Grades | Hobbies | Students | Life

Since the existence of education as a social system, marks/grades have been an effective way of determining an individual’s performance and evaluate students life personality. Even during the gurukul system, exams were taken which built a sense of competitiveness in students while being a dependable way to test what has been taught and the individual’s learning capabilities.

In modern times, a new organised education system with a predetermined syllabus has been established. This syllabus aims to empower the students with an all round development. The grading system is considered to be the basis through which an individual’s capacity to learn, understand and apply the subject matter is evaluated.

However, in recent times with the increasing competition and the far fetching goals, marks are considered as the sole way of determining personality.  Students are expected to ace in every subject equally and have no freedom to pursue what they are genuinely interested in. If a person does not pass with distinction, he/she is considered as a weak student and experiences a kind of differentiation.

A fable written by George Reavis, where the writer describes our education system in a satirical way comes to mind. In ‘The Animal School ‘, the writer imagines an animal school with a fixed syllabus which all the students are supposed to follow. Here, the duck is excellent in swimming but average in running and fails in flying because of which she is asked to spend more time learning the respective subjects. In learning how to fly and run, swimming is ignored. This results in her ending up being average in everything. This is the reality of our school system today where students are not allowed to polish their aptitude but are left to learn things they are not interested or good at, resulting in being average in everything but excellent in none.

The success in an individual’s life is considered to be in direct proportion with his/her marks. This mentality has led to low self confidence, lack of educational and occupational satisfaction, stress and anxiety among students which has in turn led to the horror that is student suicide.

To protect the youth and make this world a better and happier place, enabling kids to choose their career paths and giving less importance to marks and more importance to the personality and aptitude in children is important. So, let the children bloom in their imagination and not curb their happiness through marks but let them follow their hearts and realize their capabilities.

Hobbies are activities that a person does for fun or which gives them happiness. They are not forced on the child but the child picks them up due to his/her genuine interest in it. Hobbies in people differ with their personalities and one can indeed learn a lot about other person’s thoughts, feelings, character in general by ways of analyzing what a person does in their free time.

So the question arises, should hobbies be taught in school and treated as subjects? According to me, there are both pros and cons to this.

DISADVANTAGES :

1)GRADING AND COMPETITION MAY MAKE CHILD LOSE ITS INTEREST IN THE HOBBY- A hobby if turned into a subject may make the child lose its interest in it as it no longer will be something one does for leisure but it will become a part of the syllabus which is work for the kid.

2)NOT EVERYONE HAS THE SAME HOBBY- Every child is different and indulges himself in different activities. One may like to dance while other may despise it and has a hobby of reading books instead, whereas another loves to collect different antique objects.

3)NOT EVERY HOBBY CAN BECOME A FIELD OF STUDY- Though some hobbies may help in developing a child’s personality when ventured and carefully studied others will not do good to become School room subjects.

ADVANTAGES :

1)HELP POLISH A CHILD’S HOBBIES INTO PASSION – If hobbies are taught in schools the child will know more about the subject which will fuel the hobby to become a passion by informing the child and teaching him the correct information through a trusted source.

2) LIFE SKILLS- With a wide range of activities taught a number of life skills such as research and collecting of things or reading / journaling, etc. Can be taught. These skills help in the all round development of a kid.

3) INTERESTING SUBJECTS FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE- Hobbies are fun. Learning these and building some healthy competitive spirit among kids motivates them to take their hobbies seriously. Kids would love to be a part of such subjects and a new dynamic study pattern which keeps the creative ability of a child alive comes into existence.

Thus by weighing these factors it is very clear that though having hobbies studied in schools will give a new significance to the education system, it can also have some undesirable impacts in child’s interests. But if pursued carefully, the new structure of studying will benefit the person’s imagination and keep the child in them alive.

Author – Rishika Dembani