Why Schools are Broken: and How to Fix Them

Series · 19 partsStart with Part 1 →

Your child comes home from school, frustrated and disillusioned. They’ve spent hours memorizing facts that seem irrelevant, while their creativity and curiosity go unrecognized. I’ve seen this too often. The system, designed to churn out compliant students, often stifles the very spark we hope to ignite in our children. In this series, I’ll share what I’ve learned from real experiences, both my own and those of families navigating this broken system. I’ll explore the roots of our educational challenges and offer practical solutions that can bring about meaningful change. Start wherever you feel most compelled, and let’s rethink education together.

The Schooling Machine

1. Preface: This preface examines why Indian schooling often produces low learning, costly credentials, and young people who lack skills and confidence.
2. Chapter 1: The Compulsory Trap: This chapter examines how compulsory schooling can keep young people in classrooms without giving them useful learning.
3. Chapter 2: How India Built the Schooling Machine: This chapter explains how India’s modern schooling system grew from colonial institutions into a large, centralised system focused on credentials and exams.
4. Chapter 3: What Indian Classrooms Actually Teach: This chapter examines what Indian classrooms teach beyond their official lessons, including dependence on teachers, memorization, and obedience.
5. Chapter 4: The Coaching Industry as Compulsory Miseducation: This chapter examines how India’s coaching industry intensifies compulsory miseducation through exam preparation, foundation courses, and dummy schools.

A Different Way to Learn

6. Chapter 5: Poor Children and the Waste of Years: This chapter examines how weak schools and rigid age-based systems waste years for children from poor families.
7. Chapter 6: Goodman’s Remedies for India: This chapter presents Paul Goodman’s practical alternatives to conventional schooling and connects them with Indian traditions of learning through observation, practice, and app…
8. Chapter 7: Apprenticeships and Real Work: This chapter examines how real work and apprenticeships can help adolescents learn practical skills while contributing to their families.

AI and the New Learning Commons

9. Chapter 8: Cutting the Credential Cartel: This chapter examines how unnecessary degree requirements can keep young people in school longer without giving them useful skills.
10. Chapter 9: AI Tutors – Doing What Schools Cannot: This chapter explains how AI tutors can provide personalised explanations, practice, feedback, and flexible learning outside fixed classroom hours.
11. Chapter 10: Practical Ways Indian Families Can Use AI: This chapter offers practical ways Indian families can use AI to support learning beyond school.
12. Chapter 11: Edupreneurs and Community Learning Centres: This chapter explains how young graduates in India can create small community learning centres outside traditional schools.

Growing Up Differently

13. Chapter 12: Stories of Indian Alternatives: This chapter describes Indian learning experiments that use small groups, local apprenticeships, and AI-supported teaching instead of conventional schools.
14. Chapter 13: Education as Growing Up in a Community: This chapter explains education as growing into adult responsibilities within a community, rather than simply attending school.
15. Chapter 14: Overcoming the Obstacles: This chapter explains the legal, social, and credential-related obstacles families may face when moving away from conventional schooling.
16. Chapter 15: Using AI More Deeply: This chapter explains how families can use AI for deeper learning instead of simply getting answers or finishing textbook work.
17. Chapter 16: A Message to Young People: This chapter speaks directly to students who feel frustrated by school and shows how they can take more responsibility for their own learning.

From Criticism to Practice

18. Conclusion: A Practical Hope: This chapter argues that Indian education needs both anger at wasted young lives and hope for smaller, more human arrangements.
19. Appendix: A Parent’s Checklist: This checklist offers parents practical steps for moving from compulsory schooling toward more genuine education.