Education Without Competition

Have you ever worried about your child attending school, maybe remembering all the pressures that you yourself experienced while in school? Many educators and parents are very concerned about the effect that our current educational system is having on today’s children. Many have voiced that they see today’s schools stripping humanity from kids, producing ill-prepared adults that are short on creativity and ethics.  Could the fault lie in the reliance on tests, in competition with other schools and countries, and the social pressures surrounding children as they progress from kindergarten to high school and on to even higher education?

According to the American Psychological Association, teenagers report higher levels of stress than grownups while attending school. The requirements for college admission have increased, as well as the costs. However, stress also plagues younger school children.  For elementary school students, time for recess, free play and general creative time has been replaced with high-stakes testing and expanded academic demands. Sadhguru explains why competition and pressure exists in today’s educational systems, and he offers us a remedy.

Sadhguru: “The pressure is only because you are putting two absolutely unique beings in comparison. Is there one more person exactly like you on this planet? No. There is only one like you. Each being is an absolutely unique being. That is so for your child also. But now you are trying to put them all into the same compartment and compare them with something that they can learn – ABC or 123 or something – and make them feel better or worse about it.

It is you who brought that competition and comparison because for most parents it is not about education, it is about first rank. All they want is that their children sit on top of every other child’s head.

Their whole effort in their life is how to sit on top of the pile. Everyone wants to sit on top of the pile but only a few can be on top. The others will naturally end up at the bottom and if our focus is just to sit on top of the pile, naturally they will get suffocated under the pile. This is bound to happen, there is no other way.

That orientation of education has to go. “No, I cannot do anything, the schools are like that.” No, schools are just catering to your attitudes. If your attitudes change, the schools will change. They want to run the business the way it works. All you want is that somehow your child should get 100%. It does not matter what happens to the child. The schools are just trying to cater to it because you are paying them. They are just trying to fulfill their job. In the course of your activity, the child is unhappy and getting ruined, but it does not matter. You want him to be the topper in the class. This is a sickness which has to go. We are just ruining a whole generation of people with the kind of schooling we are providing.

True human genius will not flower if this kind of education happens. True human capabilities will not find expression in competition. When you are trying to race with somebody, you are only thinking of going one step ahead of him, that’s all. You are not thinking of what your ultimate potential is.

True human capabilities will find expression only in absolute relaxation. Your mind, your body will work best and find fullest expression only when you are joyful, peaceful and quiet within yourself.”