Soch Le

Living in a boarding school for eight years can change anyone’s perspective of ‘normal.’

Normal kids plan on what movies to watch over the weekend, while we plan out our next laundry day. Most kids looked at me with pity the second I mentioned ‘boarding school.’ Some even asked me what I did to make my parents send me away. They’re expecting metal bunker beds, non-stop fighting and a whole lot of crying after watching ‘Taare Zameen Par.’

How am I supposed to explain that the place, in all it’s cliched-ness, became a home?

I could list the place’s shortcomings for days on end. The bath water alternates between lava-hot and bone chilling cold, everyone is loud or everyone is quiet and pissed because you’re loud. It may not be easy to make friends because everyone is so different, leading to clashes between groups. You can’t always do things your way, because someone or the other will call you out if you’re wrong. Even if you are right, people will still be against you. You are also faced with the fact that if you want to be set apart from the rest, you’ve got to fight tooth and nail. It’s a savage place in that way, because it’s students pitted against other students.

Sounds frustrating? Well, it is.

But a fact that I keep repeating to myself is that these are obstacles you can face head-on. You can still find people who you fit in with, you can still excel in different fields if you have dedication, and that you can always learn from your mistakes.

You can’t do much about the water, though.

It’s hard to remember all the good things, but at the end, you see them—the victory hug after a stressful match, a walk on the football field right before a teacher catches you, the smuggled chocolate that you end up sharing, the chorus of good-nights as the lights go off. The frantic study sessions, the secrets between unlikely people and the feeling of crying into a friend’s chest.

The drawback of a boarding school is that it’s fixed in nature. You’re there and you can’t do anything about it. At the same time, though, you become a stronger person. You learn to deal with them, to focus on the good, because there is a lot of it. It is human to focus on the bad. Boarding school makes you notice that, and helps you move away from it.

The benefit of a boarding school is that it’s fixed in nature.

Do you ever wonder how to make current affairs fun for teenagers? Take it from me, I couldn’t have cared less about politics before attending my first MUN. I used to think politics was something my parents used to worry about. I’d rather think about how Zack and Cody troubled Mr. Morby today.

I was introduced to MUNs in the 9^th grade. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I knew it was some kind of debate, and we had to represent some country, and look super-attractive in formals.

On the 25^th of December, 2016, I heard this one statement that has resonated with me since. “MUNs change your life.” At that point, I thought MUNs were completely overrated, but the following year, I realized that the statement was true.  When I won my first MUN, I had this feeling of accomplishment that I had never felt before.  For the first time, I felt like I could accomplish whatever I put my heart into. That is something every young adult needs. We give teenagers these books and make them feel worthy if they score above 90%. If they don’t, they spend their whole life believing they’re stupid or average.

Debating about things like organized crime or drug-related violence at the age of 14 or 15 not only gives you immense knowledge about the subject, but also helps you find your voice, teaches you to voice your opinions, listen to other people, build relationships, talk to and interact with all kinds of teenagers, learn to become leaders—whew! I’ve barely made a start!

MUNs give you clarity, exposure and a new way of consuming knowledge that you’ll never forget. Today, thanks to my MUNning record, I am eligible for one of the top business schools in the world: The University of New South Wales. I could organize an MUN at school, and call myself the Secretary–General. Now, I love politics, and I’m continuing to grow leaders whilst working on myself.

You must get yourselves involved in active learning and find your passion outside of books, because studying is not always learning.

In a research methodology class, my professor carried out a simple experiment that I’d like you to carry out. Take a pen and paper and draw a sunset. Take 15 seconds. Proceed only after you’re done.

Are there hills? Is the sun setting between them? Some may also have a stream and/or some ‘v’ shaped birds. How is it that so many people have this particular image in their minds for a sunset?

There are certain things that are set in our brains. It is important to unlearn these things to make space for newer things. In four years of my liberal arts education, I realised how this learning is reflected in every aspect of their educational system.

