environmental education? i mean, seriously?

Where do I begin? I’ll skip all the unnecessary details about the Phase Test scores—I’d rather pretend none of it ever happened—and move on to something more pleasant. (Pleasant?) We had our EVS test today, and I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t get what I’m talking about. EVS? It stands for Environmental Science, although some people tend to favor the name “Environmental Education”. Since neither name describes it accurately, a new name is a desideratum. And you don’t have to rack your brains over it—I’ve already thought of something: “A supreme waste of time.” I don’t allude to the fact that the poorly written Environmental Education “study material” we were given contained things I’m already greatly familiar with, because then I wouldn’t be fair to the other people from other Boards who probably didn’t have the subject back in their old schools. I speak of the fact that the entire subject has been presented—exactly—as a “subject”. The bits where they talk about how we must do this and do that to protect the environment from impending doom sound so hypocritical that I feel nauseous reading them. The problem is that nobody really cares about the environment—they only care about “environmental education” the subject, and only to pass the test and be allowed to take the Board Exam at that. Just by memorizing those nonsensical Q’s & A’s we were given a person could ace the stupid exam, but that doesn’t necessarily means that he cares one bit for the environment, and he may well go home and start polluting the environment with aplomb. My point is that unless the stupid State Board (or for that matter, any Board that has Environmental Education as part of its curriculum) actually does something to make people realize—like actually “realize”—the trouble the environment is facing instead of just making them read about it in badly written pieces of texts apathetically in preparation for an inconsequential test and forgetting all about it afterwards, the subject will remain useless. You might as well remove it from the curriculum—it’s not going to make any difference at all. Sahiti said today that the subject itself was propaganda, and it does seem true if you compare the State Government’s take on the Green Revolution with that of the Central Government. Environmental studies in the CBSE board (apparently) reflect an approval of the movement, while the State Board here condemns it. You still don’t get why I’m getting so worked up? Get a load of this, then. This was one of the questions on that stupid sheet of paper (paraphrased): “Describe a personal experience that has led you to get over the habit of using plastic.” The question blatantly presupposes that the answerer has foregone the use of plastic completely. In other words, the answerer needs to lie. Either that, or say something like this: “Have you stopped using plastic?” which, in my opinion, would be the more appropriate thing to do. I’ll bet the person who made the test paper is a major threat to the environment himself.