Lessons Learnt from School Assignments


As we were returning from work, one of my colleagues was giving vent to his irritation with the kind of assignments his daughter is given at school: the kind that can only be done by parents. Looks like India has improved on a whole lot of thing since the time I was a kid, but (sigh) not on this front.

But what was amusing about my friend’s ranting were the following “learnings” he listed for his daughter every time her parents did the assignment:
-         Take credit for what others did,
-         Lie if asked who made the stuff,
-         Assignments will always be way beyond your abilities or skills or involve instruments your parents don’t want you to use (like scissors and knives).
Sad to say but every one of us can say, “Been there, learnt that” about his list of learnings from our own childhood, can’t we?

But I remember this one time when my dad (for one of my school projects) combined electrical switches to indicate different gates (AND = if both switches are On, then the light will glow; XOR = if one and only one of the switches is On, then the light will glow) and so on. He had even explained when the XOR switch is useful: you put one switch at the top of a flight of stairs; the other at the bottom; that way the light could be switched On from either end of the stairs and also switched Off from either end.

Sound complicated? So did I. I felt this was so far advanced that I couldn’t even lie, claim to have built it myself and expect anyone with half a brain to believe it! And so I never even took that project to school. I have always felt guilty that my dad put in so much effort into it; and I didn’t even pretend to have done it so it could see the light of day.

Maybe my friend should have added another learning to the list:
-         The parents should do a good job, but not a great one; also known as the “Cheat, but within certain limits” rule.

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