Essay 1:Destiny of a nation is shaped in its classrooms

 "Give a man a fish you feed him for a day;

 Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for his entire life."

It is wisely said that the well-educated mind can do wonders in every aspect of life. The nation strives and flourishes due to this mind; therefore, human development is the most important aspect of any country. The ultimate destiny or goal of a nation is centered on the overall advancement of its citizens.

Nation's Destiny - An Elaborated Definition

The end goal of a nation is debated, for economic growth over human development. Both support each other in their formation but do not necessarily support each other in every situation.

During the colonial era, especially after the European Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution unleashed the quest for bringing wealth to their country, in this process many European countries like Portuguese, Dutch, British, and French stepped out to get hold of the wealth.

In India, they formulated land revenue systems, such as Permanent Settlement, Mahalwari, and Ryotwari to extract wealth as the majority was involved in farming. The draining of wealth reached such a level that farmers were not left even to maintain their fields for the next season. Later British realized their mistake and came up with legislation to devote a certain amount to the development of science and literature by the Charter Act of 1813.

After Independence huge efforts were made to develop institutions to educate and train young minds, for which institutions like IIT Roorkee, PUSA, etc. were created. They formed the baseline or core for the overall nation's progress.

Japan, before the First World War, had a very minuscule stand in the world community but because of its efforts in educating its people, it showed rampant growth and had huge technological advancement. Honda, Toyota and many advanced technologies the world is using as a byproduct of the development of human resources.

The destiny of a nation is not just gauged by technological advancement or the level of education, but it is necessary to understand the level of happiness, satisfaction, health and social upliftment of people within a nation.

Global Happiness Index- Gauging the quality of living

When the world was in a race to achieve higher economic growth jeopardizing the happiness of the people who were the driving force of the nation, a small nation Bhutan prospering in the foothills of the Himalayas defied the norms of the world, came up with a methodology that kept the happiness and growth of its people above the economic growth of a country. The concept of the global happiness index came into existence.

A Well-Formed Mind vs Well Educated Mind

"If you educate a man in mind and not in morale, you bring a menace to the society"

                                                                                                - Mahatma Gandhi

In the present era, when education and lectures are widely available on the internet in every sector on any topic, it is important to inculcate moral and ethical values in children at a very early stage of life, because such things are not easy to develop in a grown-up mind.

A child starts learning just after four months of being in the womb of the mother. It is well-researched that 90% of the brain is developed in 0-5 years of age. It is therefore very important that a child's core memory, values and principles are well shaped in the early stages of their life.

Classroom- Just an Infrastructure of Something Else?

As Rabindranath Tagore said the mind of an individual wanders and seeks the truth of life, it should flow at its own pace, he did not advocate for the institution-based approach, where the mind is trained in closed boundaries of classrooms as the British did, rather he donated his land for the development of free flow education, which came to be known as Shantiniketan.

Henry Vivian Deradio also advocated for his students to think freely and question the why of everything.

On the contrary British adopted a closed classroom to train people to serve the interests of the British, such as railways, civil administration, and military. People rarely question the authority and work as directed.

But as we are proceeding towards a new era, where Artificial intelligence, Robotics, Nanotechnology and data-driven economy are unfolding at a very rapid pace, it is very crucial that we change, and the concept of the classroom must evolve with time.

The Modern Classroom - A Futuristic Approach 

It is believed that AI will be doing a lot of thinking jobs in different sectors of the economy. Therefore the upcoming generation should evolve in terms of moral and ethical conduct, so the charge to advocate does not shift to machines. It is also very important that classrooms teach a young mind to critically analyze the different aspects of work, and decisions and develop a strong value system, so machines act as assistants rather than masters of humans.

Conclusion

The destiny of a nation has a wider definition which inculcates not just Economic growth but rather Human growth which would lead to sustainable economic progress.

The growth of humans lies in the development of foundational values which shaped in the classroom, which evolved with the changing times and need to be well adjusted in the present time and is future ready.