Over the past year, I have pondered several times on education. No, I don’t plan to get back to college again, but the last year gave me quite a bit of time to think on Adi’s education. Living in Dubai gives you so many options for your child’s education (The UK Board, International board, Indian, American Medium etc.), that it sometimes confuses you.
My perennial crib and biggest fear with the Indian Education system is that it refuses to teach children values like innovation, humanity, empathy or social good and seems to drive them towards a single minded goal of becoming fat cat bankers or a faithful, analytical, white collar “employee” who is destined to a life of mediocrity making power-point decks or coding software.
I wish education systems also teach children that failing sometimes is not a crime. My take is that failing while trying something spectacular (and unconventional) is not a crime. I want them to be taught that, with each failure, they should just forgive themselves and move on into the next spectacular untested idea in their chosen passion. As I read somewhere, I want them to be taught that "walker there is no path; the path is made by walking"
It is but definitive that in our children’s lifetime, they will encounter far more black swans than the ones we have seen in the past decade (Dot com bust, US Sub Prime, Greek Debt, Middle East realty, War etc) and it is not education, for the sake of education which will help them survive through the same.
Across these economic catastrophes, intentionally or unintentionally, I have seen several friends and peers switch career paths and try the untested. Some succeeded; some remain in comatose while a few others have met abject and complete failure.
Without naming them publicly, here’s a sample of a few that got me thinking :
- Friend who worked with some of the best known TV stations in media sales/ Asia; leaves it, and starts an adventure travel company (happily converting her passion to her profession)
- Asset Manager/ stock broker starts a slick deli/ restaurant in Dubai after he got retrenched from his job last year
- Finance manager in an IT company who starts his own IT company and finally ends up selling it and ends up rejoining the industry as an employee all in the last 18 months
- And the most exciting of all, is that a close confidante, is in the process of setting up an amazing web 2.0 venture/ tech venture based out of Dubai. From what she studied to become, to what she's doing now & where she's headed...the trajectory is definitely upwards :)
The one common thread in those who succeeded (after failing elsewhere), has been that I found them to be more well rounded human beings.
By “Well rounded”, I mean those who have strong foundations, a cosmopolitan/global view of life and higher sensibilities. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to say that those whom I have seen succeeding were fans of Luciano Pavarotti and Mozart, I mean to say I found them to have absolute clarity on what they wanted out of life and knew how to live life to the fullest.
and then I wonder,if its just nature or nurture that endowed them so...
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