Idea of education

Why do we send our children to school? To get an education – would be the quick reply. Well, what is education? In its broadest sense, education is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. If you refer to a dictionary, you will see the following entry under education : The knowledge or skill obtained or developed by a learning process.

So, when we want our child to get an education we want that child to grow and develop. We want that child to learn skills, acquire knowledge, build character and develop a personality. It is for this reason that we send our children to school.

School is the first formal institution that a child joins. The family and the school are two bodies that the child comes in contact with on a very regular basis. Therefore, these two institutions are the primary influences on a child. As parents, we want the best for our children. For that we try to provide the best opportunities within our scope to our children. One of those ‘opportunities’ is enrolling the child in a good school.

It is with this intention that children are enrolled in school. We want our children be the best they can be. For this reason, when we find that a certain input is lacking, we find supplementary sources which we feel will fill in that gap. With these best interests at heart, we sign up our child for so many different things.

What does that result in? We make the child’s life a mad rush – the child shuttles between school and home with a very heavy backpack, then between tuition classes and home, hobby classes and home, sports ground and home. And finally when the child comes home, there is homework from these activities that has to be done. Can we expect our children to have any ‘enlightening’ experience when education is presented to them in this way? Absolutely not.

The right to education is a basic human right. So is the right to live. What does the right to live imply? It does not mean an animal existence, it means the right to live with dignity. Similarly, the right to education doesn’t, or rather, shouldn’t mean just handing over information to the child. It should be an informative, enjoyable, wholesome experience. How can we make it so for the child?

That is the idea that we, at team Millennium, have about education. We try to present ‘education’ to the child in a way that the child can assimilate it. We develop our own techniques and methods. We observe and evaluate how well the child grasps the ideas. If there is a problem, we work on the educational methods again. The result is an educational method that actually works. The knowledge transfer happens without stressing out the child. The child assimilates the gathered information and understands it. Then, education is a truly ‘enlightening’ experience.