Smart vs Street Smart....

The human mind never ceases to think....Well, one of the things that this non descript has been mulling over in the last few days is, smartness as in acuity or sharp thinking and good problem solving skills, a la the IIT topper or even the Class XII "Bright Student" might infact be a gift that borders on being a luxury than being a "must have"... What really matters in this time and age as the flood gates are opened for a cross cultural collage is Street Smartness....The more I think on this...the more I feel there is to learn from the Battle scarred hawkers and auto rickshaw drivers in the street...
Application and Presence of mind are more at value outside the cozy confines of the examination hall or the cramped class room. Haggling with a cantankerous vegetable seller is something that you will do more often than solving a definite integral that only ten others solved in the history of mankind. But sadly, though the two facets of one's personality are not defined anywhere as being mutually exclusive, finding a student who finishes his graduation who is a street smart smartie is something that's as difficult as it's been for India to find a Kapil Dev.
My little tryst with the corporate war room has made me all the more convinced that tackling real life situations where the complexity is introduced by human interaction , human emotions and egos are much more the key to one's climb up the ladder than being the next Ramanujan....But when one considers the kind of training and conditioning that the grey cells of the human mind undergo, their cousins- the 'presence of mind' cells are hardly given any attention in schools...Well, there is definitely an area of concern to the HRD of India because, India relies so much on its B Schools and empiricism as the sources of its managers. Indian Managers are moulded either in the two year high speed b school factory, or in the 'n-year super slow grinding mill' that the industries are... What I am looking at is the process of becoming a manager starting when the kid reaches middle school. The two Manager churning factories need pre processed inputs rather than 'raw' talents. The Mob psychology that drives Indian graduate and Post graduate education today needs a drastic shake-up. That can happen only if the students are in a position to know what they need to become to optimise their strengths by the time they leave school. This is what is to me 'Street Smartness'. Basically, 'What I need to do so that I do what I can do, well" rather than "I do what I need to do to be well to do" should be the mantra.
Also, we should deter the rat race phenomenon that competitive entrance exams have become in India. Atleast 85% of Entrance exam takers are victims of peer or parental pressure. Again, these exams test how smart you are. If we groom street smart youngsters, firstly the number of aspirants of entrance exams/ job interviews will come down, secondly we will see the job satisfaction index in the industry soar. There are a few other plus points to this...Each of that will merit an article. But that I shall reserve for later.
Kids should be encouraged to score grades in attitude, mental toughness and discretion rather than Maths,Physics and Chemistry. Not saying that these subjects are not to be there...But these other subjects need to be also there.... There has to be a curriculum upheaval. How, Its for the HRD to decide..I am not a qualified authority on this....

Well, A final confession, this article arose out of a realization of how woefully "street dumb" ,yours truly is....