On Monday, 9 Jan 2012, I wrote the post 'Fatherhood' at this same place when it was my daughter’s First Stage performance of Bharatanatyam. This is the sequel to it when she passed her SSC (10th) exam in flying colors. It makes sense, I guess...!
It was 10th Std. Exam Results of Maharashtra State yesterday that set a record of 88% passing percentage with almost 3% of students scoring 90+%, one of them being my daughter with 92.20%. No doubt I am content, proud and feeling honoured; a little concerned at the same time couldn’t be overlooked though. Why the concern...?
Well, if the statistics could represent it, I wonder how many of these ‘scholar’ students achieved this naturally, effortlessly and by choosing to do so, to the least. I am neither referring to parent’s pressure nor to peer pressure but to move with self-understanding, self-direction and self-motive by escaping the 'Herd mentality'. Isn’t it more important to be yourself and act independent rather than securing over 90% marks in the so called fundamental exams!
It was 10th Std. Exam Results of Maharashtra State yesterday that set a record of 88% passing percentage with almost 3% of students scoring 90+%, one of them being my daughter with 92.20%. No doubt I am content, proud and feeling honoured; a little concerned at the same time couldn’t be overlooked though. Why the concern...?
Well, if the statistics could represent it, I wonder how many of these ‘scholar’ students achieved this naturally, effortlessly and by choosing to do so, to the least. I am neither referring to parent’s pressure nor to peer pressure but to move with self-understanding, self-direction and self-motive by escaping the 'Herd mentality'. Isn’t it more important to be yourself and act independent rather than securing over 90% marks in the so called fundamental exams!
I always wholeheartedly believed in Mark Twain’s philosophy of 'never allowing the schooling to interfere with learning' and hence never probed into my daughter’s schooling. However I never failed to provide her every opportunity of learning all the way by environmental up-gradation. I am not saying that we made some extraordinary experiment by this or that we are the only parents to do so; but my point is - we would like to see more and more parents take this route instead of putting it all in a sheer consumerism hypothesis.
While her friends were almost detained in their rooms for almost the entire year to make them focus and work hard on the studies for the 'life-changing' exam, she never missed anything that she loved dearly... may it be her Bharatanatyam classes she is taking for over 5 years now, her favourite dance shows on the TV, new released movies that made absolute no sense to us but excited her like anything, books she loves to read, like-minded friends she could wander or talk/text/whatsapp with forever or just having good time with whatever was her impulse at that moment!
Moreover, I have my parents living with us (or maybe its other way round, result is same) and being the typical Indian Senior Citizens they cannot refrain from watching their favorite daily soaps all the time and, needless to mention, in a high volume as they hear little louder... naturally! How this could be a challenge or impediment could only be experienced or empathized! To overcome this imposed difficulty my daughter identified silos in this small house itself where she could read and learn peacefully! This was the creativity that defines thinking out of the box, I believe!
And with such a wonderful score that set a new record in both her parental families, she is firm on pursuing her interests in Language, Arts and Environmental Sciences renouncing the herd mentality to go for lucrative and glamorous options like Computers, Engineering, Medial or Accounts and I not only regard her choice but would support and facilitate it to the extent I could against all criticism.
That makes me a proud father!
