Saturday, November 13, 2010

3 Idiots

Salam


Life is a race, if you don’t run fast, you’ll get trampled.
That’s nature.
Compete or die.
You also are like the koel birds.

As a student who have been subjected or forced to follow the national education system since I first started my schooling, I am so grateful that it somehow has brought me this far. But, I think there’s nothing wrong if we could criticize the current system for improvement in the future. I’ve watched the film 3 Idiots, which is very closely related to the education system itself.

Personally, I think it’s a very good movie as it touches on the most fundamental ground in education that has been ignored by our education system. Let me summarize what are the cores of this movie that may help us to view the education in a different angle.

1.       The education system itself is not a medium to create thousands and millions of parrots who blindly memorise all sorts of information and knowledge without being able to understand it.
2.       It is therefore vital to discover the ability of each student and develop it, not forcing each and every student to follow one system that may be an advantage to one, but disadvantage to many other.
3.       Grading system is like a caste system. The straight ‘A’ students are highly ranked and the lower grade students are ignored. Yes, I know it’s important to sort students according to their ability so easier to tackle each student, but right from the beginning we are forcing them to follow what they are not naturally good at it. It’s like the ‘theory of natural selection’ by which the selection pressure (exams or sorts) will cause the students who have the “advantage alleles” (ability to memorise and etc) will be selected for and students who don’t have that kind of ability will be selected against. Eventually, there’ll be more and more parrots and less and less people who are good in hands-on work.
4.       Parents themselves should not force their children to follow what they want their children to be, instead discover their talent and ability and thus help them to nurture their interest and passion in that particular field. (in the film, Farhan was forced to be what his father wanted him to be. Now, it’s the father’s dream, not his)
5.       Once you are in the right track of your passion, set a clear aim and vision. Do not follow your passion simply because it will secure you a job in the future, or because that career will bring you mountain of wealth or that career will uphold your family’s pride as well as yours. Those reasons create pressure and fear. It’s the happiness, satisfaction and joy in doing what you like and passionate about are the reasons. (Raju faced many great burdens as he had to support his family when he graduated as an engineer. I know it’s a noble value to think in that way, but that’s not the reason to chase our passion)
6.       The failure while chasing your dream should not degrade you up to a point which you kill yourself. Killing ourselves is definitely one of the biggest sins in Islam. (Joy Lobo killed himself after he was unable to participate in some physics exhibition due to time constraint). In reality, it does happen in Malaysia which I don’t remember when it happened, a student who didn’t get straight ‘A ‘in UPSR killed herself.
7.       The drive to success in exams should not make us defeat others in ‘dirty’ ways. (Chadur or better called The Silencer would put porn magazines in each student’s room when the exams are around the corner so other students would be distracted and he’s the only one who will be like madly studying and cramming). This is more like the koel bird, the parasite. I am not sure whether it really happens in reality, but hopefully it won’t.
8.       Be positive. It’s really important for not to be depressed if something not to our liking happens. Positive minds give the opportunity for ourselves to be more rationale and find alternative ways to improve. Instead we complain about this and that, how about we accept it positively and find another way to do it in the future. (Rancho’s trademark “all is well” does make him embrace every moment without any worry). But, that doesn’t apply in a case where you do not study and you feel very ‘cool’ about it and saying that failure is ok. In that sense, if you fail it’s your fault and you should be worry if you have that kind of attitude. It is applicable if you have tried everything but at the end it still doesn’t work. So, what you can do is be positive, don’t complain and think of ways to re-do it in a better way.

So, what are going to do right now? Abandon the current system that we are using right now?

Firstly, the parents (future parents like all of us) should understand the fundamental of education. Truthfully, I don’t know how that will be carried out but we’ll discover that as we go along, iAllah. Don’t force the children to be what we want them to be, but let them follow their passion. Guide them so they know what they should be looking for.

As a student myself, if we are accidentally bumped into a field that is not our particular interest, try to develop (no, you must create the passion!). I also don’t know how it works. As in real life nowadays, it’s quite impossible to quit suddenly in what we are doing. For instance, if we are doing medicine for the sake of our parents even if we don’t have any sense of passion towards it, somehow we must discover the wonder in it that trigger the passion. You couldn’t have the gut to tell your parents who have fork out thousands or even millions to ‘force’ you to become a doctor, for example. So, find the passion.

For those who are currently striving for what you are passionate about and at the same time somehow did not manage to get good achievement or better said excellent grasp of understanding, think and reflect what makes you at first sign up for that course. Is it because your pride, money, status, big house, secured job, flying overseas so that you can travel around the world? Honestly, one of the reasons stated above was my reason to take up medicine, but it didn’t work well now. I suffered a lot when I first started my A-Level. From that, I learned a lot.

Alhamdulillah, I learned a lot about the core of education itself while studying A-Level (still struggling right now for my final about 5 months from now). Allah has opened my eyes, gives me chances to look deeper into my flaws and re-correct it.
  1.   It’s not the grades that count, but the UNDERSTANDING.
  2.  Grades are important but if the knowledge couldn’t be applied in real life, somehow it’s useless. Or at least if we don’t understand the significance of it in real life, still it’s useless. We’ll be like a bunch of parrots (naudzubillah).
  3.  Don’t chase our dreams under the pressure and fear; seriously it doesn’t work very well.
  4. Even if we fail, do not afraid to jump higher. Failure is a great door for better improvement.
  5.  Be positive, emotional quotient must balance with intellectual quotient together with spiritual quotient. Islam teaches us to be acceptance (redha) for what has happened. Seek Him for any difficulties that we encountered and be GRATEFUL and THANKFUL for what He has given to us.

I think it’s almost done. Now, it’s the matter of whether you want to do it or not. I knew it’s quite out-dated now since this is the only time I managed to analyse this film critically. Do watch this film yourself and take the moral values in it, leaving behind the not-so-good sides of it. Do pray for our best, may He makes our path to catch our dreams easier.

Give me some sunshine, give me some rain
Give me another chance, I wanna grow up once again


I wish the best of luck for those who’ll be taking SPM and STPM.

Follow excellence......success will chase you.

1 comment:

adilah said...

sgt suke citer ni!
n im future biomedical engineer(insyaAllah)