Liberal arts studies is an interdisciplinary education covering topics within humanities, social sciences, natural and formal sciences etc. The basic idea during its introduction in the western world was that this education is essential for a free independent person to take an active part in civic life. Therefore, liberal arts education, in today’s time provides with a broader spectrum of knowledge and skills of the world with compulsory subjects like statistics, literature, multicultural worldview, contemporary economics and business analysis, creative writing, logic, rhetoric writing among others and specialisation in subjects of your interest. It encourages exploration across disciplines, while providing a central academic experience by election of majors and minors. Students who elect to major in the natural sciences or engineering, for example, also take classes in history, languages, philosophy, the arts and a variety of other subjects. The first year of education is dedicated to exploring the subjects and figuring out which subjects interest you and you are passionate about. This is where I fell in love with learning. After years of hating school and studies, this place helped clear the dust on the basic instincts of humans to know, know and know more by giving students the freedom to learn and explore and doing away with the tremendous and unnecessary pressure that usually comes with education.

In my college, we unlearned the set way of carrying out assessments or examination. An examination with pen and paper with a set time-limit on a particular day is not the only or most efficient way of assessing if the student is learning. Here, the assessments are carried out in different ways like essays, presentations, teach-a-class, exhibitions, plays, performances and anything else you can think of as long as your understanding of the topic is conveyed. And none of these is to assess if you know the facts but to read your take, understanding, implications and applications of what was discussed in the class and the clarity of the facts is seen automatically. This makes one’s mind run to be creative, imaginative, explorative; to think, have fun and thus develop. 

We unlearned the set way of academic learning. Instead of textbooks, it was based on research and discussion.

We unlearned the idea of respect. It wasn’t based on calling teachers ‘sir’ and ‘madam’. Having our professors and director on first-name basis contributed to the culture of the place, dissolved the barrier and led us to sit down and discuss anything and everything with them which ultimately helped create a better environment for us and them.

All in all, this education system opened a space for discussion and debate; inculcated in me values like questioning, critical thinking, creating cogent arguments, creative and academic writing and other forms of expression, love for exploration, a glimpse of western world’s education, use of words like ‘cogent’, 8 latin american and ballroom dance forms and a realisation that deep inside, everyone is a nerd as soon as they find their subject. 

Golf is known as a game for big business executives to make deals while they play? What are the things that make it a perfect game for such things? Navin Kabra identified these for all the other GenWise instructors and myself at the Clover Greens Golf Course last Tuesday.

First of all, it is a slow sport. You hit a ball hundreds of metres away and then walk to it. All this walking is enough time to negotiate a deal. Secondly, it has no requirements of athleticism. A player of any level of fitness can play. Thirdly, it costs a lot. This means you are guaranteed successful people, so interaction with people of a lower economic class will be limited. Fourth, and most importantly, you are scored, not on how you did that game, but how you did, compared to all your other games. The handicap rule makes it so that you are playing based on your average score.

However interesting this is, it is not the most important thing about this observation. For me, the way this observation has been gleaned is the important thing. This is something I like to call “But Why?” analysis. The answer is found by asking the question “But Why?”

Golf is a great sport for executive networking. But why? There are multiple answers. For each answer, you ask the question “but why?” until you cannot. In this way, you reach the most fundamental rules of the workings of the world.

The best example of this analysis, again pointed out by instructor Navin Kabra, was in the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. In it, Diamond attempts to find the reasons of European colonialism. European countries had the most colonies. But why? Because there was a European presence in a lot of different countries. But why? Because they went to more countries for trading. But why? Because they had better ships. But why? And so on. Diamond came to the conclusion that the shape of the continent contributed to the rise of colonialism there. The reason for that is very complicated, so I will not go into it. What I want to discuss is how vital this is in children.

No school is teaching this kind of analysis. They simply give the children books, and tell them that the book holds the truth. Instead, this kind of questioning should be taught in schools. They should be taught, not who discovered the Gene, and what the formula for finding the area of a cylinder is, but to ask the correct questions.

Students my age simply do not ask questions for fear of being wrong. They would rather not learn than make a mistake. They need to be taught that mistakes are okay. The only way this happens is by not punishing mistakes.

But if you can’t punish mistakes, what do you punish? What do you test your students on?

