Dare to dream
Mr Rajshekhar is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Realyze Consulting, a certified business coach and an individual volunteer with JAToday's world has become cruel to children! It has taken away their childhood. Many of the children I meet talk, act and behave like adults. I find their curiosity reducing year-by-year! Research suggests that a child's creative thinking stops by the age of 6 or 7 and thanks to our education system, they develop qualities like taking instructions, memorising, reproducing and competing to score, right from the 1st standard!
Why does it happen? If one doesn't score 90%+, s/he won't get admission to a good school! If one doesn't appear amongst the 200 ranks in competitive exams, s/he won't get admission in a good university / college for Engineering, Medical or Law! Another question is why would one want to choose only from handful of disciplines? General understanding seems to be that these disciplines lead to a better job and probably, a better lifestyle. A survey published last week in the Education Times suggests that 80% of the students surveyed would make Traditional Career Choices.
This phenomenon forces parents to pressurize children to get higher marks or percentages. In return, they influence schools to largely focus on the curriculum that needs to be taught and build the qualities mentioned earlier to score! Children also have to go to coaching classes to get that extra edge over fellow students. When the entire education system happens to be about scoring and staying ahead to get admission to better schools / colleges, peer pressure starts building on children to follow the norm! What happens is that we have more and more 'Chatur Ramalingam' created in the system..
I can understand parents who are not financially/socially sound falling into this trap. They may not be aware of possibilities and could be anxious, pinning all their hopes on their child for what they have not achieved. But, I have always wondered why parents who are educated and well to do financially / socially also fall into the same trap.
I do 'Executive coaching' with corporate executives and also conduct 'Discovery Sessions' with youngsters who are yet to decide on their career choice. I would like to share some of my findings from the last few years:
(1) In one session, a young boy got up and said 'I have decided to study engineering for my parents and will become a Chef, eventually'. Why don't parents understand the passion and nurture the child towards that, instead of wasting time and money?
(2) I met a boy who was very fond of music and had a good sense for sound. He wanted to explore career options on those fronts. However, family pressure (cousins are all IITans) forced him to complete Engineering and take up a job in an MNC. A year or two later he did an additional course in sound engineering and is currently producing music which was his first choice! Now he is very happy, though he lost couple of years in between!
(3) I also know a contemporary of Shankar Mahadevan who believes that he is a better singer than Shankar. However, he chose to do MBA and works with the Big 4. Now even though he is doing well financially, he is unhappy because he could not pursue his 1st love and feels that Shankar got best of both worlds, fulfilling his passion and a secured life.
I would urge everyone (students, parents, and professors) involved in the system to ponder the following:
- Understand the real interest and build passion for the interest
- Explore the passion and make appropriate choices
- % is not all! Life does not begin and end with scoring!
- There is a lot more to learn, besides the discipline one has chosen
- Apply the learning's, inculcate personal values and take risks
- Create a Vision of how would you apply your learning's and enjoy the journey!
Happy Dreaming and Exploration!
