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Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim Alhamdulillah bil-alameen Wasalatu wasalam ala ashrafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam Tasleeman kathiran kathira fama Now who is this school, any school? Next point I want to talk about this is if I ask you who is the school for? You say children Fantastic, but really is that so? Then why do you have parent-teacher meetings? meetings. Where is the child in that parent-teacher meeting? Where are the children? And if they are present, what is their role? Think about this. You have PTAs, parent-teacher association, and you have parent-teacher meetings. Why? When the school is not for the parents, the school is for the children. So how come, I’m not saying don’t invite parents, by all means, if you want to do that. Frankly, if you don’t invite them, I have no problem with that either. but i’m saying if you want to invite them go ahead but where are the children how can you have a meeting with take for example to give you an example supposing you build trucks right and you are selling trucks to big uh trucking companies and i’m sitting in africa so i say one of the biggest trucking companies here is dangote in in nigeria so you are selling trucks uh to to Dangote. Now, you decide to have this meeting to see how satisfied your buyer is with the trucks. Sure, you might say, well, Mr. Dangote, who is the chairman of the corporation, his signature is on the checks, which come to us. So, all we need to do is to call Mr. Dangote’s office and say, Mr. Dangote, are you happy with the trucks? Now, I would submit to you that would be completely the wrong thing to do. Who should you be talking to? Mr. Dangote’s drivers. You want to talk to the guy who’s sitting in the cab because he or she, I don’t know if there are any female drivers, but they are the people who are driving that truck. So they are the people who are experiencing what it is like to drive that truck. Not Mr. Dangote. Mr. Dangote is only selling the selling the check now this is not fantasy because one of the companies that i uh consulted with many years ago was uh ashok leyland national island builds trucks and we had this exact same conversation i was sitting with the uh with the design team the people who designed those trucks and they were i think over 100 of them and they were all iit and in those days, REC, Regional Engineering Colleges, graduates, they were all engineers from the Indian Institutes of Technology and others. So, these were the creme de la creme of engineering graduates who worked for Shogran in their design team. The first question I asked them was, how many of you have a heavy-duty license? How many of you have a license to drive one of your own trucks? And they looked at me like I am, that I was nuts, you know. I mean, they looked at me like, is this man crazy or what? We are engineers. We are IIT graduates. We design trucks. We don’t drive trucks. And my question was, why? Why? So I said to them, I said, are you seriously telling me that you are designing a product and you are making that product, manufacturing that product, and you have never used it? so you have no clue how that product actually works apart from your simulators and apart from your drawing boards to me that makes no sense to me my question makes absolute sense your response makes no sense so I said let me ask you another question okay you don’t have a trucking license you don’t know how to drive a truck even though you desire a truck I said let me ask you a question how many of you have sat in the truck cabin next to the driver between Chennai and Bangalore. I said, I’m not talking about between Chennai and Chandigarh. These trucks also go from Chennai to Chandigarh, which is right north to the south of India. I said, just Chennai to Bangalore, which is probably about 500 kilometers. I said, how many of you have sat next to the driver from this, in one of your trucks, which you designed, from Chennai to Bangalore? Not one of them. I said, this is, to me, this is completely completely insane that you drive up, you design a product, manufacture a product. You cannot use it yourself. You have never used it yourself. You haven’t even sat in that truck while somebody else was driving it. And you claim to be the expert on it. How do you know what the driver feels as he’s driving the truck? Have you ever had a conversation with him? But no, because, you know, I mean, in India, we also have this whole social level thing of people who are considered to be sort of lower economic or whatever class. And so, you know, it’s beneath the dignity of the engineer to talk to a mere truck driver. But believe me, go a step further and say, the owner of the trucking company, when he decides to buy a fleet, when he decides to replace a truck, who is he asking is he asking his wife or is he asking you or is he asking his drivers any trucking company owner worth the name will always always always speak to his drivers and he will say well you’ve been driving this truck for so many years now i’m going to replace it what do you want me to do you want to buy the same truck or shall i buy some other truck right so that driver who you might even look down upon when very stupidly is the actual decision maker about which truck to buy so to come back to the schooling example that child who’s coming to a school is your actual customer it’s not the parent the parent may think you know fantastically about the school but that child who goes to that school whether you like the school or not whether whether the parent thinks it’s a great idea or not. The child decides whether this school is really worth going to or not.
