I just saw this video on YouTube, and it got me wondering why is it that we don’t see a lot of original art coming out of India. India has a large population and an ancient tradition of classical forms of art, and yet you have to really strain hard to think of original artists – A. R. Rahman, M. F. Hussein and that’s it! I cannot even imagine a performance like this in “India’s got talent”. India has a huge film and music industry, yet most of the films are rehashed and adapted Hollywood scripts. Fittingly, there is no award distinguishing between adapted and original screenplay in the Indian "Oscars". The music directors for these movies are too smart to plagiarize from popular songs from big artists so they look for “inspiration” in smaller markets such as Turkey and Thailand and lift music from there.
This brings me to an article I read today about how babies can very quickly internalize the concept of probability and discover new mechanisms, just by exploring. The article stresses, however, that this type of learning best happens when babies are given freedom to explore and experiment on their own. Most babies and young children in India do not get this freedom and I think this is what ends up in stilted creativity as they grow older.
Anybody growing up in a country as populous as India, has to compete for resources at every stage of life – nothing comes to those who wait. If you don’t push through, leave aside getting a seat on the bus; you will probably not even get on the bus. If you stick to driving in your lane and politely try to pass others, you probably won’t get anywhere. Unless you excel in school in some way, you will be starved for teacher’s attention. Unless you perform, and perform really well in school you will not have any kind of a career. This is the lesson you learn at every step – life is very competitive and it starts early. Even a small block party held in the neighborhood to celebrate a holiday will have some kind of competition for kids – poetry recitation, some sort of race etc. and only the winner gets a prize. Only success is rewarded and recognized; not perseverance, not hard work, not originality – only success. You do not have the freedom to fail, and learn from it. There are no second chances. To see how endemic this has become in the culture you only have to visit a “Chuck-E-Cheese” type game parlor. There you will see the store workers as well as parents helping each child to win as many tickets as possible so that they can get a big prize in the end. This is what brought it home for me finally as I had to keep telling surprised store workers to back off. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t want them to help my child win big!
This is the reason that parents start teaching babies the alphabet, the multiplication tables and seek out academic programs by the time the kids are 3, to give them a heads up later. It is easy to find math and zoology classes for 4 year-olds in India! There is no room or time for exploration – learn your facts so that you can ace that interview for a good elementary school. If you don’t get there in the first try, you don’t have any more chances. And if you don’t get in a good school, your chances in life start dwindling right away. If you don’t do well in your 10th grade finals, you lose the chance to ever study math and science in the grades ahead. There is no room for and no appreciation for creativity, and definitely no time for discovering and indulging in your passions. Most kids spend 2-3 hours every day after school in classes to help them perform better at school. Only winning matters – and this is instilled early and often.
My intention is not to insult my roots, or the system that got me where I am today. But I do think it is time to take some pressure off the children because it seems to just keep growing. Mention this to any Indian and they will point out how Indians win math and science competitions world-wide, and thank you very much, but it is a great system. Why do Indian kids win spelling bees and geography bees – not because they are any smarter but because their parents grew up in a culture where winning competitions and memorizing facts are the tickets to success. Most Indians follow successful careers in the US, but do they ever follow their passion? Do they ever blaze a new trail in their field?
There is some upside for a system like India’s. Children learn early that you don’t get anything for just showing up, you have to perform. I have never seen kids cry at a competition in India because they didn’t win. In the US we seem to have the opposite problem where kids think themselves too entitled. I have had 8yo burst into tears at birthday parties here because they didn’t win musical chairs, and only got the basic “goody bag”, not the special prize. The American public education system has so much focus on leveling the playing field, and catering to the average that exceptional kids often feel left out, unappreciated and bored.
Is it even possible to create a perfect system?
Raising kids in a non-native environment while constantly worrying about striking the right balance.
8 comments:
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I've started another blog to explore some of these issues in more depth.
improveindiaeducation.wordpress.com. fyi.
What a great post. I think it's so tricky. In the US, the level playing field sometimes feels like "everybody has to win" and if everybody has to win, nobody wins. It approaches what the Aussies call the "tall poppy" syndrome...if you rise above the crowd, your head gets lopped off. I'm not sure what to do about this. I think about it all the time. And now you've given me even more to think about :)
I hear you, but I know a ton of kids in Indian schools nowadays who are amazingly creative and whose parents are not into the rat race type pushiness. My parents are educators (albeit special ed) in India and I did not have a traditional pushy education. I do regret it a lot now because I feel that I never fulfilled my potential and kept exploring and dabbling and never understood ambition. I am unsure how I will raise my children.
I too think that kids have to have ambition, drive or some goal to strive for. A certain level of competition, and an awareness that you have to work hard to achieve something is very important. The tricky part is striking the right balance and that is not an easy thing to do.
I know in India there are schools that follow the "international" model and the pressure is low. But the kids coming out of these schools still have to take the same national-level board exam. Given, that a school's reputation depends on how the students perform in the board exams, the pressure has to eventually build up. With lot of Indians re-settling in India after stints abroad, I do hope that there is some movement towards reform. But when I see how Indians living in the US push their kids, my hope dwindles.
I grew up in Japan and saw some of the same tendencies from parents-to-children (WRT pushing academics), but somehow, artistic creativity was also in there. Japanese children always seemed to have tremendous artistic ability (to my eyes), but maybe that was part of the "push to succeed" that they experienced regularly. Does part of the dilemma in Indian culture have to do with the caste system? Japan doesn't have that and I'm curious if that makes a difference of if it's the sheer volume of people in the country that is the tipping point.
I guess one of the things that strikes me is that America is considered "the land of opportunity" by so many - where there are chances for all who will reach out and grasp it. What that looks like for different ethnicities that come with their own cultural understandings, I do not know. It makes me realize that some who are "natively American" (i.e., whose families have been here multiple generations) lack the oomph to reach out & grab the opportunity that is there, while others come to this country and take hold of every opportunity that is presented to them.
I went to high school in Livonia with several friends of Indian descent - all excelled at math & science, but one girl wasn't able to handle the pressure of her family's expectations - and took her own life while studying at the U. :( Other friends did well and survived the pressure, this friend did not. Clearly, there's a balance to be struck between the two extremes, but how to do it?
If you figure it out, please let us know... ;)
Sue,
Although there is a tendency for many to blame lot of India's woes in the caste system, I can't see how that creates more competition or stifles creativity. I think it just has to do with the sheer size of population and a democratic system where government doesn't take care of all your needs. Yes, the very rich can afford to work outside the system as they can buy everything with money, including places in the best schools. My experience, however, is mostly limited to the educated middle class which pretty much has grown above the caste system.
Wow, what an eye-opener! I work as a teacher in the U.S., but many of my students' parents are Indian. I now understand 'where they're coming from', and why they don't care about the less tangible aspects of education that we are trying to provide for the children (i.e. independence, social skills, critical thinking). Thank you for this post, I'm going to share it with my co-workers!
montessorimoments,
I do think it is unfortunate that many Indian parents put their children in Montessori preschools for the wrong reasons. They expect it to be an "academic" environment.
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