Are you cutting the Tennis Balls?
Dear Friends and Students
One of my LinkedIn members Dr. Joerg Storm posted the following picture! Immediately my mind got connected to the JEE Entrance Examination and how some of the kids are getting trained to crack this examination! 12L try for 12K Seats! Wah!
My son is studying 11th standard! He is a type of creative mind. Ideally, he is supposed to appear for the UCEED examination which examines the creativity of an individual and provides an opportunity for a Bachelor of Design. My niece is studying 12th standard. She is linguistically intelligent. Ideally, she should have appeared for BA Mass Communication or IPMAT type of entrance exams (admission to IIM Indore 5-year Integrated Programme in Management leading to award of BBA+MBA degree).
What are these types of children trained for! JEE, which is checking Maths, Physics and Chemistry Problem Solving ability! Their Mathematical Intelligence! However, the coaching is all meant to improve their weekly score (Goal is to get 150+ marks in weekly test).
As a result, within a year, they lost their enthusiasm in creative works or linguistic outcomes! Week on week, they are hard trained on how to improve their scores through elimination tricks, memorizing tricks, selective topic management skills, how to study long hours and most important thing, short-cuts for 10 step hard mathematical problems!
In IIT JEE 2005, the following questions were asked. If f(x) is a differentiable function and g(x) is a double differentiable function such that |f(x)|≤1 and f'(x)=g(x) . If f2(0)+g2(0)=9 . Prove that there exists some c∈(–3,3) such that g(c).g''(c)<0. Now you can imagine how the kids with non-mathematical intelligence solve these types of sums! I am not against the process. However, being a mentor, we should be able to guide who fits for these competitive examinations and train those students only. Not everyone can cook every dish right.
They are missing the project work, missing creative assignments, elocutions, debates, essay competitions, art & crafts and many more during 2-year intermediate education! The all-round development is completely missed!
Every skill and craft are made half like the cut tennis ball and crammed into the single Can! End of +2, Can we be able to apply gum and make the original ball? I doubt it!
By the way I gave an option to my ward to get out of this competition and do what he can and wants! Unfortunately, he is still in the dilemma! If you hold on to the same thought for quite some time, our reticular cortex in our brain converts that thought to a permanent behavioural aspect!! Beware of this!!Here is another problem. The peer pressure is so high. You will be seen differently, if you do not write the JEE examination! You will be disqualified as a good friend if you are not into this bracket!
This mindset continues even in the Btech/Professional Degree/Diploma Courses. No wonder out of 30 Lakhs applying, why 9.35 Lakhs students opted for Computer Science related branches, whereas 6.84L Mech, 6.11 ECE, 4.84L Civil, 3.73L Electrical opted in the year 2022!!
Did you also cut your tennis ball and cram it into the Can? Do not, you cannot gum it again!!
Ravi Saripalle
Note: Opinions expressed by authors are their own.
Pic credits: Pixabay
Dr. Ravi Saripalle
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