Ours Theirs

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Some days ago Supratim voiced his concerns at the direction Indian Education System is heading and asked me for my thoughts on the subject; which I wrote up in the blog:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/06/pullout-blog.html

Again, a few days back I was struck by some plain-speaking by Obama which I posted in another blog:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/06/archieland.html

And today there is an op-ed interview of Amitav Ghosh by Kaushik Mitter in Deccan Chronicle touching on this subject.

And I am taking the liberty of quoting excerpts from the article below:

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"...I think what's happened in America, the reason it made such an impact is that Americans have begun to realise that their is something problematic about their system of education. For years they've been accustomed to thinking their education system is the best in the world; now they realise it has very deep problems. I've brought up two children there, they've been through the whole American educational system---and I'm happy that they've done very well in that system. But I certainly realise this system is riddled with terrible problems.

I also think the strengths of our system are never properly articulated. The whole world has become battered and bullied by this constant talk about the excellence of American education by people who have no experience of it, who don't know what it is to bring up children in different places...people automatically accept there is something magnificent in that system and that our system is horrible...And it is not really true.

I've taught at Harvard and at all these places...One of the reasons I really feel relieved not to be teaching anymore is that I don't think in many significant respects that the American system works...

School education, college education...From top to bottom, it just doesn't work. In some ways it's become like entertainment (Archieland...gps)...When as a college teacher in America you are offering a class, the children "shop" for classes. So which are the classes they are going to take? The classes that are entertaining, the classes where they are marked very liberally. This is exactly what happens; they put their evaluations on their websites so that the students who are following know exactly who are the strict teachers, who are not strict teachers, and they game the system very, very well...

Education is not all fun. Education is difficult, but the idea that you have to make education fun at some point becomes self-defeating. You can't make certain kinds of mathematics fun. You can't make difficult things fun. And that's not why you are doing education. Learning poetry by heart is not fun. But it's very necessary to have that poetry in your head if you are studying English literature...I sometimes ask my children: Can you recite a poem?---and they've been to the top institutions in America---and no, they can't.

They (Americans) think that rote learning is bad...But it is such an idiotic idea---what's learning but rote learning? How can you learn the multiplication tables as though it was fun? And learning is in fact 90% rote learning...if you constantly attack this idea of rote learning, it's ridiculous...

If you go to American Universities now, why is it that all the departments of mathematics, engineering are filled with Asian students? They come from systems where the rigor is drilled into them from an early age. If it hasn't been drilled into you from an early age, you have to be truly exceptional. America is a country filled with very brilliant people, and many exceptional students. But the institutional structure doesn't always support them.

...For example, my niece in Kolkata, when she has to go through exams, the whole house shuts down. For two or three months no one will go out, (someone) will sit with her every evening, no one will turn on the TV, literally...the kind of things that every parent in India, every household in India does. Can you imagine this happening in America? It's inconceivable.

...I'm not saying our system is without faults. There are many faults, many things wrong with it. But there's lot of stuff which I see is constantly being said---from education ministry people and so on, most of whom have no connection with education. I look at it and just laugh to myself...These people have no conception of what they're saying---they are going to destroy what's good in our system and take everything that's bad in that system and end up with the worst possible mess.

When I went from Delhi University to Oxford, I thought I was going into a place where there's so much higher learning, so much a "life of mind" and it was exactly opposite...My education in Delhi had been much better than anything Oxford would have provided. I was far ahead of those other students; I'd read all the books already...I knew more than my teachers there, for heaven's sake.

There were also wonderful things about Oxford. It let me explore avenues and byways I could not have done in Delhi, but that was possible because I'd been through this whole rigour...What really worries me is that they are in danger now of throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater!

One thing that is never factored into the debate here---do people even understand the level of cost involved...For each of my two children I'm paying $50,000 a year for college education...each year for four years...so at the end on each child you spend something like a crore of rupees on their college education.

Our system is delivering an education which in many ways competitive internationally---and at what cost? It's less than one percent of that cost. How will our society generate this kind of money for this (American) kind of education? It's ridiculous. Even America can no longer sustain this. Everyone there is talking of the next big bubble being in American education, and I think they're absolutely right...

Do you know what they have to do to put their children through college? People don't realise this here---they take out these loans, and a staggering percentage of American children now come into life with a burden of loans which amount to $200,000---$300,000. These loans have crippling rates of interest---they can never get rid of these loans, and they are specifically exempted even from bankruptcy claims...So if a person declares bankruptcy, even then they cannot get rid of these loans. For the first 20-30 years of their lives they are working to pay off these loans. Is such a system conceivable here? What impact will it have on the poor and all those who can't afford it?"

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gpspeak

Taylor & Wheeler came up with Spacetime Physics many decades ago. The book was on SR and specifically meant for students afraid of Calculus. I enjoyed it and learned many things from it because I knew Calculus and SR already.

A few years back they came up with Exploring Blackholes. The book was on GR and specifically meant for students afraid of Tensor Analysis. I enjoyed it and learned many things from it because I knew Tensor Analysis and GR already.

Edwin asked me if I could teach GR from their book, which IMPORTS the Schwardschild Metric out of their hat.

I replied that Supratim would catch my throat...and strangle me if I do that in our class room...

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