Thursday, December 10, 2009

Fine balance between lack of creativity and its excess. [Please ABSOLUTELY, DEFINITELY click on the links given in the post BEFORE COMMENTING!!]

I had always felt that our education does not promote original thinking, which is very detrimental to nation's progress, as without it research can never be carried out!

A very simple reason so many students fail exams is because they copy their neighboring candidate's answers verbatim. If teachers would only teach adequate language skills, then at least the students would alter sporadic words in their answers and the examiners would not be able to suspect copying and fail them.

This lack of language skills and original thinking have led to high dropout rates from high school, and can lead to further problems in the future when these students enter their active careers.

Read this newspiece:

Mass media: masses of money? (click)

Is it not high time we promote original thinking through education?

Of course, at the other end of the spectrum, we have students brimming with so much creativity and originality, and their answers would be so widely disparate, that examiners are left confused if the students were answering the same question!

Compare the two 'stories':

1. Two women doctors arrested for killing rape victim's newborn - dnaindia.com (click)

2. Women doctors in Raigad force rape victim to deliver, kill infant - The Times of India (click)

So, what we need as a nation to become a 'super power' is a fine balance between lack of creativity and its excess!

On a seriously serious note - imagine, possibly this kind of news-reporting passes off as journalism, based on which we build our outlook, and elect our governments; decide if a particular technology is good; and even, what to eat! Anywhere you see, and there are news and opinions.

Do you mind paying higher price for the delivered news, if their reliability is ensured through higher profit margins for the news agency, so that they would not be tempted into unethical practices?

continued here (click)...

PS: Thanks Sudhir Kumar and WDM for the links!

6 comments:

  1. As sad as it may sound, sensational journalism sells... and that's a shame.

    ReplyDelete
  2. On a seriously serious note - imagine, possibly this kind of news-reporting passes off as journalism, based on which we build our outlook, and elect our governments; decide if a particular technology is good; and even, what to eat!

    Exactly. Most news today is suspect; full of biases and prejudices, opinions and slants. They are paid for, one way or the other.

    The Ashok Chavan articles are scandalous. But is it an issue? Are people concerned?

    Quirky Indian

    ReplyDelete
  3. @ mgeek:

    Yes, it's a shame, definitely. But more significantly, it is so unreliable that to base one's judgements on it has become so risky. Plus imagine, how easily could someone's public image be enhanced or tainted permanently. :(

    Thanks!

    TC.


    @ Quirky Indian:

    Yes, you're right. And maybe you should read my subsequent two posts. You'll realize (or might have already realized), how badly was the news reported by IANS in case of the forced-delivery/infanticide.

    TC.

    @ Srishti:

    I'd like your responses to this post, at least NOW. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. The biggest problem with India, is those who are in power and those who control those in power think, goal justifies path..
    if students copy its wrong...even if they use a different language.
    And another problem, when 50% of Indian children dont have access to Secondary Education and when the rest don't care about it..
    On maha cm. All parties are keeping quiet because if they haven't done it now, they can do it in future..

    ReplyDelete
  5. WDM,

    Thanks for commenting, but am afraid, you probably missed my point of the post.

    I'm not even going into the morality of 'paid news', but that the politicians and journalists think readers to be so stupid, and are so bereft of creativity, that they didn't even feel the need to alter a few words here and there, is most disgusting.

    And the continuation of the post goes into the dissection of Raigad incident as reported by IANS.

    Actually, both the cases were only meant to demonstrate how unreliable the mass media on the whole has become to draw any kind of conclusions from what news and analysis they present.

    That's all this post was about. :)

    Using students as analogy was only to keep the reference to real issues oblique 'enough'. ;)

    TC.

    ReplyDelete

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