Life & Learning : A Day At NID

A journey to 1000 miles start from single step

Well from now on under the title of Life and Learning i am starting a series which will include some of my stimulating life experiences (which happens in everybody's life in one or other way) and what i learn from them.May be these can help some others also cause i think "We don't have enough life to experience everything , we can learn from others expereience too". Also generally i suggest and prefer short postings but because these are my experiences so i have to write in (unwillingly) length cause i can't abridge them , but still i will try to be on point, so if u get bored please forgive me ... ...

Well after an utter failure in my dream exam i was depressed and gone in a distress. But because i had the whole day in spare (thankfully the train to my hometown was in evening) , and have nothing to do worthwhile , so my papa take me to the college National Institute of Design , Ahemdabad . Actually the reason to go there was that a relative of ours used to teach there (from foundation of college) and was the senior most faculty there . So we thought lets see how is the college , instead of going to any other relatives house and talk crap. So we went there , got the news that the relative has been retired from teaching since 7 years , but fortunately (and i still thank god for that) he was on visiting faculty at that day in college , and after hearing that we have come to visit college , terminated his classes and take us to an unforgettable ride ...

So first of all the college has an excellent ambiance , surrounded by full of greenery , in center of the building there was a big tree of gulmohar , appealing the aesthetics.An open space in corridor (again surrounded with beautiful greenery) for faculties to refresh and discuss .... and space for students every here and there to study by sitting in front of nature and getting the composure of mind ... so a very peaceful and auspicious environment for future designers ...

After that we went to see the textile department , the department had every facilities that students can get in any fashion industry .. the students had full access to any material there and use (or experiment with) them regardless of supply of material ...

After that we visited material department where there were machines for cutting and finishing of iron , steel , or wood . All the machines were brought from Europe and students have to make the jobs assigned to them by themselves , but there is always someone to guide them ... even girls were operating on lathe machine with so efficiently that i was just speechless ... some machines were really innovative and did the work in an incredible way and did the work more easily and with greater finish ... like one machine i saw that can cut a plank in angular way from both surfaces at the same time , means can taper at two surfaces in one single cut ...

After that we went to their auditorium (every week 3-4 films shown to students and can be used for presentations also by students) , again designed beautifully , all the chairs were made from recycled and scrap material , showing the maximum utilization of material and all those were made in the NID itself by students ...

After that visited modeling department where students can make their models for their design with any material may be clay , wood , steel , wax or whatever they like to use ....
And then to furniture department where students were given assignments to copy the style of furnitures made in various countries and also many facsimiles of such chairs were available for them to study ...

Now the most exciting or end part of the college was newly opened autodesk center , where there were all latest computers (all available to students) with state of art accessories and there was a 3D theater exclusively for students only , definitely for education purposes . I saw there the anatomy of human heart and it was a mind blowing experience.

Now some light on their teaching methodology.There are no exams taken there !!! No exams , no results , no grades , just pure education. The personal attention there is par to any university ... a batch consists only of 15 students . Assignments are given different to each person , no compulsion on time limit , all practical work done only by them , theory is there but not written exams which backs rote memory.No fear of exams in students , so they can work freely with creativity and innovativity.

Every part of the college reflected the name of the college in excellent way , even very minute things were designed so beautifully to utilize the resources that , we can't even think of it , like the water (in the rainy season) running down from stares goes direct to plants , the walls were perforated so that air can go inside out easily (natural ventilator) but not the water .... and many things like that ....

All these just reminded me of our ancient gurukuls whose teaching was more or less like this.An important point to note was that the idea of this college was put forward by two french persons and from that day to till date the college has been upto date with the changing world.Students are not guided like a horse of a cart , but are allowed the freedom of thinking with necessary nourishment just like to plants , to grow fully ( it grows as you mold it ) . The point is the west has acknowledged the importance of practical education , but in india most of the colleges still linger on the bookish study. This bookish study has killed the very basic nature of education to develop the free thinking and logical reasoning. This bookish educations has created sheeps following the herd , not the lions exploring the jungle. Whats the meaning of remembering all the formulas , theories , derivations or even solving questions on paper , if they have no use in practical life or we can't implement them practically by ourselves. I think in the present world when there are abundance of means , atleast each person should get the meaningful education, which adds meaning to his life. Now i think , i have wasted my time in memorizing books to pass exams and learning nothing . We have become master in question solving based on formulas and writing answers in copies. What this education has created are bond labors who can do what the orders come and at the evening return to their homes , wasting their precious lives . I hope some day our policy makers will understand the big flaw in the educations system and know why west is so ahead ... I'll close this longgg post by this sarcastic line

"I was born intelligent , the education ruined me"