Metamorphosis of Education

 The term education itself is quite intriguing, to Einstein, ”It is not the memorizing of dates and stuff but ideas and to seek the answer of the never answered question of why “, to John Dewey , “It is not the preparation for life but life itself “, and to Nelson Mandela, “ It is the most powerful weapon that we can use to change the world “, to state a few amazing personalities.

Now keeping the above lines in mind education has undergone a huge revolution over the past decades to become what we know it as today. What's a revolution? According to the oxford dictionary it is a great change in conditions, ways of working, beliefs, etc. that affects large numbers of people. Putting the two terms together in simple words education revolution is the changes occurred over time due to the influence of various people in education.

For starters, It has turned a novice into a specialist. Honestly, for our grandparents science was based on just the laws and rules stated by people and the focus wasn’t necessarily on why it is so, English was poems written by people and not how to write them. And now, even a little toddler knows gravitation and it’s laws and I don’t think there is a shortage of infant poets. My point being that earlier education was based on simple facts and not deeper learning which is something that we now get access to.

The curriculum emphasizes on applied sciences rather than factual, scientific ,what’s written in the book teachings. The very existence of simulated math labs, Biology labs, Chemistry labs, Physics labs and you name it what not labs gives hands on experience to the children to put their abilities and theories to the test. Now this may lead to burning off one’s eyebrow signifying for a good two to three weeks that his/her theory didn’t really turn out as expected but on the bright side it may also lead to discovering something totally flabbergasting and amazing, leading to the becoming of the next Einstein or Newton or Thomas Edison.

In terms of teaching methods education has come miles ahead of black boards, chalks, open air, under the tree teachings to smart boards, e-learning, microscopes and taking into consideration that even during this pandemic education is able to continue on online platforms is nothing but a testimony to education revolution .

The addition of smart learning and e-learning enable the teachers to demonstrate the structures of atoms and various other tiny little things invisible to the naked eyes but that play an important role in the existence or nonexistence of a particular object as a living being. This is done in not just an under the microscope view but a three dimensional model of it. And truth be told it looks way cooler than in real life. This allows the students to visualize such tiny little things that eventually make up a person or a tree or a piece of paper and basically every other thing in the world.

In terms of the amount of learning and discovering, education has turned into years and years of mastery from just Fourteen years of schooling after which one needed to find a job and manage the endless and not to mention boring responsibilities of being an adult. After this we saw the coming of people studying MBBS and engineering and also entering the civil service training programs. Today, after MBBS itself there are specialized courses on cardiology, neurology, gynecology, orthodontics and so many more. And not just in MBBS but new streams such as microbiology, climatology, bio-technology and names I can’t spell-ology are coming up by the day.

This allows the students to learn and keep learning and uncovering the secrets of life that can be seen but not explained in plain sight. This narrows down the broad concept of science to biology to zoology to anthropology or social studies to geography to mineralogy. Because of introducing these courses students can now learn and master that one small concept in that enormous textbook which they found intriguing in such a deep manner that they themselves can write endless pages on that then thought small topic.

Having digested that, is the education system today the very best? Are all students and teachers happy? Well, that is up to the individuals to decide. But what I think is that this is a start, education revolution is a process, It has undergone so many changes to become better and there is nothing stopping it from becoming even better in the days to come. Just like before becoming the ever so beautiful being, a butterfly undergoes metamorphosis from its larval stage and not to mention hatching from a motionless egg. Likewise, if we consider education as a butterfly then it is still in its larval stage and has got a long long way to go.