Test the students on what they do with information given to them. Teach them to find their own information. Test the students on how they use the information they get by having them write pieces about their own opinions. Do not check whether or not the opinion is correct, but whether it is clear, and uses all the information at their disposal. If you punish mistakes, the children would rather not learn than make the mistakes, and that is absolutely unacceptable. But Why? Analysis is a perfect method of learning. This can be tested by seeing how deep a student has gone.

Rather than seeing what a student knows, test what they do with the things they know. That is what the world does, and is that not what schools are? Aren’t schools a place where children are taught about the real world?

Last year, I took my tenth standard ICSE Board Examinations. I did fine, but my ninth and tenth grade were the two most stressful years of my life. This isn’t because of the pressure of school life (which is a whole other story altogether), or any pressure put on me by my parents. My parents were supportive of me throughout, and had no set expectations, as the parents of most of my peers did. The cause of the stress was the ICSE curriculum itself.

After my tenth, I switched boards. I began studying in the IB course. IB stands for International Baccalaureate. This was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I’m really enjoying studying with the IB.

The difference between the IB and other Indian Boards is that IB does not place its focus on content that can be learnt by rote. The students are tested on their ability to apply the knowledge they have gained to the real world, and analyse problems to provide meaningful solutions. The IB focuses on analysis and application rather than memorizing and regurgitating. So, what are the skills that an IB student gains, that a student studying in other 11th grade boards misses out on?

First off, the IB prepares the student for the world. I know that sounds like an exaggerated, over-optimistic marketing ploy, but I’m not being paid by the IB. In fact, I’m paying the IB.

Look, I don’t know what the world is like. I’m seventeen years old. But I can say that I have a vague understanding, and that is all thanks to the IB. Indian Boards don’t do any of that.

The IB taught me that there are sources of information out there that you simply cannot trust. The IB taught me how to differentiate from a source that is credible and a source that is contentious. This becomes all the important in today’s times of multiple secondary sources of information.

The IB taught me to learn who and what to trust. That skill is not learnt from the other boards. They simply give you the information, telling you not to question where the information came from. They prescribed me books, saying that these are the only credible sources of information, whereas in the IB, I have the freedom to pick and choose where my information comes from, because the information is not the important thing in this curriculum. It’s how I use the information, and what I understand from it that counts.

The prescription of textbooks limits the understanding of a student, and the freedom to choose the information opens them up to a variety of opinions from around the world, and isn’t that the preparation you need in the real world?

An important aspect of IB that teaches its students to verify all information is the Theory of Knowledge programme. The entire point of that programme is to get to the roots of knowledge and question the sources. As far as I know, none of the Indian boards have a similar programme.

The IB also demands that you look at differing opinions of a single aspect of the subject. Taking the example of History, the IB papers do not give you marks unless you explore multiple perspectives. If you simply write the answer from one perspective, you get a much lower score. This sensitizes students to all kinds of perspectives. With other boards, there is only one perspective. Bhagat Singh was a hero. Hitler was a monster. With the IB, you get to see perspectives that say that Bhagat Singh was a radical terrorist who blew up a building and killed multiple police officers. You get to notice that Hitler was not a mentally unhinged maniac, but an even-minded, genius military general, who had his own beliefs and acted upon them, as any self-respecting human being would do. It’s not that I agree with these statements, my opinions do not come into the picture at all. The point here is that the IB, by presenting all the options to the students, gives them the opportunity to know the facts before making a decision.

Most importantly, it also teaches students that it is okay to have differing opinions. It teaches students how the behave when met with a differing opinion. With a non-IB background, there is only one narrative, and looking at other perspectives makes you not only wrong, but an enemy of a country.

This, to me, is the most important part. The assurance that all opinions are valid, and that more important than having an opinion is having the facts, and then creating an opinion for yourself. A way to cultivate your own opinion is to learn what sources are the most credible. With curriculums that feed students one narrative without focusing on others, we are exposing ourselves to government actions the likes of which have been documented in stories such as George Orwell’s 1984, where the government controls the history, and the people have been brainwashed.