For school children, most of the higher education till class 12 remains almost unseen. Usually they go there for the first time at the time of admission. Imagine these kids starting to go to college campuses in 5th grade or even earlier. You may ask why should they go? My answer would be, to visit the museum. Wondering what a college or university has to do with a museum? So here is the answer. If you ask some urban children, where do vegetables come from? So they can innocently point to the refrigerator, or say, the supermarket or the delivery boy on various apps. But if you have seen the Crop Museum built by the College of Horticulture at Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bengaluru, the answer would be different. This visit could do something that textbooks are still struggling to achieve. You will also agree that due to rapid urbanization, the understanding of food production and consumption among our children is decreasing. Instead of just seeing vegetables on the dining table, children can walk among them in this museum. They can touch a tomato plant, pick leafy vegetables and understand that food is not grown where they think. Gradually they come to know the fact that it starts with soil, seeds, sunlight, water and tireless hard work of the farmers. Children can understand the entire food journey here – from seed selection and sowing to irrigation, pollination, harvesting, storage, transportation and finally the kitchen. During this time they also become familiar with earthworms, bees, compost pits, medicinal plants and native crop varieties. Such an experience teaches biology, ecology, nutrition and economics without any exams. Now the question is why should universities and colleges stop only at crop museums? An engineering college can create an innovation playground where children can generate electricity by riding bicycles, build small bridges, operate water pumps, experiment with devices and understand robotics through hands-on exhibits. Then physics will not become a scary but a fun subject. A medical college can set up a Human Body Discovery Center with huge walk-through models of the heart, lungs and brain. Things like hand hygiene, nutrition, vaccination, first-aid and organ donation can be taught through interactive displays. Then children will understand how their body works instead of being afraid of hospitals. Law universities can set up a Constitution Museum where youth can participate in mock courts, children’s parliaments and debates on rights and responsibilities. Democracy is best understood through practice. Business schools can create an entrepreneurship museum that tells the stories of ordinary Indians who have built extraordinary enterprises. For example, how a small roadside food stall transformed into a large restaurant chain or how rural women created successful cooperatives. Here kids can learn how to run a miniature business, budgeting, and how to turn an idea into a company. This idea is not new. Many examples already exist. For example, in the Exploratorium of San Francisco in America, children learn by asking questions instead of memorizing through hundreds of interactive exhibits related to light, sound, motion, human behavior and engineering. At the UK’s National Children’s Museum in Halifax, visitors ride square-wheel bicycles, build geometric structures, solve giant puzzles and discover patterns hidden in nature and architecture. Instead of treating mathematics as just a collection of formulas, this museum shows how numbers influence sports, music, engineering, finance and everyday life. Another strong example is Tokyo-based Pasona Group, which has created one of the most unique workplaces in the world. Rice fields, vegetable gardens, fruit trees and hydroponic farms have been built in his office building. The bottom line is that when colleges create museums that provide such experiences, where school children can experience the role of professionals for a day, then believe me colleges will become the most favorite place for school children.
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N. Raghuraman’s Column: Every subject can create its own ‘living museum’
