Running your own race…

Is it possible to do away with comparison completely? To not look over your shoulder and check if a fellow runner is about to overtake you? To just concentrate on running your own race?
Where I teach presently, we wholeheartedly believe in letting each flower bloom at its own pace, each child grow at his/her own pace….simply because, the intention is helping a child learn and not to whip him/her into winning a race…
….and yet all around me the world seems to thrive on competition. Not with oneself but with others.
Monday tests, Unit tests, Surprise Tests,Competitions, Olympiads, Assessments…they come in different packages. At the end of each hangs a shiny carrot…. the Score. And you are placed. Ranked. Labelled.
Work harder and you climb a rung higher ..and higher …and higher. And who knows, if you are diligent enough you might even crack the IIT -JEE at an unthinkable age! And have your name splashed over a hundred newspapers; flashbulbs and microphones surrounding you wanting to know how you managed to achieve such a feat.
It’s a harsh world of entrance exams and cut-off marks which has compelled our society to lay so much emphasis on scores.
Ours is a society which thinks comparison is an excellent way of encouraging someone to excel. There’s no harm in a daily dose of ” What a hardworking boy he is…you could learn heaps from him.” The brightness of a neighbourhood star thus often results in the glowing little flame within the home going unnoticed, unnurtured. Many a curious question of a possible Einstein is often stifled by bagloads of universally accepted theories. It’s a race we must all run, it seems, never mind if you’re not a horse, just an elephant with a razor sharp memory and immense strength. You’re useless if you can’t beat the horse or perhaps the cheetah. No seats in prestigious institutes for you. No white-collar jobs. Unless of course you’re lucky to get through some quota.
My twelve year old niece has all of a sudden turned very studious. I complimented her on her eagerness towards studies and she replied, confidingly, ” Oh, but I must study hard otherwise the others in class will get ahead of me!”
“And suppose you do beat all the rest in the class and come first …you can do it I know…”, I couldn’t help retorting,”…will you stop working harder then, and do only as much as it takes to keep you at the top? Will that be the best that you can do? Beating your classmates is your ultimate goal is it? The best that you can do is just that much.”
I might have sounded like an idealistic mad woman and yet I felt I must blow the dust off this little child’s eyes…although I knew in my heart of hearts that the powerful tide that is our system of education will sweep her along yet again, and in no time she will be running the race again…not to learn or gain knowledge, but to win and flaunt medals at the end of it.
Good luck, my athletes, all.
Let me turn back to my garden of blossoms where tulips and lotuses and orchids grow side by side each at their own leisurely pace.