Education or Rote learning?…Also a bit about Coldplay

Heya! Well, after Adzzie’s “serious” post ( *cracks up* ). Umm… yes, so I decided to write about something I have been bugged with for a while. Its our entire education system here in India. I think its flawed. A lot.

First things first, how many of you actually remember what you were taught in the 8th or 9th grade?? Does it matter when a war took place or how many people died? Isn’t it more interesting (and probably useful) to knw why it happened? So, forget history, I feel history should be taught like stories so we actually register something rather than just sort of mugging it up for the exams (for the uninitiated, “mugging up” is a term that is used here to refer to memorization. Lolz!). Even the Physics and Chemistry we learn has no direct application in our lives everyday, and most of it so vague (it is when you enter the 11th grade), but even that is OK, because Science is an educated guess (as I have said many times to Adzzie who is of the opinion that Math is the only thing that makes sense anymore). So if your base is wrong, then you’re kinda dead rite?. The board tells us that we need to ‘apply our concepts’ and gives us ‘HOTS’ (higher order thinking) and……it gives us books to ‘mug’ these up from. The point therefore is lost. So, no one actually ends up thinking as such. We are told that we’re learning but are we really?

I’m especially bugged with English exams, rather than the language that we are supposed to learn, the teacher checks whether all the ‘points’ of the answer are present. So, even if your English is crappy, if your ‘points’ are there, you score.Its mad. They take all the fun out of learning.

Fine, I will stop whining now. I do like my Physics though. I find it quite interesting. But thats mostly beacuse I actually read my reference books and try to understand everything properly.

Thats done then. Please DO NOT take it all seriously and get offended (JIC). K? (She sez to the imaginary people).

In other, more interesting news, have you heard Violet hill by Coldplay?? Its off their new album Viva La Vida which I learnt means “Long Live The Life” in Spanish. The cover art is very interesting which has been taken from a painting by Eugene Delacroix called ‘Liberty Leading The People’.

Liberty Leading the People (French: La Liberté guidant le peuple) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled Charles X. A woman personifying Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the tricoloreflag of the French Revolution in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other.

(Thanks Wiki)

So. Back to topic. I love that song! Its beautiful musically even though I do not seem to understand what exactly its about, it seems like an anti-war song..(If you know, please leave a comment!). Viva La Vida is also a good song which I really need to listen to again.

My favorite lines from Violet hill are:

Priests clutched onto bibles
Hollowed out to fit their rifles
And the cross was held aloft

A leetal bit morbid? Yes. But I like them all the same.

So with that I leave you my people. Cya l8r!

Update: Check this out, someone really doesn’t like the board…

http://cbseboardsarehell.blogspot.com/