The word "Education" elucidates the entire gamut of a system that greatly helps in shaping the personality of a person and paves the way towards developing positive character traits. What we learn as kids will stay with us for a life time. The schools and the colleges are arenas which act as breeding grounds for the development of the much needed social and survival skills in an individual. But are we doing justice to this system of education? That is the million dollar question that we all need to cogitate on.

Education does not mean knowing about each and every thing that exists in this world. Neither does it mean learning in depth about the intricacies of Science, Maths or History. But rather it should help one in understanding more about the subtle nuances of life. It should make one a better individual. More than the umpteen variants of subjects which a child is asked to comprehend, they should rather be taught to know more about themselves and the world in which they are living. This truly espouses the doctrines of education. But what are we doing to our children nowadays? Instead of allowing them to play and let their creative and imaginative musings flow, they are often forced to confine themselves within the four walls of the houses by giving them loads of assignments. Instead of ushering them into the world of fairy tales and books, they often end up reading text books to prepare for the teacher's assault next day. Children are spoon fed and finally they end up becoming incompetent to make any informed decisions. Where does all this lead to? Utter chaos and confusion when they are posed with life's whims and fancies. They no longer believe in themselves and in their inherent talents which unfortunately got snubbed at an early age. Thanks to the so called education!

Let us all introspect and think for a moment. How much of what we learned as kids are we using today in our day to day lives? Has learning in depth about Sepoy Mutiny helped us in becoming better individuals? If not then what else did?

Let us digress from the dogmas of education to Organizational development. Learning and knowledge enhancement are some of the areas which are constantly revisited to bring about certain conscious developments. Class room training system is slowly taking back stage and is getting obscured by experiential / on the job training.

People require hands on experience to understand the subtle nuances of the work which will otherwise be inconspicuous to them during a typical theory class. Many organizations have resorted to the experiential model of learning to carve out an ongoing learning model for their employees. This has worked wonders in many people with tangible attitudinal changes.

Why class room training is taking a back stage nowadays? How can you relate this to the present educational system?

The crux of the problem lies in the difference between learning and experiencing. When you learn something without experiencing, its life is ephemeral. But when you experience and learn, it gets etched in your memory perpetually.

In the educational system prevalent in most of the schools, children are taught to learn but not experience. They mug up the subjects and score high grades in the examination. But when it really comes to testing their knowledge, they fumble. The training modalities should be conjured up in such a manner so that there is a perfect mix of experiential learning. The child is made to think why he is doing this? He learns to rationalize with his mind which ultimately leads to titillating his inquisitiveness.

There is a story of a couple who bought a dog and was anxiously looking forward to rearing and nurturing it. The couple every day tried to give it milk in a feeding bottle but failed miserably in their attempt. No matter how sweet the milk was, to their utter consternation, the dog vehemently refused to take milk. On one such day, in their frantic attempt to feed the dog, they spilled some milk on to the floor. The dog happily lapped up the entire milk from floor and wagged its tail propounding its gratitude. It is not what you feed that is important, but rather how you feed it.

To put this in the educational context "It is not what you teach that is important but rather how you teach".

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