Academic Advisor

Dear Parents,
                    Your children are your dream. They are not just your dream but the dream of our society, of the state and the nation as well. Their growth is of top priority for you, isn’t it?. They must get precedence over anything else. But if you think they are the carriers of your dream, you could be damaging their creativity. Your dream should be to help them educate and prepare them for this competitive word. They should contribute to the development of the country. But what they should become, what field they should choose to express their creativity should be left to them. All children born on this earth have some talent or the other. There should be no gender discrimination either. Many women have done better than men have done. For example, Sarojini Naidu, Toru Dutt. Mahasweta Devi, Gayatri Spivak Chakravorty (Bengal), Simone de Beauvoir (France), Silvia Ploth (UK), Malala (Pakistan), Kamala Das, P T Usha (Kerala), Saina Nehwal,(AP), Aung Song Suchi (Myanmar), Triveni (Karnataka), the list could be endless. Any discrimination you make could be detrimental to their mental growth. Any wrong step the parents take to show preference to the boy-child could end up in permanent damage to psyche of the girl-child; it might develop complexes in the male child. There is a problem here. There is no standardized procedure yet to determine the real talent of a child. There is what is called aptitude test. But it can’t be taken as flawless . Then how do we find out the real talent of a child? It’s a challenge not only to the parents but to the teacher as well, and, perhaps, even to the child in a system like this ours. Together they can synergize their efforts to find out the child’s talent. Parents can be successful to a very great extant if they strive hard. If you succeed here, the children can be helped to choose their area of interest in higher education, to find expression to their creativity. Or else, it has to be left to the children’s choice after they have reached the 10th std. The desire to make our children only doctors or engineers is fallacious. It’s very pronounced in Karnataka. Allow the children to pursue their interest. In Metropolitan cities, I have seen, the parents force their children to opt for IAS or IFS (Foreign Service). To force children to live your dream is killing their creativity. Allow them to nurture their interest and contribute to the country. Another point on which I wish to appeal to the parents is to ask them to restrain on their progress card. Don’t scold your son or daughter because of low scoring in the examination. Don’t run them down. Find out the area in which the child is weak and help him/her overcome it. Also don’t compare your child with any other child and run him / her down. Children develop inferiority complex. Low scoring does not mean he / she is less intelligent. It’s ludicrous. There are many reasons for it. Parents have a tendency to declare the child stupid if the progress record is not upto their expectation. No, not at all. Creative talent and scoring in examination are two different things. World’s greatest scientist Albert Einstein had failed in his first language, German. Shivram Karant had dropped out even before he reached the college. They went on to educate the world. Help the children to overcome their weakness. Be in touch with their teachers to find out their problems. It helps not just the child but also the teachers. More often than not, highly talented children score lows marks in our examinations. Make the children read the stories of national heroes, great achievers. It will inspire them to have big dreams. Children need role models.

Prof N S Raghunath
Mysore 9845887108/ 0821-2544351