When Education Takes Away Originality

 Today it's going to be double the words. I mean, you could find two blogs for today, as I wanted to write about two important events that happened.

One made me think, and another made me realise and decide to act accordingly hereafter.

We have been dealing with Preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth for the last few days. I must say, all the classes on this have been very interesting, and time just flies away quickly when we are engaged in it.

With his works, the era saw a paradigm shift. Earlier, poetry was something sophisticated, complicated, and rich enough to be understood only by a few. But he promoted a shift: 

From thought to feelings,

From complexity to simplicity,

From imitation to originality.

The last point deserves special attention.

While talking about originality, we were discussing different domains and how originality functions within them. Then the conversation moved to the education system, and we said, “The education system takes away originality.” Our professor also added how this is one of the faulty aspects of our system.

 

(Especially let's talk about the school system).

I too agree with this.

Just a few days back, when I was revisiting my UG photos, I realised how much I have transformed and evolved, both as a student and as a person. A comment from my UG professor on my blog also made me reflect on myself—how these three years of learning have shaped my thinking, my answers, and my personality itself.

But then I wondered: why wasn’t I able to sense this transformation during my school days?

Now, when we think about it, it feels reminiscing and nostalgic. As human beings, yes, we did evolve through different stages of life, which naturally come with age and experience, both within people and outside the world. That is understandable.

But as students?

As individuals intellectually, what were we doing?

Were we allowed to think?

Were we allowed to come up with new ideas?

Were we allowed to call something wrong when everyone else in the class thought it was right?

Were we made to realise that we too have voices and opinions?

Were we ever allowed to be original instead of trying to become the exact copy of some legend?

Yes, I do agree that a few CBSE schools offer some space to think, but I believe even that freedom is often limited by marks and certain prejudices.

As we discussed in class, the education system often takes away originality. We all would have had experiences like this. Your maths teacher might have solved a sum using a particular textbook-oriented method. When you solve it, you might come up with an easier method. But when you go and say it, most of us would have been scolded with the phrase, “Don’t try to be oversmart.”

And the worse situation is when your tuition teacher comes up with her own method of solving, and your maths teacher rejects your answer just because you followed that method. According to her, it is wrong—because she has been doing it in the same way for years, and that method should not change😭.

As Matthew Arnold says in his essay " Sweetness and Light" , culture is something that should be general and not private. Both scientific knowledge and moral goodness should go together. If you know something but selfishly refuse to share it with others, that is not culture.

According to him, culture flourishes only when society is not rigid. Only when people are ready to open pathways can change flow. But most of our school teachers never gave that space; instead, they put up a heavy grill gate.

So when did we really think?

While reading this, ask yourself: in school, did you truly think often?

Maybe we tried to memorise lines and information, but that is not thinking—it is recollecting.

Thinking is something different.

I’m glad that I chose arts and humanities, because it made me realise that all these years we were made to believe we were using our brains daily, thinking hard, and getting marks for it. But that is not entirely true.

This degree has made me realise that thinking is still alive and ability we possess. 

I wish that no matter what domain you are in, you keep giving work to your brain—to think.

I would even say that the act of thinking itself has become original in this era, so there is no need to worry about originality.