Indian Education system either. I think thet the Indian Education system is highly maket-oriented and is filtering students so that they can suit the job market (except off course the black sheeps who take up humanities after year 10). So, the science ones become docs and engineers, the commerce ones do their mba or become accountants and so forth.
What is needed is the humanist/progressive or the collective orientation. The humanist orientation treats each child as a unique individual and tries to harness individuals into self actualised beings and the collective orientation ensures that these individuals form a society which is mutually co-operative and contributes to the world as a whole.
Giving choices to a child to determine the course of his future at the age of 6(year 1) would not be advisable as the child is too young to decide what he wants and home schooling wouldn’t be recommended coz I wouldn’t want the parents to steer their child’s course of life from the formative years. So, what’s the solution?
Allowing a child in year 8 (after he/she has tasted the flavour of all subjects) to make a choice till year 10. In year 10, allow the child to review his choice. Make Vocational education a part of the schooling system. Bring back home science. Value all subjects and all inclinations and ensure that you’ve allowed the child to ‘grow’ and ‘question’.
That is Education.