An Alternate Educational System for Parents Who Dare & Care

As the kids are still unborn or too young to read this blog, I had to title it as ‘for parents’. And if you are a parent who is always afraid of what people might think or care more about your social impression than your kids’ happiness, then you are advised not to read further. If you are not a parent, then also this post will be very interesting (or disturbing) read for you. As I mentioned in my previous post, that I’m not-normal.  So our educational system never made sense to me. But still had to participate in the rat race for long until I became old enough to refuse. This twisted point view of mine resulted in lots of suspicions in people around me, and felt like alien for quite some times. But I’m glad that in last 7 years met many people who bear the same opinion as mine. And few months back, an interesting conversation with Sanjibda re-ignited the spark within me to wake people up from age-old brainwashing of our broken educational system. Download Free Report.

I was thinking about writing this for long, but kept postponing it being busy in other ideas. But today I had to write this!

Questions I wanted to Answer

Today I posted the update below on Facebook.

And a very good friend of mine Debajitda (who is really a nice Dad) asked

But why??? I have some dream about my son, what about that?

What if a class VI student asks his parents “Why should I study physics/ chemistry/ math/ history … ?” What should be the answer of his parents?

Live Your Own Dreams & Let Your Children Live Theirs

To answer his first question. I will recommend every single person to devote their own life to fulfill their dreams.

Please please please don’t sacrifice your own dreams for your children & then dump your unfulfilled dreams onto their heads.

This is going on for ages. And this mentality is the reason for so much frustration, unhappiness, addictions among youth, old-age home & many other bad stuffs.

This doesn’t make sense. Think about it sensibly.

1. You don’t live your dreams as you are busy fulfilling your parents’ and raising your kids.
2. Your kids don’t live their dreams as they are busy fulfilling your dreams and raising their kids.
3. Your kids’ kids don’t live their dreams as they are busy fulfilling your kids’ dreams and raising your kids’ kids’ kids.
4. … (should I continue this anymore?)

Don’t you think it’s better to take responsibility of your own dreams and set your children free to live their dreams?

I don’t want to get into more details on the first question, as this post is more about answering the second one.

Before I propose the alternate educational system, I want to remind you that today more and more people are waking up to the fallacy of the existing educational system.

Movies Pointing Out the Loopholes of Educational System

I feel very glad to see that beautiful movies are being made to open up minds of people. Some of my favorite movies on this topics are

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Can you suggest me some more movies on this topic? Please let me know in the comments below.

What great people thought about Education

If you are a bit orthodox type (sorry!), you may not like the idea of being influenced by the movies regarding a subject like ‘education’. Well, let me present what some of the greatest thinkers thought about education. See it for yourself, whether our existing educational system matches with it.

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Now tell me, do you really think that our existing educational system is providing ‘education’ in the true sense of the term?

Hoping that these great people inspired you to be more open to the alternate (read REAL) educational system, let me propose my (and Sanjibda’s) ideas about it.

The Alternate Educational System

I have many ideas on this. This is like a dream project for me. I’m trying to share with you as many points as I can think of at this moment.

