Hari Om!

The latest and the most recent and serious concern today in Schools is DAS (Depression, Anxiety and Stress) among growing adolescents all over the world. Globally the reported rates of these mental disorders range up to an alarming 51%. The scene in India is slightly better than that of USA and Australia where one in five teenagers suffer from mental health problems. In a recent survey conducted in Chandigarh it was found that one out of 10 children are suffering from depression and it is higher among students of classes 10 and 12.

One would wonder how did these disorders creep into our glorious system of education we had in the past? This erosion is not the result of recent trends. We are responsible for slowly injecting the poison of competition over years among children. Right after independence, though the British left India physically, they left behind the Industrial mind set. Like an Industry, where the raw materials go through grinding, cutting   and welding, children became the raw materials and had to go through the pain of memorizing, reproducing and taking periodical examinations. At the end when the student emerges out of the system, he is tested through an yearend examination for uniformity and any deviation found in the end product, he gets rejected and becomes like a scrap in the society. Children get branded with marks when they emerge out of the Schools. Too much of uniformity has killed creativity among children. One common examination and one expected answer; all these successfully took away the joy in learning. Fine skills like art, music and dance are all neglected and given no importance. The system focused only on scores and encouraged only cut-throat competition among children. What else can be the outcome of such an unhealthy system? No wonder we have ended up creating mental disorders in children.

We are fortunate in CIRS, that we have our Gurudev’s   vision which focusses on the holistic development of Children. When children study in a stress-free environment like ours, blossoming happens naturally. No wonder every child here gets the opportunity to unleash their own hidden potential.

 

Best wishes,

Shanti Krishnamurthy