Learning not to think: schooling in India.

Days after the tsunami, Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, toured the Andaman and Nicobar islands, among the areas worst hit by the devastating event. Visibly moved by the sight of so much destruction and misery, he pledged a package of 150 billion rupees in immediate aid and promised to use his influence to have the Board Exams for grades ten and twelve postponed.

The Board Exams? Where but in India could anyone look at scenes like those wrought by the worst natural disaster in hundreds of years and think that postponing exams would be an appropriate response?

Education in India is a complex and remarkable system which few children escape. "Play" school begins at the age of two and a half, but it is a rare institution that actually allows children to play. Even at this tender age, children are expected to sit quietly in straight rows, listen to their teacher, and to do pages of homework every day. Parents are clear about what they expect their children to get from this: "They'll learn to sit still. Otherwise, they will never adjust to real school."

While good schools do exist throughout the country, on the whole, it is a system which has been allowed to grow unchecked and unregulated: virtually anyone can hang a shingle outside their home and start enrolling students. Two of my favorites in the city where I live are the "St. Santa Claus Convent School" and "Crony Academy: An Intimate Friend for Your Child." It is difficult to imagine parents trusting the education of their children to such places, but the faith most Indians have in schools, just because they say they are schools, has to be seen to be believed. For parents whose own educations have been sketchy or nonexistent, anything seems impressive. Literacy alone is so highly valued here that a school claiming to offer more than that is all but venerated.

My children did not go to Crony Academy. They attended Catholic schools (the most sought-after schools in India are generally "convent" schools), and managed to emerge with their brains still functioning. Without meaning to brag, though, I must say that this was in large part because at home we had encouraged them to read, discuss, and think--all skills actively discouraged at school. From kindergarten on, the dreaded Boards determine what is taught, as if a child's entire academic life is simply a prelude to these two national exams. Time after time, my children would ask a question in class only to be reassured that there was no need to worry about that because "it would not come up" in the Board Exam.

A few examples:

* When my son was in class twelve, his advisor asked him how his studies were going. Anand's favorite class was economics, and he read widely in the field, well beyond the prescribed textbook. He told his teacher about the book he had just finished by John Kenneth Galbraith, and about borrowing copies of The Economist and Business India to see how Galbraith's theories worked in different economies. His teacher looked more and more alarmed. Finally, he broke in on Anand's enthusiasm: "This is not the time to read," he said vehemently. "Reading now will only confuse you. Just stick to the textbook. That's all you need to know."

* When my daughter Cathleen reached twelfth class, she thought she had learned from Anand's experience. She stuck religiously to the economics textbook, but made the mistake of answering the pre-exam questions in her own words. When she didn't do well, I went in to ask her teacher what the problem was. "Cathleen understands the subject thoroughly," her teacher admitted, "but she doesn't use the key phrases that tell the Board examiners she knows her stuff. They don't have time to read through each answer, so they just look for those key phrases. We encourage the girls to underline them all."

* A friend's son was asked to name a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. He answered The Last Supper and got it marked wrong because the answer was the Mona Lisa.

The result of such a system is predictable. I can't count the number of people I have interviewed for jobs who cannot write a coherent sentence or come up with an original thought. Many of them have master's and doctoral degrees. Without the ability to question, analyze, and connect, they are at a loss when real life presents itself.

The tsunami roared into India with ninety minutes' advance warning: meteorologists here knew about the 8.9 earthquake in the ocean off Sumatra and should have assumed a tsunami would follow. Mindlessly, they informed the wrong government official, one who was no longer in office. Precious time was wasted getting the message from his home to the new man in charge, but even when it arrived it had no urgency; the earthquake was perceived as a far-off event carrying no threat to India. Years of learning not to think can prove deadly in a crisis.