Dying within: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

There is a very popular myth about the Solomon Islands, a country situated in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Many people claim that the denizens of the Solomon Islands follow a very bizarre ritual whenever a tree needs to be chopped off. Instead of using any axe, the islanders gather around the tree and keep throwing choice words at it. 

This continues for a few days until the tree actually dies. This ritual of cursing at a particular tree seems to have formed some kind of negative energy that impacts the tree's life force, leading to its death. 

This could be simply a story, but the takeaway from this narrative is that negative energy can have a serious effect on someone's positive energy or mindset. 

Our schooling system and students can be compared to this tree and the Solomon islanders. 

From my vantage point, the system is clearly failing to spread any positive energy among its learners/students. Instead what the system is doing actually has some detrimental impacts (negative energy) on the student's learning curve, much like the Solomon islander's ritual. 

The fact that our schooling system is having a knock-on, mostly negative impact on the growth of the students and also taking a toll on their mental health is not an assumption, as a recent study has also pointed out this truth. 

According to the study titled 'Stress symptoms and associated factors among adolescents in Dhaka, Bangladesh: findings from a cross-sectional study' published on BMJ Psychiatry, 73.5% of the school-going adolescents in our country are experiencing stress symptoms of varying extents owing to several reasons including lack of physical activities and the pressure of securing good results.  

One of the reasons behind this recurring bout of stress amongst students is the schooling system. The current model invites more stress for the learners instead of a conducive environment for learning that's centred around fun and gathering knowledge in order to be a productive and all-round individual in the future.    

Our schooling system, at large, is focused on textbook-based education and the curriculum lacks an all-round or eclectic approach to learning. Learning, according to modern educational approaches, is not limited to reading textbooks, rather it's a process that must include many other co- and extra-curricular activities designed to help the learners grow with a sound mindset and outlook towards study and life in general. 

Unfortunately, our pedagogues and parents are so fixated on helping the students get good grades that they turn a blind eye to other kinds of activities that can have positive impacts on the well-being and overall development of school-going students. 

Just ask yourself – how many schools in our country follow a curriculum that considers regular sports events and cultural activities as an essential aspect? Very few. 

Many schools organise sports and cultural events, but not on a regular basis – maybe once a fortnight or month. Whereas it's essential that students are encouraged to take part in sports every day. It is also important to organise cultural events regularly to create an outlet for  budding learners to express their creativity. 

Cadet colleges can be a good example as sports, cultural activities and other different activities including competitions designed to help the students unleash their creativity and potential are a part of the regular curriculum. In the cadet colleges, there is designated game time for students and it's mandatory for the cadets to take part in sports for at least 40 minutes to 1 hour. 

Moreover, every week a competition such as a spelling bee, elocution, continuous story-telling, singing, debate or poetry recitation is held so that every learner gets the opportunity to showcase their skills in different fields. Such activities not only help the students develop a positive outlook in life, but also make the whole process of education more interesting and fruitful. 

Both the parents and the educators have seminal roles to play in this regard. Parents will have to realise that it's important to create a stress-free learning environment for their children to make sure that they grow up as complete and productive beings. 

For those finding it difficult to relate to how stress can influence the learning experience and ruin productivity, here is a scientific explanation. 

Recent findings in neuroscience have revealed that there are indeed a number of routes through which any piece of information you read can reach the cache (memory storage) of your brain. One such route is called the 'amygdala,' a sort of switching station that directs the information received either to the 'high-thinking zone' or 'low-reacting zone,' and this direction of information depends on the receiver's level of anxiety. 

In a negative setting, the amygdala limits information access while if the stress is low, the information flow into the higher-brain storage is unimpeded. To put simply, if a student is experiencing stress, it narrows down their cognitive ability to process a piece of information and transfer it to the high-thinking zone, insinuating that a stressed student will have a reduced chance of doing good in studies. 

As a by-product, school-going students suffering from stress will grow up to be unproductive individuals in the near future. 

To address this problem, our educators need to revisit the curriculum they are following and make room for extra-curricular and red-hot activities for the learners. Encouraging students to partake in games and cultural activities will definitely bear significance for the learners' well-being and mental growth since happy hormones will be secreted if they opt for such activities, while also keeping stress at bay from the students. 

We must remember the phrase that 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' This is also true for our learners. If they are only forced to memorise textbooks, regurgitate this in the exams and receive no physical activities (games, competitions and cultural activities), these boys and girls will get reduced to nothing but the dull boy Jack. 

Don't let these young minds die from within on the pretext of the system, rather let us do something meaningful and rejig the learning approach to let them bloom and blush.   

Md Morshedul Alam Mohabat is a columnist who likes to delve deeper into the human psyche and social incongruities with a view to exploring the factors that influence these.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.