Redefining Education, Re-modelling Society

Picture this. Students are great at grammar but go cold when it comes to communication. They toil hard to crack trigonometry but when it comes to understanding business they are clueless. Where they can recount dates and events of History, they are totally unaware how it has shaped the society. In spite of having Biology as a subject, they don’t understand their own body.

What good is an education that has little or no practical value? Is the purpose of school and education not to prepare you for life? Leave alone life, the present education system doesn’t equip you even for a livelihood. It is a redundant system that limits children to small box-thinking, called subjects. It misses out to connect subjects and topics with each other and ignores completely the larger picture as such.

Great in theory, a failure in practice!

The reason for having a large section of late bloomers is rooted in our very own education system, both at school and university level. Even after investing years in school and college, graduates have no idea about the dynamics of business, how to begin a start up, are not equipped to handle money, how to position themselves in an interview and present their skills. They have to learn all the concepts all over again to become successful.

Where society is lacking?

Lack of Self Awareness: Students sail through the entire journey of education without knowing the own self. They don’t know their capabilities, their dreams, their areas of improvement, their fears and most of all their feelings. Furthermore they fear their own feelings. The inner self is an unknown territory, and is a scary territory to venture into.

Lack of Awareness of Others: Life doesn’t happen in isolation, work cannot be carried forward by one person. If a person doesn’t understand her/himself, the possibility of understanding others is not only dim but impossible. Inability to negotiate, ineffective and violent communication, lack of empathy, struggle to build teams, weak or no leadership are thus natural outcomes.

Lack of Skills: The entire education system focuses on telling rather showing. You may have often heard booming voices of parents and teachers asking children to ‘focus’ but no one actually shows them how to concentrate. Reason why is they themselves don’t know the techniques or ways to concentrate.

What we can do

Redefining the Goal of Education – The purpose of education should be:

• Self awareness – Ability to reflect and introspect
• Communication – How to communicate clearly and effectively
• Business – How to start up, run a company, how to be an asset in an organization as an employee

Restructuring Education System: It is time to reconstruct the entire system, like back to back periods of 45 minutes each. Exchange frontal teaching with problem-oriented learning and learning and working in groups, revamp the curriculum as such regarding subjects/ topics and also change the durations. Apart from teachers, entrepreneurs and very successful people should teach on their specialties too.

Rethinking by Organizations: Organizations are ran by humans and not robots.

Companies that form the center of our economy have to begin to hire candidates with high EQ (emotional quotient) rather than only looking at their IQ, titles and degrees on their CV’s.

Re-modelling Parenting: As parents, talk to your child about the importance of self growth and self discovery. It is also important that you, as a parent, walk your talk. Practice mindfulness, express your feelings and ask your child how she/he feels, appreciate every little effort and respect her/his struggles. Since we have not been brought up in this manner, these things don’t come naturally to us. A life coach can help you initiate on this path of connecting with your inner self. By seeking support of a coach, you are also setting an example in front of your kids that it is alright to seek help.

It is time we move from a meaningless to a satisfying life. It is a journey worth undertaking, which will open doors of contentment for yourself, for your children and the community.

Jasmin Waldmann

Jasmin Waldmann is a well renowned international Life Coach and the head of Jasmin Waldmann Life Coaching Company.
Her new book, “Change Me” was published in January 2018 and is available in the stands in India and national and international online (in India: Amazon, Flipkart; internationally: Amazon). It’s the story of Amit, his trials and triumphs, and how he realizes that although the journey to success is your own, you don’t need to do it all alone. Through the book, Jasmin guides you to look within and reflect upon who you are and who you want to be and understand for yourself the path you can travel to change yourself into a even better version of yourself.

Share your feedback, questions, experiences and suggestions to office@jasminwaldmann.com and read more articles here: http://box5741.temp.domains/~hvymgwmyblog