Those were the Halcyon days

"Five were the years
that we had to bear!'

These two lines made me smile in retrospection, for it contrast wit the very image and impression these last five years left on me

We used to complain a lot about how things works in the institute, especially the pedagogy - fewer classes and more self studies, more projects and cases rather than firm theories. Now that I can look at it from an objective point of view, being no longer in the system, I realise what this particular method of pedagogy meant: rather than confusing the professor and making their life miserable, we have more time to question ourselves and reflect and go forward in a journey of self discovery and actualization. And that is as it should be, the teacher must only guide and the student must do the walking.

Not surprisingly, students go to all sorts of direction with their interest, and not only from the academic point of view. Exams are no longer of importance, for it is the gyan that takes front seat. It is funny how they manage to pass exams by studying just the day before the exam. But then, on deeper thought, exams are not to test our knowledge, but our cleverness. I wished I were still at school where all these things are straightforward: they ask questions and we answer. It was not so simple in engineering or mba: they ask questions and either we remain silent or we rant. lol

Well, that was what we wrote on our answer papers: rants. I wonder if any of our answer paper got checked; to get through all the 'diatribes on paper' of each and every student would be excruciatingly painful, even for the most patient of professor; my sympathies go to the professors and their assistants who actually does the checking of answers. Who in their rightful mind would want to read through boring tirades of shares and bonds from 50 different viewpoints? But that was the beauty of it! Multiple different viewpoints; we were not marshaled to think in only one direction or one solution, as we would have otherwise, in a formal theoretical pedagogy! That is what we called innovative thinking! Edison did it, we did too.

In reflection, I see a wholesome experience abundant with freedom, liberty and equality in terms of what we want to learn and what we actually learned. And I believe that such quality of education I would not have found anywhere, and that is why I am glad as glad can be, that I once walked in those hallowed hall of freedom learning!