1) I was intrigued by the scene in which Aamir tries to explain how numbers and alphabets could be all or nothing. And the comparison with a Chinese ( or Korean, I don’t know ) language and then the linkup with the education system is beautiful.
Lets see if we can get this working backwards. All of us know that our education system ( not limited to schools ) has too much focus on the 'What' , 'When' and 'Where' of knowledge , conveniently ignoring the 'How' and even important question ' Why ?'. So we only know and learn what we are taught only at times when we are taught and at places where we are taught. We don’t know why we are taught, and we don’t question how we are taught.
You only need to ' Remember ' when asked about questions of What, when and where. However we need to ' Think ' when asked questions of Why and How. This is a critical issue that the movie addresses - Are we moving towards a system where we are ceasing to think, ceasing to wonder, limiting ourselves with what we have been taught and curbing our creativity ?
2) The movie was brilliant in highlighting simple teaching methodology - the way Ishaan is actually taught. Teaching addition while walking steps is a simple and beautiful example. Not necessarily creative, but simple. Have a look at the below and decide for yourself: Can the Pythagorean theorem be taught in a more simple and clear manner ?
3) The most beautiful part of the movie is the message of irrationality. There are lot of eccentric people and things in the world , who have an ability to see things very differently than all of us and they make the world a more interesting place.
We need to start appreciating the eccentricities in all of us , in people and things around us. We may find and name things stupid , idiotic etc , but just because they seem so to us does not mean they are actually so. In fact , what we consider stupid and idiotic are a function of our own education, assumptions and judgment which may be faulty.
Lets try to use all our education, assumptions and judgments to solve this:
Using our favourite Pythagorean Theorem we know the length of hypotenuse is √2. And we also know √2 is an number with infinite decimals. If the decimals are infinite, it means you cannot measure ( Like your Visa Card, it never stops !! ). However as you can see above, the hypotenuse clearly has a beginning and an end. So why can't we measure ?
For us , numbers and alphabets mean only so much as has been taught to us. For Characters like Ishaan, they mean much more and beyond. We use them as answers but they use it as questions.
We need to learn to appreciate thinking that is different from our thinking, appreciate people who ask questions about things we always thought we had answers to , and try and find answer to questions that we thought never existed...Thank you Aamir ..
Cheers to Irrationality ! HiP HIP hIP hip HURRAY !!
2 comments:
Nice comparison
Really gud
The Pythagoras theorem was explained with Squares in our Primary school Math text book. Maybe our problem is that we listen to our elders too much....
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