Depression among Students-A Case Study

• Why weren’t you able to score as much as your peer did?
• Why are you so lazy?
• Why don’t you understand the importance of studies?
• Why can’t you get a gold medal, a bronze atleast?
• Why don’t you work hard, what’s bothering you?
• Why are you so interested in extra circular activities and not studies?
• Why don’t you wake up early and study for sometime?
• Why don’t you take things seriously?
• Why don’t you submit assignments/homeworks on time?
• Why are you always a 70% person and not a 80% or 90% person?

The above questions are once in a lifetime questions that are asked by a parent. Now what we need to consider in the above question set is The Tone of how the question is being asked by the parent. So, I categorize tones of the parent into two different categories,

1. The tone which is enough to scare the child and make him suffer and makes him draw conclusions about the parent(Which always turns out to be the child portraying his/her parent as an enemy).
2. The tone which makes the child worry about his/her future, and he starts doing what would help him/her in future, the tone which is friendly enough to make the child understand the seriousness with terrorizing factor = 0. The child starts working with a positive attitude and results come out to be “out of the world”.

Firstly, Parents play an important role in upbringing, hence they have to understand the Impact factor of whatever they say to their child. It is pretty much important for a parent to know that a student is like clay. The way they mould is the shape that the student draws, If you mould them perfectly and ignite them with a hell lot of positive energy, they will be the strongest and the finest beings on Earth. If parents commit a mistake of putting a lot of pressure on a student when it’s not required then it can destroy the student’s future and his goal.

A lot has been “said” already, and a lot needs to be told! (Click on this link to know more about what needs to be said!!!!!)

Secondly, the institution, Concentrating on the present Education system in India  demands something from a student which he/she hesitates to give, if you are thinking it is “Time” then you are wrong!!

The present Education system or the education system I have faced till now demands,

1. The happiness of the student (He is burdened with a hell lot of subjects which are of no use or which are outdated)
2. Right to chose what he likes (Because the society puts pressure)
3. His passion (Student has to sacrifice it for the sake of him getting a 9am-5pm job)
4. Money (Loans over Loans just for something which makes us turn into a better person)

The list ends with “Life of the student” which is the harsh reality!!

Let’s just understand where the problem lies,

1. Seriousness among students about their respective careers, the seriousness that the education system needs to generate but fails to in several cases.
2. Expectations Vs Reality, the student expecting the education system as a garden of knowledge and he can pluck various different fruits and eat it, whereas the reality slaps the student into the darkest corner of the garden with few rotten fruits and asks him to munch on it!

3. Scaring the students by giving them examples of failures, and not the examples of success.

For example, “If you don’t write assignment you will fail in the exam” and hence the student concludes “Not writing assignments”  = “Failing in exams”, now what if the student didn’t understand the assignment, HE COPIES it!! because its obvious that no student wants to fail in his/her exam!

What if we replace “If you don’t write assignment you will fail in the exam”

With

“If you don’t write assignment how will you know about the implementation of the topic that has been taught in class?” or “If you don’t write assignment you will be unaware of the power of the topic that you have studied!”.

You might not understand the difference in a single go but you can definitely observe a change gradually in the students/the child’s behaviour, it’s all because of the simple hereditary mistake that keeps on dominating the minds of the parents(Specifically Indian Parents).

I do understand that it’s not solely the mistake of an Indian Parent but if we observe a pattern that’s common among people who tend to do mistakes quite often, for instance, when a person does a mistake for the first time, he is either punished brutally or thrashed, rather than giving him/her a counselling session. Hence the person who commits the mistake forcefully portrays the world as Bad & himself as Good. This later develops him/her into a criminal. 

And considering the burden that students face which I already had a blog on, 

Click here to understand more about the problems students face in the present education system(India)

Let’s just understand and accept the fact that more and more students are getting depressed because of the present scenarios in the system, let’s just give ourselves time and come up with an excellent idea where students at least undergo Recreation or are given some time for themselves and their loved ones, well the point is when you have a heavy load laden over your back, you don’t sit with it!!! You just drop it at its place and then you take a deep breath!

P.S: Many of you might agree or disagree, but I wonder how agreeing/disagreeing will terminate the illness in our education system. If you got any ideas on how to terminate the illness, please mention in the comments section, as we can at least try to implement it on a small scale as an experiment and observe and analyze the results.