Education System Needs to Teach Skepticism

Schools teach obedience, not skepticism. We train students to accept whatever's printed in their textbooks as gospel truth, then act shocked when they grow up believing every forward on family WhatsApp groups.

The problem isn't that students can't think critically. It's that we actively punish them when they try.

The Gospel According to NCERT

"Write exactly as given in the textbook for full marks."

This isn't education. It's indoctrination with extra steps. We've created a system where questioning the textbook is heresy, where "that's not the right answer" means "that's not what's printed on page 47."

What is written isn't always the truth. But try telling that to an examiner checking papers against an answer key.

Textbooks have:

• Errors that go uncorrected for decades
• Biases based on who's in power when they're written
• Simplifications that border on lies
• Agendas hidden in seemingly neutral facts

But we teach them like they're religious texts. No wonder students grow up thinking published = true.

History: The What and When Tragedy

Current history education:

• "Akbar was born in 1542" ✓
• "The Battle of Plassey was in 1757" ✓
• "Gandhi returned to India in 1915" ✓

Cool. Now what?

We teach history like it's a collection of dates to memorize, not stories to understand. Students know when the Mughal Empire fell but not why. They can list World War dates but can't explain how a single assassination sparked global conflict.

Real history education would ask:

• Why did empires rise and fall?
• How did economic forces shape political events?
• What parallels exist between then and now?
• Whose version of history are we reading?

But that would require thinking, and thinking is dangerous when your goal is producing compliant citizens who score well on standardized tests.

The Literature Lobotomy

"What did the author mean by 'the curtains were blue'?" "The curtains represent his depression." "Wrong. The answer is 'the curtains represent the melancholy of the industrial age.' See page 195 of your guide."

We've murdered literature. Killed it dead. Every poem has one "correct" interpretation. Every story has one "approved" meaning. Every metaphor has been decoded by some committee and frozen in textbook amber.

Shakespeare would weep seeing his work reduced to bullet points. Premchand would rage at his stories becoming memory exercises. But we continue, turning art into arithmetic.

The Questions We Should Be Teaching

Instead of "What happened?" teach "Says who?" Instead of "When was it?" teach "Why then?" Instead of "What does it mean?" teach "What could it mean?"

Imagine history classes that begin with: "Your textbook was written by humans with biases. Let's find them."

Imagine literature classes that ask: "What does this mean to you?" instead of "What should this mean according to the examiner?"

The Skepticism Curriculum

Here's what we should teach:

Source Analysis: Who wrote this? What was their agenda? Who paid for it? What's missing?

Pattern Recognition: How does this narrative benefit those in power? What stories aren't being told?

Comparative Truth: How do different sources describe the same event? Why do they differ?

Healthy Doubt: Just because it's printed doesn't make it true. Just because it's old doesn't make it wise. Just because it's taught doesn't make it right.

The WhatsApp Generation

We created this mess. We trained generations to accept printed text as truth, then gave them smartphones full of forwarded "facts."

The uncle who believes every conspiracy theory? He learned in school that written = true. The aunty sharing medical misinformation? She was taught to never question published material. The youth falling for propaganda? They were trained to memorize, not analyze.

We built humans optimized for believing, then released them into an age of infinite lies.

The Dangerous Student

You know what's scarier than a student who questions everything? A citizen who questions nothing.

But questioning students are inconvenient. They ask why ancient history matters. They challenge textbook narratives. They want multiple perspectives. They make teaching harder.

Good. Teaching should be hard. It should involve defending ideas, not just transmitting them.

The Literature Revolution

Stop teaching literature like it's math with words. Stories aren't equations with single solutions.

Teach students to:

• Find their own meaning in texts
• Disagree with critics respectfully
• Support interpretations with evidence
• Understand context without being enslaved by it

Let them hate Shakespeare if they can articulate why. Let them find different meanings than the guidebook. Let them think.

The Implementation Problem

"But board exams..." "But university entrance..." "But standardized testing..."

Yes, the system is designed to prevent this. That's the point. The system benefits from producing non-questioning citizens. Always has.

But individual teachers can rebel:

• Teach the "correct" answer and the real complexities
• Show multiple perspectives even if you can't test them
• Encourage questions even if you can't grade them
• Model skepticism even within constraints

The Future We Need

Imagine graduates who:

• Fact-check before forwarding
• Question sources automatically
• Seek multiple perspectives
• Change opinions when presented with evidence
• Think before believing

This isn't radical. It's survival in the information age.

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

Teaching skepticism is dangerous because skeptical citizens are dangerous. They question authority. They demand evidence. They resist manipulation.

That's exactly why we need them.

But first, we need educators brave enough to say: "The textbook might be wrong. Let's find out together."

We need a system that rewards thinking over memorizing, questioning over accepting, understanding over repeating.

We need to teach students that education isn't about finding the right answers. It's about learning to ask the right questions.

Even if those questions make everyone uncomfortable.

Especially if they do.