I’m a doctor, not a schoolteacher, but I’ve spent years watching bright, curious children lose their spark inside a system built to rank them instead of teach them. As a parent you feel it too: the marks, the tuitions, the endless exams that measure everything except whether your child can think. This is the honest reading path I’d give any parent who wants something better for their child. It starts with how children actually learn, looks hard at what school and coaching are doing to them, and then shows the alternatives that are already working for real families. Read it in order, or jump straight to what worries you most.
Worried about your own child’s schooling? Ask me in the chat window at the bottom-right of this page. It answers in my voice, any time. Or get my weekly letter for one honest idea a week.
1. How children actually learn
- Reforming education and giving students autonomy. Schools were built to produce factory workers. Children are born curious, and curiosity needs room, not a syllabus.
- Let your child’s curiosity lead, not the machine. A child building the Taj Mahal from Lego with no manual is the model for how real learning happens.
- Helping a child become a self-directed learner. In a world drowning in information, kids don’t need more of it. They need to learn how to learn.
- A conversation about screen time. The difference between mindless scrolling and a screen your child actually learns from.
2. School, exams and the coaching trap
- Is your child struggling in school? Don’t panic, change how they learn. Poor marks rarely mean a poor mind. Bright kids switch off when the teaching bores them.
- Stop searching for the perfect tuition class. The question that matters is not which class, but why your child needs one at all.
- Paper leak is not the problem. These exams get stolen because the seat is scarce, not because the knowledge is worth having.
- No bags, no books, no exams, no homework. How we came to confuse a heavy schoolbag and a stack of tests with learning.
- Stop chasing degrees, start chasing apprenticeships. What your child can do will matter far more than the certificate on the wall.
3. Other ways to learn: pods, micro-schools and open schooling
- A parent-to-parent conversation about learning pods. Two tired parents on rising fees, falling excitement, and a neighbourhood alternative.
- Are digital learning pods really the answer? An honest look that takes the sceptical parent’s doubts seriously.
- Community micro-schooling for India’s classrooms. The most data-grounded case here, built on what the ASER surveys actually found.
- Open schooling with a good tutor beats the traditional school. Your child learns at their own pace and sits the exam when they are ready.
4. Getting technology right
- A patient tutor versus a coaching assembly line. One adapts to your child and never judges. The other is built for the teacher’s convenience.
- A computer that helps a child learn instead of distracting them. We hand children a distraction machine and then blame them for being distracted.
Have a question right now? Ask the chat window at the bottom-right of any page. It answers in my voice, any time. And for one honest letter a week, sign up here.