Gopi (name changed) is my horse-riding classmate. He lives near my house. His father was not in town for a day, so he asked me to pick up and drop back Gopi on my way.
The FM radio at 6 AM takes on a religious color. Amit Varma’s podcasts could be boring for a 10th-class boy. My playlist is mostly 2000s music. So I reduced the volume to zero, thinking I can be more interesting to him than the content I consume.
“What movies have you watched recently?” I asked.
“Return of the Dragon, MAD2. I liked Return of the Dragon a lot,” he said.
“Yeah! Even I liked it. Good fun! So where do you watch movies generally?” I asked. I thought he’d say, “Gokul Theatre,” a theater close to my house where I watched numerous movies.
“Piracy,” he said.
“Okay…” I said. I felt an urge to lecture, but my hands are not that clean either.
Anyways, this story is not about movies or piracy. It is about the questions he asked me once I was done with mine.
“What do you do?” he asked.
Always a tough question to put it in a line. “I do research and I also act in theater plays, trying for movies next.” I said.
“I don’t know what to do when I become big,” he said.
Was he seeing me as a big person who has the answer to this question of what to do?
I have my own romantic notions about career and work but I didn’t want to give wrong advice. So, I gave no advice. I just passed a platitude, “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.” And then I parked the vehicle as we reached the class.
“I saw that AI people get 21 LPA starting salary,” he said, getting out of the car.
Then for the next 30 minutes, we trotted on our horses. I was thinking about that discussion as I struggled with the horse. We got back in the car and I resumed the conversation.
“Ah… it is not completely true about that 21 LPA thing. There are people who get more than it and less than it. It depends on how good you are at AI or anything.”
“I’m good at nothing. I’m scoring just around 70% in my school, while my brother scored 95% in his tenth. I can run 100 meters in 14 seconds, but I have malnutrition.”
That was a harsh assessment of oneself, of which I’m guilty as well — and I’m sure you are too!
“It’s okay. Don’t take school marks too seriously. Just keep learning something you want to learn and I think you’d do well.” I said.
“But my parents only care about my school marks. I did well until my 9th. Now I am not understanding anything. The teachers are bad. They joke about me in the class.”
“Yeah… I get it. That’s why I tell my brother as well to learn things from YouTube and not depend on teachers.”
“Yes, I liked Physics Wallah videos on YouTube. But my parents don’t allow me to use YouTube. They ask me what I was doing in school instead.”
“They must be worried that you’re misusing YouTube.”
“Yes, I get distracted. I start one video and then go on watching shorts.”
“Yeah… even I do that. That’s why I prefer to read books.” I know what I did there. I wanted to influence Gopi into reading books. No matter how many times I fail at it, I take up this task every time.
“But I am bad at imagination. I want pictures in books, at least,” he said.
“Yeah… there are books with pictures. You can start with them.”
“No, my parents would only give me school textbooks to read. They’re very boring.”
There’s no disagreement there. Before learning the skill to read, textbooks are boring. I then went on sharing about my experience in alternative education at the Proto Village.
“They are boring, I understand. In fact, one should be able to learn these things without books as well. For example, there is this school near Ananthapur where they teach math concepts like ratios, etc., through cooking.”
He was able to join the dots quickly, and that always raises one's pitch and opens eyes wide. “Yes! It is very nice! Like proportion by weight, by volume…”
I got excited as well and continued. “Yes! and you can teach science using Pottery!”
To which he asked, pitch down, “Oh! Pottery has science?”
We reached his home and I dropped him off.
I couldn’t answer much of Gopi’s question, at least without sounding too much like jargon. But it kept me thinking.
How can anything be devoid of science? Painting has science: that of colors — which I rarely understand. I believe an artist who understands the science of colors can do better art than without knowing it. Why and when did we place arts and sciences in competing buckets?
But does every potter know the science of pottery? I guess not. Just like many farmers who don’t know the science of agriculture: plant pathology, soil nutrition, meteorology, etc. Like many filmmakers who don’t know the science of cinema: optics, acoustics, digital signal processing, etc. And since we don’t know science, we break a coconut before we start a crop or a movie. It’s like we are rote learning even out of school. Even when there is no exam.
I’ve seen the joy of learning only in the last few years. There are a couple of things I like doing and I spend my time learning to do them well. I learn the science behind them because I just want to do them well. I learn art because I want to communicate my work effectively to many by evoking their emotions. The joy goes on because human life is small compared to the things that can be learned. I’m not learning for any exam as I did before in school and college. And I wish no exam compels you to learn as well.
In Telugu, elders always ask kids, “ఏం చదువుతున్నావు?” which literally translates to “What are you reading/studying?” But the question actually means, “What class/branch are you in?” The response to that question is always in the form of a position that is achieved through an examination: “9th class,” “MBBS,” or “B.Tech Computer Science.” These exams are useless. They can be gamed. They are no more good at certifying the skill required.
The question should be reframed to “ఏం నేర్చుకుంటున్నావ్?” — “What are you learning?”
I believe this question will reduce the pretense and the consequent burden borne by students. There are better ways for students to show their learning than an exam.
So tell me “ఏం నేర్చుకుంటున్నావ్?” — “What are you learning?”