Learning Curve

I have been inspired to think of a great many things today, only some of which I will put before you to ponder.

We heard a lot today about the Education System in India and how they want to go through a renewal process to give a chance at an interesting education to ALL students (including the remote villagers). The drop out rates are tremendous. It saddens me to know that NYC has similarly dismal rates.

We talked about SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY and the fact that Indian people haven't traditionally been brought up to feel any responsibilities to go with their fundamental rights. This helps explain why the 3rd richest man in the world, an Indian who lives in London, spent hundreds of millions of dollars on his daughter's wedding but doesn't donate any money to help people in his home country of India. There is some hope that the younger generations will understand their duty to help each other -- it reminds me of our service requirements and programs at school. We are lucky.

One speaker said it well when he explained that changing the education system will be: "... challenging, interesting, difficult ... possible." This speaks to my own educational philosophy and I appreciate his sense of hope.

There was much more (like the square being a common and almost holy image in Indian traditions because it is so perfect), but I will leave it at this for now. I will continue to think about how the US system IS serving students well by helping them become thoughtful, moral, engaged citizens, and how we can learn so much about the motivation and skills that drive highly dedicated Indian students to earn at least a 98.5% on the college entrance exam or else they won't get in (there aren't enough seats in colleges and universities to fit every student who graduates from Form 12, so a lot of them just don't get to go to school).