SACHIN TENDULKAR,RAHUL DRAVID AND THE IAS ASPIRANT In my workshops on critical thinking I pose the following question HOW WILL YOU DECIDE WHICH BATSMAN IS MORE CONSISTENT IN TEST CRICKET—TENDULKAR OR DRAVID? On every such occasion all trainees are up on their feet shouting ‘Sachin’ and ‘Dravid’ in unison . I cannot help smiling and repeating my question drawing attention to what I really want them to think about viz how to decide which of them is MORE CONSISTENT . An eerie silence descends in an otherwise racous group. I cannot recall any instance when a trainees gave out the correct answer. I request readers to let me know what they think is the answer. Sabeer Bhatia of ‘Hotmail’ fame once said that when he appeared at his first submission at a college in the USA he was awarded a zero for what he felt was a brilliant presentation by Indian standards. He later met his professor who told him that the presentation might have been brilliant in India but was shoddy by American standards. The reason? The presentation was no doubt evidence of Bhatia having read advanced literature on the subject but he did not see any evidence of Bhatia’s thinkng on the subject. The profession added that most students from India did not think for themselves but were proficient in regurgitating information they had memorized from books—a phenomenon we in India refer to as ‘ rote learning’. It is now clear that the reason why IAS aspirants are up in arms in New Delhi is that the aptitude test [ called the C- SAT TEST] they are opposed to expects them to display their thinking skills among other skills NONE OF WHICH CAN BE THE SUBJECT OF ROTE LEARNING. This is at the root of the rot in our education system—rote learning bereft of critical thinking. From my personal experience of conducting my critical thinking workshops I have found that even professors with a PhD after their names are unable to answer simple questions posed by me like the one about Sachin and Dravid. The argument of these IAS aspirants that tests where questions of the Sachin /Dravid sort put Social science students at a disadvantage relative to management and technical students is partly a sad commentary on the quality of education that they have received. I cannot believe that a social science student by the nature of his education cannot think for himself and has no elementary numerical and data interpretation skills ..If true then I am afraid our social sciences education needs drastic overhaul. Is such an overhaul being contemplated at school level? Mercifully a beginning is being made .The new CBE syllabus has CRITICAL THINKING as a significant component. I believe this-- Critical thinking—ought to be taught at all levels . No matter what career you choose, and even if you choose to be a homemaker, you will need to think critically. A parting question . The following was a claim made by a reader of mine years ago when I wrote that we often make errors in attribution ‘ MY Dad is a devout man and has been so for several decades. He has supernatural powers. The evidence – whenever a snake bite victim is brought to him in an unconscious state my dad would chant some powerful mantras and a few hours later a miracle would take place—the man would wake up in fine fettle.The conclusion—critical thinking cannot explain many things’ I leave it to my readers to provide me with answers based on critical thinking [ which then IAS aspirants are opposed to] to the two questions viz the Sachin/Dravid one and the snake one . HAPPY THINKING ! K.R.RAVI
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 01:08:31 +0000
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