• Never ask your kids to write “What do you want to become when you grow up” Stupid Essays: Come on! I am sure most of you (if not all of you) were asked to write these essays in your childhood. You know this essay does more harm than good to children. Why? Just think about it. When a child is asked to write this, how much he/she knows about the world? Do they know all the career options available? No! A child write this essay from the limited perception or the influence of someone. If a child had seen only doctors, engineers and teachers around them, how can they think or write about being a painter? You know some parents even force children to write – “Sonu. Write that you want to be a doctor. Don’t you want to make your Mamma/Daddy proud?”! And they kill the unlimited potential within a child at that very moment. Some parents even keep poking their grown up kids – “How can you say now that you want to be a rock singer? Don’t you remember that you wrote you wanted to be an engineer in your primary school essay?”. Painfully funny!
• Expose your kids to all possible options early in life: First thing you should do for the education of your kid (after teaching them to talk, read and write) is to involve them in fun activities related to different subjects and professions. Give them colorful crayons to draw, ask them to write about their doll, play different sports with them, give easy math puzzles, give colorful books to read. Talk about different professions in a way they can understand like “You know what doctor uncle does? When anyone gets fever, he cures them”. Then observe, what is your children interested in. Encourage your kids in those activities. Never ever force your kids to do stuff they don’t want to do.
• Don’t think that you understand what’s good for your kid better than themselves: There is no greater power than imagination and intuition. Every great invention is result of these two. [Tweet “And imagination and intuition is more powerful in kids than in grown up people.”] I know it’s bit hard to accept, but learn to trust in your kids. Let them follow their heart.
• Schooling should be fun: Many potentials die where it should have been nurtured. Make sure you admit your kids in schools where they can have fun while learning, not in those schools which turn kids into tiny machines. Talk explicitly to the teachers if you need. Let them know that you don’t want your kids to be pressured in any way. You don’t care about the marks (why you shouldn’t I’ll tell you soon). You just want your kids to have a good time, learn values and make friends.
• Why don’t you opt for home schooling?: Rabindranath Tagore is not the only one who had homeschooling. I know many parents (outside India) who prefer to teach their kids at home. [Tweet “Trust me, no one can make the basic foundation of kids as strong as parents.”] In case you want to, but can’t because you are too busy in your career, then you must watch the video Parable of Pipeline & think about some career which can give you time freedom too.
• What if kids could devote completely to their subject of interests from childhood?: [Tweet “What if kids could devote completely to their subject of interests from childhood?”]Have you ever thought about it? What if a kid could devote all those childhood years to learn, practice, innovate, create about the subjects they love?  Just imagine, from the age of 10 some kids are playing whole day, some are writing stories/poems, some are drawing/painting, some are solving math puzzles, some are reading novels, some are starting their small entrepreneurial ventures, some are learning martial arts, some are studying space, some are fiddling with computer …. Don’t you think these kids will turn into absolute geniuses in their twenties? Don’t you think that they will change the world in their thirties and forties?
• Your kids don’t need to learn all the subjects: Wake up from the age old brainwashing that your kids need to learn all the subjects to lead a good life. Total bullshit. Possibly math and language (mother tongue and English) are the only two subjects that everyone will need in life. Why should someone memorize how many wives some characterless kings had and when they were born and died? Why would someone need to memorize so much stuff of geography when they can get the information from Google? Think rationally, do your kids really need to learn this for practical applications in their future?
• Brain is a computer, not a hard disk: You must have heard that human brain is the most advanced computer. Then why would you force your kids to occupy their brains with useless data? [Tweet “Role of brain is to think, imagine and innovate not just store information.”] Haven’t you ever seen in your smart phone, that when you put too much data in internal memory it turns slow. Same happens in case of your kids. More useless information you stuff in their heads, more dumb they will become. 
• Don’t let your kids participate in the rat race: Life is a race – if anyone try to tell you this, break their face. Don’t you love your kids? How can you treat them like horses (or rats)? Why do you want them to participate in such races? I know what you must be thinking – “but now a days there is so much competition”. Ofcourse there are. If you push your kids to follow the crowd, do what everyone else is doing, they are bound to face competition. But what if you set them free? You will say – “If I don’t force them to study hard in primary, they won’t get into good secondary schools. If they don’t get into secondary schools and study hard, the won’t get into good colleges and won’t be able to get good jobs.” Mark my words. If you let your children follow their heart from childhood, they won’t ever need marks/ certificate/ degree to get the best jobs or they may not even need a job. They’ll always be able to create career out of their passion. Yes, they’ll face difficulties. But they won’t be frustrated as they will be doing something they enjoy doing.
• Don’t judge your kids on marks, rather judge on their values: If you program your kids from early age to give importance only to tangible results like marks, they may never understand the importance of things like truthfulness, honesty, politeness, humility etc. [Tweet “You should let your kids know that being a good human being is not optional.”]
• Let your kids know that they have complete freedom over their career choice: Trust me you (and your kids) can do,be or have anything you want. Please don’t limit their vision forcing some career path on them. If you do a little bit of research, you’ll find out that successful people are successful doing different things – from cutting hair, to designing dresses, to writing books, working in software companies, founding companies, gardening, chasing lions, … only thing common is most (if not all) of them are successful doing something they love. (Btw I don’t consider a frustrated rich as a successful person. I’m sure you don’t want your kids to be like them ).  You should let your kids know that they can become whatever they want to be. Many parents are scared thinking “My kid loved drawing when he was 8, loved singing when he was 16 and now he want to be a kung fu instructor at 25. He doesn’t have a fixed career objective“. It’s absolutely fine. Many successful persons changed career paths many times in life. Change isn’t a bad thing. You should just remind your kids again and again “Dear,do whatever you want but live your life in a manner that you can die with a smile on your lips.”.
• Encourage your kids to be a life long learner of life lessons: There are many important lessons in life, which a kid should be taught from childhood. And the most important among those is – never stop learning. Teach your kids to learn from their failures. Teach your kids the power of thoughts, feelings, words and actions. Teach your kids the importance of perseverance & patience. Trust me, this knowledge will be more valuable than all the academic data.

Well, that is all for now. I know our society and the educational system are yet to understand all these. And if you decide to follow this alternate educational system, your journey might be tough. But only if you care about what others think of you.

You should follow this alternate educational system, as it would be the best gift to your kids and yourself too. Imagine spending so many beautiful moments together without worrying about home works, class tests, exam marks. Imagine being the best friend of your kids, living happily ever after. One thing for sure, bond between you and your kids will never ever break if you follow this.

I’d really really love to know what you think of this. Feel free to write whatever you feel from heart. Don’t hesitate to contradict me. I’m very open and flexible person to discuss.

P.S. If you like it, please share it with others. Help me wake more people up.

Update: Download Free PDF Report

If you want to get the above post in a beautifully formatted PDF file, you can find the download links from below.

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Download Links: OneDrive Google Drive Dropbox

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