Earlier this month, the Jallikattu issue was beginning to heat up especially in the social media. This was well before the protests took place all over Tamil Nadu. Jallikattu was a tradition that was being followed for centuries, and it is the duty of the state and people to protect and preserve the traditions and practices of a vibrant culture while at the same time providing necessary checks and balances to ensure that all concerns are taken care of in tune with the changing times. In most of the discussions, this opinion was unanimous and there were no lack of clarity on where opinions stood. However what surprised me was something completely different.

At school, my favorite subjects used to be mathematics and science. The subject that was my least favorite was English. The dislike for English, as a subject at school, started mostly in the high school. And this was primarily because of the focus of the teachers were more on scoring marks than about teaching the same. I still remember the shock I had when I received my English paper after correction. For one of the questions, I received “0” marks though I had answered it correctly. I approached my teacher to understand what had gone wrong and get it corrected but she refused to provide any. There was one sentence in a paragraph that had a different structure from what was provided in the text book. The meaning was same, the grammar correct but just that it was different from what was in the text. Her explanation was that since I am in high school and nearing the board examinations, every sentence, every comma and full stop had to be exactly the same as it was in the book in order to score the maximum. From then on, I did not understand English. I don’t remember what I learned subsequently. Right or wrong, I was just doing copy + paste (what we used to call as ‘mugging’).

The purpose of education is to enlighten the students with what has been learned by others over time, and to enable them to evaluate, understand, question, accept, reject or further pursue the topic using logic and reasoning, guided by facts while at the same time respecting traditions, differing view points and the diverse nature of our thoughts, beliefs and actions. However, the current model of education has produced more of a copy + paste mind where we blindly absorb what has been told to us and depending on the person telling us, we either accept or reject it. The danger with copy + paste education system is that we are more often at the mercy of our emotions.

Education is meant to make the mind more inquisitive, to use emotions as a positive influencer rather than a negative destroyer. When we lose the ability to ask the right questions, the ability to understand an issue in detail, the ability to chose the right actions and the consequences it can bring, we are then guided purely by our emotional reaction and this can often be manipulated.

As the discussion around Jallikattu intensified, I started noticing the materials on social media trying to take the focus away from the core issue and bring in other issues that were no way related. Most of these materials were based on false content which can be easily verified by a simple search over the internet. However, many educated people were just forwarding these without validating the content. On top of this, they were venting their anger of how injustice was being done on other issues unrelated to the topic. The focus was now away from the core topic and it was increasingly becoming clear that most of the people were not even doing their basic research. Very few people had even basic information on the history of the ban on Jallikattu.

Luckily the marina protests happened that was driven more by the students and which in turn was triggered by the action in Alanganallur and speeches of celebrities that followed. One of the positives of this protest was that it brought the focus back to the core issue of Jallikattu and in addition, people were actually getting educated about the issue. This was more because the content was now coming directly from people from whom they were willing to accept it emotionally. There was lot more education in the 5 days of protest than what could have happened otherwise. Unfortunately, the copy + paste mindset meant that we could continue to get manipulated. The very peaceful protests ended on a successful note though the last day was an aberration.

It is well known that our education system is flawed. I personally believe that one of the major contributors of this problem is the end result. Education is often seen and projected as a ticket to a successful job. Though it is true in most cases, but that in itself should not be the end result.

Education is not about what we get from society but more about what we become and thereby how we contribute to the society, more in character than in kind. But is this more of a desire than a pragmatic expectation ? Would something like this work in our modern and fast paced world ? Is there a reference from the past and is there a model that we can carry into the future ?

Credits [1] Image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AA_bull_being_tamed_in_Jallikattu_held_in_palamedu.jpg by Mahendrabalan.