So, who is the school for? In that case, why do you have only parent-teacher meetings?
Let’s make our schools truly for the children, not use children as an excuse for school owners, teachers, admin people, and a whole host of others to make money in a way that’s convenient and easy for them i want to repeat this statement of mine because it’s very important i am saying let us not use children as an excuse for school owners teachers admin people and a whole host of others to make money in a way that’s convenient and easy for ourselves right think about that not necessarily for the children not necessarily for the children let’s create a system where the one who was getting paid to teach passes or fails for succeeding or failing to teach think about that you’re paying the teacher you’re not paying the child to learn the child is paying you to teach him the teacher gets paid but who passes or fails in the exam? The child. Why? This is a blatant,
clear injustice that is done to children. And it is done only in schooling.
Only in schooling. Think about any other product or service. Who, within quotes, passes or fails the service user or the service provider except in schools in schools the service user passes or fails and some of those passes and failures are in exams which literally define the future of that child going forward and that’s the reason why you have so many cases cases across the world of students committing suicide because you just destroyed their future and the child is incapable of coping with that trauma and just decides to you know end it all the teacher is the murderer of that person who committed suicide so my question to the teacher is you are getting paid to teach the child and if the child fails the exam you have failed child hasn’t failed you have failed to teach the child in a way that the child would have passed that exam with flying colors so you are the one who must pay the price not the child literally we apply this rule in everything in life except schools the lives and careers of children are ruined because they had incompetent disinterested teachers but those teachers still get their salaries they still get their increments they still go up the ladder in the schools is that fair is that just is that logical is that model is that ethical think about this now let me ask you another question what do you call a place imagine this what do you call a place where inmates come in they’re brought actually they don’t even come on their own they are brought inmates are brought and let into that facility and the gate is shut they cannot leave until the gate is open at the end of their time in the facility they don’t decide that it’s decided for them in inmates are segregated by age as if date of manufacture is the most important thing about human being they are seated in rows behind rows so that from the second row onwards words, each inmate gets to look at the back of somebody else’s head all day long. Now, how inspiring is that? Inmates are not allowed to speak at will or to anyone other than the authority and that only after taking permission. They’re not allowed to disagree. Dissent is seen as rebellion and treated accordingly. Every decision that affects the inmates is taken by the authorities and the inmates are not consulted about any decision, even though every decision affects them. Let me repeat that. Every decision that affects the inmates is taken by the authorities and the inmates are not consulted about any decision, even though every decision affects them. Any tendency to try to become independent, to question authority, to suggest improvements, to promote responsibility is seen as evil and punished. In short, all life skills that are are necessary to succeed in society in careers in marriage in teamwork in conflict resolution skills critical to scenario planning communication influencing decision making and leadership are not taught and where they emerge despite not being taught are usually brutally eradicated the time of the inmates while they are in the facility is strictly regulated with punishments for not following the rules all of which are imposed upon the inmates without their voice or choice. What time they eat, what time they sleep, what time they play, for how long and where and what games, what time and for how long and at what they work are all regulated and have nothing to do with whether they want to do any of those things at the stated times or not. Inmates spend specific periods in each activity. They spend specific periods of time in each activity and break and stop when they are informed about by ringing bells or buzzers they cannot be trusted to self-regulate even the duration so if they are to do is a particular task for one hour at the end of 60 minutes it’s not left to them they’re not considered responsible enough to say alright so 60 minutes have passed this 60 minutes we have to do this this was the goal we should have accomplished how do we plan the 60 minutes nothing is in their control at the end of 60 minutes a bell rings or a buzzer goes off and they have to now go to the next uh period and do what has been predestined for them for that period they and their teachers are not even considered responsible enough to look at a watch and go to the next class. Interestingly, nobody objects. That’s the level of conditioning where the person doesn’t even consider himself or herself to be worthy of being treated with respect. That’s great for all dictators because where there’s no dissatisfaction, there cannot be any rebellion. Because where there is no dissatisfaction, there can be no rebellion. Finally, they are tested supposedly for knowledge by their ability to randomly recall discrete disconnected bits of information during a specific time window let me repeat that they are tested supposedly for knowledge by their ability to randomly recall discrete disconnected bits of information during a specific time window if If someone is unable to recall a bit of information in that window, but does that five minutes after the bell rings, he or she has failed the test. This is called a test of knowledge, but it’s really a test of memory alone without any understanding about how the bits of information are connected or can be used. It’s an exercise in collecting dots, not in connecting dots. Finally, if any inmate seeks help or responds to a call for help from another inmate during this specific time period, they are punished. Individual, even toxic competition is encouraged and rewarded, and teamwork is suppressed and penalized. Now, what do you call this institution?
