Destiny of a nation is shaped in its classrooms.
Note: 1111 words – Completed in 1 h 15 minutes (brainstorming + typing) – unedited version
It is rightly said that the future of a country lies in the hands of its youth. The current working age generation and the older generations are often the products of an old education system, most unacquainted with the new developments and learnings that have taken place since they occupied the halls of the schools and colleges of their times. That’s why the future trajectory and continued growth of the nation is determined by the knowledge and skills that the youth learns during their formative years. These classrooms need not be presumed to be the conventional rooms with a blackboard, screeching chalk, and old wooden benches. Rather, these classrooms are any place where a person learns during his youth. In this essay, we shall explore why and how the destiny of a nation is moulded in these places of learning in the early years of life.
History is replete with examples of societies that have flourished or decayed into oblivion. One thing the successful societies had in common was always their emphasis on learning, acquiring skills, discovering truth, and growing with an open mind. The teacher-pupil relationship was valued and respected, as these pupils would be the future path-shapers of the flourishing society they had.
In the times of Ancient Indian empires, these classrooms often took the form of gurukuls, with students from various strata of society treated equally in the gurukula by the guru. They not only acquired knowledge about the scriptures, mathematics, science and philosophy, but also real life skills such as archery and craft-making. In the age of the great Gupta Empire in India, learning and cultural development reached its zenith. The dynamic Nalanda University was established and attracted the most talented scholars from across the world. It resulted in the Gupta Empire becoming an age of unparalleled cultural, spiritual, scientific, and architectural developments.
While flourishing societies taught the importance of virtuous actions and behaviour in their classrooms, other societies used these centres of learning for a more sinister purpose. In Hitler’s Nazi Germany, the classrooms were essentially transformed into factories of producing loyal young citizens, indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology, loyalty towards the Fuhrer, and hatred for the Jews. When an entire generation of Germans was taught the same propaganda, it became much easier to align them towards the fulfilment of Hitler’s own goals of German supremacy and eradication of Jews and his other enemies. This trajectory ultimately led to Germany’s downfall and ruin in World War 2 and took decades to rebuild.
Why is it though that classrooms have such incredible power to shape these young minds? The answer lies in the dynamics of the human psyche. When children are young, they are the most impressionable they’ll ever be. They learn everything by observing their surroundings and the people in them. The things they read in early story books and school textbooks shape their thoughts, knowledge, understanding and biases about the past, present, and future world. The first classroom for children is their family, and the first teachers, inevitably, are their parents, who care for them since their birth and nurture them. If the parents behave with kindness, love, and compassion with the child and with each other and the remaining members of the family, those are the values that engrained in the child. However, if the parents behave rudely, with anger, irritation, or violence, or impose their will on their children recklessly, those are the behaviours the child picks up.
The next classroom of life is often the halls of a conventional school. Here, the teachers of the child become their role models and their guiding light in their development. A good education system with good teachers nurtures the students and develop their critical thinking skills, morals, and teach them to question things and develop curiosity for learning, along with fundamental language and numeracy skills that form the basis of their upcoming education. Uninspired teachers with their own flaws and biases, however, produce uninspired students who neither have interest in learning, nor the foundational skills required to continue learning in upper grades of school and later, college.
This learning and moulding of young minds, however, does not take place only in these square box-shaped rooms, but also in the classrooms of physical activities like sports. Team sports like football, cricket, and volleyball teach the students not only to compete hard, learn from their mistakes, collaborate with others for a common goal, but also to respect the opponents, accept failures as a part of the learning process, and shake hands and be kind at the end of every hard-fought match. A nation that focuses on inclulcating this competitive-yet-collaborative behaviour in their youth, whether through sports or through other activities like theatre, arts and crafts, reaps the benefits as their young citizens are more compassionate, understanding, and optimistic when working towards the common goal of making their country better.
When the child is grown up, many are sent to further polish their skills and acquire specialized knowledge in colleges and universities. The foundations built over 12 years of schooling are tested here as the students are involved in not only academic but also other extra-curricular pursuits. Good professors and lecturers here inspire the students to pursue a specific field of study and the best talents start working in various fields utilizing their newly acquired expertise in taking the country’s growth story forward. India’s IITs, IIMs, NITs, IISc Bangalore, etc. have attracted and produced top-quality talents who have become leaders and change-makers in all walks of life, not just in India, but all over the world. It is the scientists, engineers, and professors from these institutions that more often than not make crucial breakthroughs in various fields such as science, technology, manufacturing, digital services, that are adapted and utilized to improve the lives of the country’s citizens. For example, the work of ISRO’s scientists in satellite missions like INSAT have impacted the lives of over a billion Indians by providing them access to telecommunication services, telemedicine, broadcasting, internet, navigation system services.
We have seen how the future potential of any society or nation is determined by the quality and nature of its youth, shaped in classrooms. When given the right environment, these young minds have flourished and taken the nation to unparalleled heights, but when neglected, have led to equally pitiful downfalls. We have witnessed how these classrooms are not limited to conventional ones, but manifest themselves in the form of various institutions like family, school, universities, and sports playgrounds. These are the assembly lines for producing inspired citizens who contribute meaningfully to the country’s growth story and become a true demographic dividend rather than a demographic disaster.
Covered every possible aspects, you really worked well on your writing skills.