Wednesday, August 27, 2014

BLACK HOLE INFORMATION SYNDROME

I watched Alia Bhatt's Genius of the Year video yesterday and found it to be hilarious...a number of laughable moments...but at the same time as an educationist, I found it disturbing underneath. It takes so much for a girl to prove that she's not dumb.

It speaks a lot about our society's obsession to know trivia of general knowledge...and also the impact it has on people who dont know this trivia called general knowledge. It has a huge cost especially if you see from an educational angle. Thousands of teachers despise their students when they dont know whats obvious...and not all students reach the Dumb Belle Mental Gym.

Knowing or not knowing something doesnt make a zilch of a difference as far as education is concerned. And the biggest mistake an educationist can do to make somebody learn is to mock that person about not knowing something.

Now I know she said Prithvi Raj Chauhan was India's President or something and I dont know why she said what she said. And you could consider it as an information important enough. But frankly speaking how does it matter if she doesnt.

Though it was a spoof kind of thing, but when Alia cried in the end. It was all the pain of the person, who has to prove herself...prove herself for what. Thousands of people make this effort to attain trivial general knowledge to prove that they are cool. They dont even know the pain they are in...of having to know everything...because its endless. Thats what I call Black Hole Information Syndrome. Are you suffering from it.

I was just sharing with a friend how annoying it is to sit with people who know everything...music, politics, films, international affairs, food, science, history etc. And then my friend remarked...actually all these people must perhaps be very lonely in life and have nothing else to do but to gather information. Dont know if thats true...but I am sure they are out there to prove...they are not dumb.

Guys you are not dumb...stop gathering this information...stop proving yourself.

Its all right to know something and not to know something.

On a different note and I have written a lot about it earlier...Quiz is the most dumb thing educationists created. Testing people on information they memorised. When I was in school people memorised country capitals and currencies. Why would any sane person do it? What use is this information? But somehow Quizzing has reached our DNA...Imagine KBC. We enjoy us being challenged around the information we have? Its a sport or a game to get more marks or less? Hardly do we realise that in this game of information gathering we kill the real learning? No wonder then the information gatherers are in IITs and in IAS, while the real learners do some odd jobs. Ha ha.

P.S- The movie also has a pedagogical discourse on teaching methods...teaching through dance etc. Enjoy the film...even if you are not an educationist. Its meant to entertain not to educate.




1 comment:

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