Pappa, This Is How We Study.

I still remember that day.

It was the final exam time for my Class 2 daughter.

I happened to be at home that day.

That afternoon,

I noticed my daughter and her mother sitting together with a notebook.

My daughter was reading something loudly.

Then she would look up at the ceiling and say something .

I was curious.

I asked ,

“What are you doing?”

My wife explained.

“There is an EVS exam in a couple of days. 

The school has already given the questions. 

So we are making sure she remembers all the answers.”

I was surprised.

“The questions are already given?”

“Yes.”

“And these same questions will come in the exam?”

“Yes.”

So, basically, the job was to remember all the answers.

I looked at my daughter.

“Come, bring your Notebook and the EVS book. Let's study.”

She came reluctantly.

I took the first question and started talking to her about the chapter it had come from.

I asked her, do you know,

"What does this answer mean?"

“What is this chapter about?”

“Do you understand what it is saying?”

“What are the different things discussed here?”

“What does this paragraph actually mean?”

I had barely started when my wife stopped me.

“Hello! What are you doing?”

“If a child starts learning like this, she need next ten years to complete Class 2!”

I said, learning is important,

and insisted on learning.

My daughter got panicked,

She turned to my wife and said:

“Look, Mamma, Pappa is making my life difficult!”

My wife came running from the kitchen ,

And said:

“You don't understand all these things. Just leave me to do my job.”

In fact that was the first time, i actually put my hands into my daughter's studies.

There were some arguments. Two against one!

You can guess which team won.

I said to my daughter,

“Okay. You carry on.”

My daughter silently came near me and said,

“Pappa, you don't understand. This is how we study.”

That little incident stayed with me.

Not because my daughter had an exam.

Not because she was memorizing answers.

But because, for the first time, I started wondering:

Is this what my child has thought studying is all about!

A child gets a set of questions.

The answers are already available.

The child remembers them.

The answers are reproduced in the exam.

The exam is over.

Both the questions and answers become history.

And somehow, that is what we call studying/learning.

Of course, let me be clear.

I am not saying that the school was doing something wrong.

Perhaps the school was simply trying to deal with the amount or complexity of content children are expected to handle.

Perhaps they were also trying to reduce the exam pressure on small children.

If the questions are already known, maybe the thinking was:

“At least the children can prepare without being unnecessarily stressed.”

I can understand that.

But later, I realized that this wasn't just about that final exam. This was the pattern throughout the year.

And that made me wonder:

Is this the right way to introduce studies to a Class 2 child, 

which has just started to get a feel of it!

I don't remember what my daughter scored in that EVS exam.

But I remember that afternoon.

Because something about it didn't feel right.

And I began to wonder:

My daughter had said, “Pappa, this is how we study.”

I couldn't stop thinking about that sentence.

If this is her initial impression of what studying mean,

then what happens to how she sees and pursues studies in middle and high school years!

That day was way back in 2014.

I didn't know it then, but perhaps that was the beginning of a question that has stayed with me ever since.

Years later, that question eventually led me to create the "Young Years Matter" initiative.

If you have a child in Classes 2–4,

What's your story?

I'd genuinely love to hear how it is in your home.