Harish Srinivasan on Revolutionising Education

Harish Srinivasan associates himself as a learner more than anything else, but he is also a co-founder of an Education Startup, Infinite Engineers, and has mentored children over the past 7 years. Having worked with over 500 schools and 15000 children, Harish wishes to bring education for children beyond textbooks and classrooms. 

In his interview with Skoobuzz, he shares his motivation for shifting the education system from the preset factory model, designed for the industrial age, to a more interactive and personalized model. He walks us through his motivation for starting Infinite Engineers during the college final year and advice for young learners and educators.

 Q1: What vision do you have for education in India, particularly STEM?

The purpose of education is to prepare for life and not just provide the necessary skills for developing apps or any sort of temporary or immediate results. The present system has been working to encourage students to get marks and get the rank but education should have more to do with the life skills one acquires. 

I also believe that everyone is unique and possesses their superpowers even though we are a part of the same species. You and I are very different compared to the millions of people worldwide. Hence, the purpose of education should be to allow or provide an individual with the tools to understand what they are good at and try to nurture that and so I feel STEM was more like a tool for me to understand myself because STEM is a pedagogy that has made people to think and maybe to build things in a very hands-on way. So that journey helps one to reflect on what kind of learner they are, what problems they want to solve etc. 

Q2: Any ideas or mindset tips that you can provide to students to help them find their calling/purpose in the present education system that stifles creativity? How can teachers aid this process?

For children, you need to provide them with an environment to explore. Even when I was in school I was more connected to ‘what’ the immediate needs of the class were. I preferred clearing my exams and getting good marks, and we can’t blame. We were all surrounded by void expectations of society. So, for the first step, it would be great if the children have parents and teachers who encourage self-exploration because at that age you inevitably look up to your adults; you are too young to understand and rebel. 

Apart from that, in their free time, I would encourage students to engage in activities like journaling. It is a very important day-to-day exercise and it would be great if they could do it even in school by having a dedicated block of time, as they have for other subjects. Students can take note of activities of subjects that they are passionate about and engage in cultural and extracurricular activities related to them. They have a good amount of data about the things they enjoy doing and also as a reflection for when they feel lost in life. But really in the end, it is an age where an individual is very impressionable and needs help from adults around them, so my primary encouragement would be that teachers and parents become more aware of this and help them.  

Q3: What was your vision behind establishing IESkool (Infinite Engineers)? 

So back when we were all pushing college through college we came up with this idea of starting this company and the primary goal then was to add students or science enthusiasts to the team but as we went further we wanted children to be outside their classrooms; physically as well mentally, exploring beyond their textbooks, questioning mechanisms and the world around them. This will help in unleashing every child's potential. 

From transforming students to scientists now we understand that every child doesn’t want to become a scientist and we want to support the vision that each child has. In the past 10 years, a lot of things have changed, we have understood ourselves better, and we have understood the ecosystem better. We have understood that we don't have to change all the adults, the teachers, and the school policies because once you understand the child better, accordingly the environment has to be moulded. We can’t make the children fit into the world. 

For future goals…. we have been working with over 200 schools, setting up stem labs, and right now we want to revolutionise the mainstream ideas in schools, something extra that can be added to the schools since we cannot change the curriculum as it is standardized by the government and schools have to follow it. The only thing that we can do is have control over how we can make the curriculum or existing subjects more engaging for children, making education more relevant.  Giving them skills and knowledge that can be relevant for them beyond the four walls of the classroom will encourage them to think, walk their path, and create something one-of-a-kind.

Q4: What does transforming education mean to you, especially the idea of ‘specialized schools’?

I like the idea of having a library or a dedicated space for young people where they can do or explore anything they like without any supervision or external instructions from their educators. Also teachers, instead of assigning random homework that students end up copy-pasting, it would be great if they could ask students to find practical applications or find something innovative about the things they have learned in class. 

The concept of ‘specialized schools’ at the moment sounds like a far-fetched idea. It is built on the fact that one school cannot be great at providing excellent exposure and mentorship to the students in all the subjects like art, music, dancing, sports, academics, etc and there should be special schools that cater to a particular field and be known for that. Students in the traditional education system should also have the liberty of selecting their subjects and time slots. They can have a main subject that they focus on and other additional subjects that they want to pursue, removing obsolete subjects they have no interest in learning and reducing their load and academic responsibility. 

Q5: Narrate your experience of shifting from being a studious student to being a supporter of unschooling as a philosophy. 

So as a child, I was exposed to the traditional education system, was productive, and did all the mainstream obligations. As a student all I knew then was how to be persistent with the tasks given, homework, classwork, perform well in exams, crack entrances, etc. and it could not be helped since one is exposed to that so consistently that it is difficult to escape. You do it since you don’t want to get scolded. A lot of my present fears developed because of school and are still difficult to get out of.

It was after I had exposure and interaction with individuals from different backgrounds and countries I started forming a different idea of the world. I understood that there are alternate ways of going about life and other things that can be of value to an individual. The spaces that we create are open for learning and we don’t need to force anything on any student, they can engage in the way they want. They can either follow the way we have shown or come up with their ideas and interpretations for the same. If such democratic schools are established students will have the liberty to choose what they want to and we should also not make children feel that they don’t know anything or are not capable of making decisions. 

So yeah we have built a nice network of individuals and we all are still learning and moulding this idea of unschooling. But still is a concept that needs to be absorbed by teachers, parents, and schools gradually so that we can provide the next generation with a better education. 

Q6: Any message you would like to share with future generations and their parents while they navigate through their major years of education?

My message will be mostly for parents, school leaders, and teachers because they are the people who have the most impact on the children when they are growing up. Their words and actions have the power to motivate children or on the downside create a negative impact. Even raising one’s voice and placing oneself in a position of authority might make a child feel unsafe and not capable enough to make decisions. We need to learn to respect them as individuals and that will allow them to explore the world with curiosity and not fear. So, my primary message would be to urge the caretakers to be more mindful and gentle since everything they are doing at that phase is teaching them something, building their subconscious and how they perceive the world around them further down the time. 

Notes by the Editor: 
 

The insights provided by Harish nudges us to analyse the rudimentary ways we have been following in education. With time it is necessary to evolve the systems that have been in place for a very long time. Not only will the implementation of the suggestions yield a more fertile ground for the next generations to evolve but will also allow them to be more confident and robust leaders in their fields.