Ashish Rajpal's views on child development

Ashish of iDiscoveri was no doubt the star speaker of the day – he had just the right phrases, experiences and knowledge that made him an awesome orator to listen to. In addition to all these things, he clearly had the passion to bring change in the ailing education system.

The topic allocated to him was child’s physique then and now. Ashish introduced himself in the same way as I do: A gatecrasher into education; someone who chose this field because of their interest in it. He identified three underlying concerns that made him compile few observations on what’s happening today and finally five recommendations.

Concerns that underlie:

1. Live in a highly divided society: which child are we talking about? It’s no denying fact that India is facing a huge divide primarily rural and urban. The difference is striking that it disturbs everyone. There is so much celebration about resurgence of India, BPO jobs, H1 B visas. However, the same country is facing the dangers (of epidemic proportions) of AIDS and malnutrition.

2. Age of biology: Last century was of physics, this century belongs to biology. No longer can the education hide behind the hypothesis. All the techniques or methodologies that we bring in our classrooms need to be quantified by the biological responses as well.

3. Role of examples: Children don’t listen to you, they watch you closely. What we see in children is nothing but a mirror.
   

Observations about child Physique:

1. Malnutrition: One of the biggest problems with the children of today is that they do not get any representation in the society. For example, where in the minds of the society, politicians, budget are children. 1/6^th of mankind is children; however, they do not get 1/6^th representation in the newspapers, parliament discussion.
   

2. Obesity: Children are fatter, unhealthier, and less able to do things without being pushed for. Close to 1 out of 3 children are obese – probably 2/3 of these obese children are going to be obese adults. The reasons are not difficult to identify. The problem is because of food that they are eating – parents are shoving packets of chips and coca-cola in the hands of their kids. Packaged carbohydrates have one of the most dramatic influences on the make up of the body. The substitution of packaged carbohydrate has come at the cost of carrots, fruits etc. A child who is likely to have one glass of milk is likely to have 2 glasses of coke or soda waters.

3. Problem of labeling: Another issue cropping in today’s society is the problem of labeling kids. Clearly, it’s an easy solution to say that one child is depressed child and here’s the medication (a bunch of sedatives) to fix that. However, this attitude is prone to a failure as we are not eliminating the root of the problem.

4. Lack of open spaces: The rapid urbanization has had the most dreadful impact on the environment and open spaces for the child. Ashish talked about an example of going to get milk in the morning and related physical activity with that. However, in today’s day and age this is really unthinkable. So, this urbanization is definitely coming at a huge price. He further raised a very important point that the problem in the urban infrastructure is going to get worst before it gets any better. He was rightly able to identify that the mainstream schools need to play a very important role in this aspect. This idea had resonance with the new ideas that we are brainstorming at buildingBlocks (where we plan to have the mainstream schools as a key partner).

5. Cut off relationship with nature: Urban children are cut off from nature – almost two generations now. They are suffering from a disease called nature deficit disorder. Ashish also shared few experiences from the Youreka! Program.

6. Role Model: Children of today have mostly the Salman Khan’s or Hrithik Roshan’s or Aishwarya Rai as the role models. This is a side effect from consuming immense dose of television everyday. The problem with this is that these extreme machos and extreme feminism images can lead to a feeling of inadequacy amongst today’s kids, which will result in growth of an insecure individual.
7. Time: Children need time to grow. It takes time to cook a good dish – and parents these days don’t want to be the chef – the main problem.

Finally, Ashish also gave five suggestions to the audience:

1. There is a crying need for schools to teach food habits to children.

2. Get doctors into schools (the practice of science).

3. Making time to play for the children in the school itself: 10 hours a week.

4. Spend a month in the wilderness: A childhood devoid of adventure is a sad childhood.

5. Teacher Training.

I will post details about other sessions as and when I get a chance in the coming week.