I beg to say that I am a student at your school and I shall be completing my XII in the coming year. After completing my school education, I shall be joining Higher Education and will pursue a professional degree. I aim at making a good career that will make me lead a good life as an individual.
I need your help in making all my dreams possible. Your help is needed to complete the dreams of my parents and well-wishers. They all want me to succeed in life. They see me earning well, speaking well and getting respect. I visualise my self as a confident and appreciated person who is seen by all as a smart person. I visualise myself addressing people and motivating them by my acts and ideas. I have two dreams. In one, I am doing a job at an office in the corporate world. In the other dream, I am an entrepreneur who is working day and night to establish his idea of an enterprise.
I know it will sound odd to you that being at school, I am requesting you for something that I shall do in future. I know you will not deny your role in my future as well. The school is my foundation and what I learn-unlearn here shall decide my future learning significantly. I have felt that there is something lacking in the treatment given to me. The teachers and methods of educating us all are in inertia which is dangerous. I do know that my teachers are doing their best, but they are not able to see that their Best isn't the best we need for a better life.
I feel that we need to learn a good sense of Public Speaking, Conversational Skills, Internet Maturity and Social Media Smartness, Social Service, General Awareness about Culture, Society and Economy, Creative Writing, Collaboration, Critical thinking and above all Communication Skills.
The fault-finding fair shall have no closure and I am not of the view that there is something wrong with one thing or one individual. If there is anything lacking that is in us and we are required to be conscious enough to see that the rationality and discourse with our own intellect have been pushed to the backseat. Teachers have actually surrendered to the prevalent landscape of lethargy and leniency. Taking advantage of this, anyone has joined the profession and there are fewer teachers and more employed individuals.
Parents have done their best to fail us. They have first tried to implant in us their own dreams and imposed a certain code-of-conduct and now they have no idea what is our present forget future. We the Millenials, the Gen-Y (Not Gen-X anymore) have to compete with our own selves and have to decide of our own lives by our own judgements. We do need compassion, empathy and support but we are not able to cope with the 'social pressure' built on us. We wish to ask questions and question the answers sent to us. We wish to participate and lead without being labelled lost. We need parents who see the future as a responsibility, not a liability. In this case, your help is decisive. You can counsel them and train them to be sensible and rational parents than the insecure and obsessive owners of children. You can launch smart training and learning sessions for them to understand the minds of the children.
Dear Principal, you may not be able to fight the policymaking process which aims at experimenting each day. But what you can do is far more important. You can equip your teachers and students to filter the repercussions and reactions of activities. If the teachers, parents and students are able to think on and of their own, if they collaborate and see a shared future and cared present, things might go a different-positive way. Teach us to grow in life and influence the policymaking towards a more rational and fruitful process. It may take years, but once it happens, our world can recover from the fall.
We shall need to face the world and speak our mind otherwise, we won't be able to hold our ground for much time. For this, we need to master expressive faculty and skills that make us design our responses with the strength of opinion and intelligence. We also need to be taught empathy, fellow-feeling and cooperation along with the fundamental human values of honesty, self-respect and spiritual thinking. These virtues might save us from jumping from the high floors or get into the 'blue-whale traps'. A new version of education needs to enter the citadel of life.
Kindly grant me this assurance instantly. I shall be thankful for this act of duty and kindness.
P.S.: I am not in your school anymore. Actually, I have travelled back in time from my graduation classroom to tell you that I lack these things and I find it tough, not to compete, but to communicate, to manage and quickly compensate. I realise that I was not trained enough for the present I am in. It was in future when I was in school and that is what I wanted my teachers to visualise and train us for. They could not do it for any valid reasons and I love them for everything they have taught me and made me capable enough to realise there is something to be asked for. I wish, the juniors who come to the HigherEd next year, come equipped with the BEST POSSIBLE Skill-sets and the BEST of Personal Values and Strengths.
Please 'Awake the Giant' in them as they need to see the other side of the glass. Keep it brightly lighted on both sides of this transparent wall. So they can see across. If one side is in the dark, the other side ends up in becoming a Mirror, and that's fake, foolish and fragile.
Yours obediently
Your Students!
Enclosures: Respect, Love, Faith and Commitment to Make My School Proud!
