Thoughts on Students....

I was on the panel for the Group Discussions and Personal Interviews (GDPI in our lingo!) for students applying to FLAME (http://www.flame.edu.in/) for the Undergraduate Program.

One of the observations I have about the youth today is that the generation gaps are pretty high! For example interviewing an Undergraduate is quite different from interviewing a Postgraduate. Postgraduate’s are far more focused , mature and have more or less "fallen in line!" and have gone through the charade often enough to say the right things, make the right noises and sifting through their real persona takes a lot of doing. But the Undergraduates are raw and open and have aspirations quite different then their seniors...

The key issue is how do you select the right candidate for a Liberal Education Program? As it is, the word "Liberal" means many different things to many different people. For most youngsters it means "license" to do anything! Many think to be Liberal means to be Bohemian or Rebellious.

So for the first time, I decided that we will pick up an "Ethical Dilemma" as a case study. Instead of the usual stuff they use for the GDPI topics such as "is college education necessary” or the oft repeated "Should the youth do something about corruption ".

The ethical dilemma was interesting. It was about a teacher who had to choose between a sincere student not submitting his homework in time and giving him the same punishment as any other student or should a differential treatment be given. As a panel we decided to concentrate simply on the verbs the students used whilst discussing the topic.

I was surprised that we had missed out on quite a few issues including student’s perceptions about teachers... Everyone wants fairness, but only for others... for themselves they want "different" standards and as the discussion went on, I realized that the youth today actually do not know what system they belong to.

They actually do not believe they belong to a system beyond themselves. Many think they have no system they belong to. The whole thing seems to be centred on "identity”. What do they belong to? A community, a family, a Society or country? These are issues that have not even touched them. I think the school system does not prepare them to look at a larger canvass and help them get in touch with their own identities.

But all in all it was heartening to see that when pushed, students do want to look at the system they belong to. They simply have not been given an opportunity to explore their real identity issues and one of the most important things a college education, especially at the undergraduate level should do is to help students explore their identities.

Parag