Only education can cure the ills affecting our growth and endangering our social fabric. Educating our young generations is the paramount need of the hour for our society particularly. Better education, smarter studies and mature research can help our nation to attain the heights it aspires to achieve. We have to inspire and boost our young ones continuously to embrace the habit of studying for their benefit and for the benefit of this nation. If anything can help this nation to raise its standard and grow and prosper in this world that thing is a book. We have to inspire our students particularly to love the books to keep growing. We have to teach them the real art of studying.
Studying is a broader term than reading. Studying means reading with better comprehension, analysis, evaluation and interpretation. When we study a book we get emotionally attached to it and it remains in our mind longer than we read it. As a student, we may stop reading for certain days but we keep studying if we keep reflecting on what we have already read in the books.
Our students must understand this reality once and for all that our reading might have a break but not our studying. Another reality related to this fact is that the winter or summer vacations in schools are announced during a particular session for a particular time due to some adverse climatic conditions. These vacations do not mean that the students have to eschew studying. Vacations are for schooling and not for studying. Studying is an everlasting process. A serious student who has pledged to attain knowledge has to construct an unbreakable bond with his or her books once and for all. He may think to leave reading the books for the time being but he can not think to ignore studying even for a day. It means that even if he would be not reading the books, he would be immersed in thinking about the concepts or the messages they share. He would be reflecting on the ideas found in these books he went through by analysing their pros and cons.
One of the worst developments in our education system is the discovery and implementation of shortcut methods by our experts, teachers and students. Sometimes students are made to prepare themselves with the help of readymade notes and references. Sometimes the students prefer these shortcuts themselves to avoid hardworking. Studying the texts which are often the main sources of knowledge and understanding are being ignored. At the school level even if the students are made to study the texts in the classrooms but they do not consider it important to recapitulate the lessons and study the texts again in their homes. This has become a growing trend among our young students now that they avoid studying the texts repeatedly so that all their doubts and weaknesses would have been erased.
Our students must learn to love their books. The teachers must guide them properly to teach them how important their books are for their better future. It is a must that we bear in our mind that studying proper books and applying the earned knowledge properly is the real panacea for all the issues and problems our nation is facing at the present time. The teachers also must teach their students the importance of studying the proper books with proper attention to succeed in every walk of life.
The writer is a teacher in the Education Department. Feedback at bu*****************@***il.com