I would call it a prison. I would call it a jail. but guess what and i’m sure all of you have guessed by now this is our school our schools and incidentally our corporate organizations are the most totally autocratic systems in the world which is why we have oligarchies masquerading as democracies and nobody to question this so what do we need to answer this let’s look at society because schools are the birthplace for those who will mold and change and manage and rule society so ask what kind of society do we want to live in factor yourself into the equation because it is about you before we go there let’s be clear that education and schooling are two different things and not always compatible with each other for those who understand urdu we have a word called
It used to mean noble, honorable, principled, learned, and all such qualities. Today, it merely means being literate, being able to read and write. That’s how we have gutted the whole idea of education.
We have reduced it to a means of earning a living alone, whereas education was supposed to be for life by creating responsible citizens, not merely as a means to earn a living. The thirst for knowledge, the freedom to seek it, and the understanding of how to apply the learning are all part of what we call schooling. They’re not part. The thirst for knowledge, the freedom to seek it, and the understanding of how to apply it, apply this learning, are all not a part of what we call schooling. The results are painfully visible. Education is not the responsibility of schools and teachers alone, but must be a partnership in parenting between parents, teachers, and children. All three are stakeholders and must have a say in what happens. Parenting cannot be outsourced. You can’t pay someone to raise your children just like you can’t pay someone to diet on your behalf. It is yours. You raise it. The school is your partner, but only you are the parent. the teacher is not your substitute. She or he is your resource, your help, but only you are the parent. Jannah is beneath your feet, not the teacher’s. And you are the door of Jannah for your child, not the teacher. You want the privilege? You must pay the price. It comes with the territory. Education must therefore create individuals who are noble, kind, compassionate, learned, principled, have excellent manners, courage, they have the ability to think and analyze and communicate to lead by example and who are aware of their accountability to the one to whom is our return the reading and writing and learning are different kinds reading writing and learning different kinds of information and so on is one facet of education it’s not its purpose we must give importance to it but only as one of the elements in education not to the exclusion of everything else. Rasulullah focused on only two things in his Tarbiyah of his Sahaba. Those two things guided every decision and action that they took. One was developing Taqwa. Taqwa is the concern to please Allah in everything we say or do without exception. That comes from knowing Allah, having a relationship with Him and being aware of His presence in our lives at all times. times. How do we develop that in our children? How do we measure progress? And since only a lighted lamp can light another, what’s the situation with our teachers and parents? What is the situation with their taqwa? Muttaqi parents will raise Muttaqi children. Muttaqi teachers will raise Muttaqi students. If the parents and teachers are fasiqeen, they will
are like them. So therefore, what are our metrics to assess ourselves? Just to give you some pointers, look at your income and what you eat. If these two are not halal, it doesn’t matter what else you do.