Exams Vs. Education, One More Goodbye

By Samaira Vijay Gupta

Exams are a cue. They’re a cue, but to what? Education, intelligence, IQ, what? If you believe that you’re the wittiest guy in the room because you got 95% on a test or exam, stop believing that. Yes, you might be intelligent if you gave that exam with null and void preparation but when you rote learn, you should know you’re just getting over with it.

You’re getting over with the semester, and you’re not trying to applicate to real life. Our education systems are headstrong on teaching…..um…..sorry, telling us to memorize and rote learn for exams and tests because they believe that that paper has the power to kill your dreams. This makes every exam a kind of contract, a medium for achievement. It’s like a derivative with the underlying stock depreciating in a bearish market. 

Let us contradict and go back to the ancient era. A primitive golden era of gurukuls. Well, believe it or not, that was actually education and it is no less than a shame that people, a millennium ago were better educators than us. Education isn’t the same old boring physics and chemistry chapters; it is your thinking.

I go to school too, and I love the classes where they teach me what I want to be taught. Richard Branson dropped out of school, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college, and you’ll find many more examples.

It is time that schools turn into places that foster creativity. No artist needs to study science, no doctor needs to study geography, no writer needs to study math, no accountant needs to study chemistry, and no entrepreneur needs to study biology. Schools must let students think and create their own answers rather than asking them to rote learn; colleges should start with real life applications rather than fat books and this way, not only would the world be a better place, but it would also be much more euphoric, developed and civilized.

ONE MORE GOODBYE

One more goodbye

Give out a sigh

Breath out your story

On that ‘Memento Mori’

Wipe out another year

Swing up another beer

Is it too hard to cheer?

It just whizzed past by, - another year

The basket’s full of cherries

And time to flip it slowly

It comes around another day

I wish that I had my say

This clock’s a freakin’ clown

No wonder my hands are down

Just let me go about

And let me sing a song-

One more goodbye

Breathed out a sigh

And I just filled up my window with bizarre fog

Even if I do, it’s never you

Time, you never slog

Stop and wait for further ado

Got all this drama and I got whatnot 

Got all of this trauma

But time you never stop

Well, you try to piece it together

But never have I ever

Saw you flow like a current inflicted river

Sun and humid turned to chill

Ministry up ahead turned up a bill

Was this ever meant to be a speed rail

Doesn’t time feel like it is on the run, like a criminal on bail?

One more goodbye

Breathed out a sigh

I filled my circle with a square

One more goodbye

Let out a sigh

Time clearly ran out of a devil’s lair

One more goodbye

Breathed out a sigh

My friend, did ‘time’

Every really care?

Every time I tried

To figure what it hides

I was given a smile

The hurter, healer

All lies in ‘time’

One more goodbye

Let out a sigh

Grab a magic wand

And sing along to a song-

Good ol’ time

I heard a culminating chime

And nothing runs

Pulls out guns

And leaves songs unsung, like you

Good ol’ time

Forgive us, lie

Lie for once in life

I won’t be hard on you….

By Samaira Vijay Gupta