There always is a hue and cry that our education system requires complete change. But every one who raises this issue is just unhappy with few aspects of a great process. They might have developed dissatisfaction with respect to technical knowledge or the language skills or the mathematical acumen or some times the knowledge about current events, geography and history as being taught in the educational institutions.These things may be useful for making money.
When I chose to write on what we missed to learn, I am not concerned about any of these subjects. These things are required to satisfy the society's needs. One should satisfy himself first to satisfy the society. Since satisfaction itself is a myth and highly temporary, the very nature of satisfaction should be understood to make peace with our own self.
At least in the world around me, the schools and colleges do not teach any thing on understanding the self. Some portions of great verses like Thirukkural are taught like forcing a gulp of castor oil to small children.(In earlier days little children will be fed with few drops of castor oil to avoid constipation.) So what is forced as castor oil is not retained in the mind. Some of the values and concepts which need to be lived upon are to be learnt with passion and thorough understanding so that they might be applied and practiced to become the way of life.
In the recent past, the news that 100+ pilgrims were killed during their pilgrimage in stampede because of heavy crowd, another news that a middle aged man I know committed suicide and a middle aged doctor died of heart attack disturbed me. The fellow who committed suicide is a graduate. The doctor's death could even be considered natural but the suicide and stampede cases I feel is the result of the failure to learn the most essential aspect of self knowledge. In the suicide case, alcohol was the resort he chose to keep himself calm. Apparently it gave him some peace at the cost of addiction and loss of intelligence to be of any value to others. When people become burden to others they will be looked down upon and may be hated by their close relatives and many friends. The psychological rejection experienced leads to suicidal attempts.
The sad part is that all the years of education in institutions have not given any insight into life and death. Death, the end of ones life is mostly unpleasant for the individuals around the person who dies. In fact most of us are afraid of death. That is because death comes suddenly to many. For some who are suffering from chronic ailments death could be a welcome relief. But for most, death carries great amount of sorrow. All of us have expectations, goals and duties to be accomplished in the future. When the death strikes, everything comes to an end.
The experience of an individual, the expertise, the attachments, the feeling of security produced by the individual, the good deeds others use to receive, the materialistic comforts, the status, the recognition, the power over others, the encouragement provided by the individual, the inspiration, the leadership, the entertainment, the joy, the pleasure, the companionship every thing is lost at once when death comes.
When we live we should make the best out of life. The culture does not provide adequate knowledge about life. One may even get confused if we watch the trend of the culture. Mostly the culture is dictated by mighty and rich. It is like an induced epidemic.
Religion instead of teaching values in life mostly is concerned about rituals and getting more and more followers. Almost all religions teach people to place perpetual demands to god and strike some kind of deal with the God created by them. Least time is devoted to offer inputs to people to understand self and spirituality.
Households are under the grip of two or three electronic boxes viz, the mobile phone, the computer and the television. When the computer can provide great amount of knowledge, people may very easily get lost in the amount of information and what is required is hard to be located unless helped by ones own attitude or some guide. Television is absolutely dangerous and equals alcohol in many aspects like addiction, loss of intelligence and learning wrong behaviour and habits. When the damage done by alcohol is visible television does the damage invisibly.
Since education is handled by schools and colleges, parents are left with minimum opportunity to teach their children. Children are overburdened and are forced to spend time at home for academic activities. Parents do not spend quality time with children. Learning of life skills is grossly neglected though it is the most essential part of education.
There has to be conscious efforts to learn life skills . The first step is to become aware of what is missing and start devoting time with family members and discuss about various experiences. One should also learn to restrict the three boxes.
With better understanding of self, your perspective of your world changes. You can be smart, enlightened, radiant and loveable.
Once you have learnt about yourself, you can be free from the evil influences of the media, religion, culture and trends.
You will get perfectly interfaced to the social systems that you have accepted and you can see great results.
(In United Smart Soft Skills we make sincere attempts to offer initial guidance required to fall into the groove of realising self. Once you are in the groove, then learning is a pleasure. )
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