Ram Gopal Varma says true learning is ‘to unlearn’ what teachers force students to learn

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma sparked debate on Teachers’ Day with a lengthy post arguing that true learning involves questioning and unlearning. He criticised conventional education, claimed teachers produce followers rather than leaders and said he did not wish anyone Happy Teachers’ Day.

Hyderabad: Stating that any true individual, by definition, would resist being taught, well known filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma on Saturday opined that true learning was to unlearn what the teacher was forcing one to learn.

The director’s statement came on a day the country celebrated Teachers’ Day.

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Taking to his X timeline to pen a lengthy post to explain why he did not want to wish people a happy Teachers’ Day, Ram Gopal Varma wrote, “Any true individual, by definition, will resist being taught. Blind learning is not education; it is domestication. True advancement begins only the moment the student realises the teacher is outdated or wrong.”

He then went on to give examples that substantiated his point. He said, “Einstein sat through the Prussian school system, hated its drill, and produced the theory of relativity while employed as just a clerk the academy would not bother to hire. Steven Spielberg became the most prolific director ever when the film teaching academy refused him admission. Every one of the advancers were because they refused to follow the syllabus being shoved down their throats by the Teachers.”

Claiming that he had seen successful engineers, doctors and lawyers but never a successful teacher, Ram Gopal Varma claimed, “True learning is to unlearn what the teacher is forcing us to learn.”

“A truly successful person will never teach and will keep his knowledge to himself which will make him unique among others and that is why you will never see a successful teacher,” the director explained.

“The moment knowledge is offered as a public service instead of a private weapon, it would have already ceased to be of any importance and that’s why teachers can only produce followers and never leaders. The well-meaning parents send their children to teachers who break their ability to think independently and turn them I into a herd ‘socialized’,” he said.

He then cited a number of quotes from eminent people to lend credence to his opinion including George Bernard Shaw’s ‘He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches’ and Oscar Wilde’s ‘Anyone who is incapable of learning takes to teaching’. The director concluded his post “And hence I do not want to wish you #HappyTeachersDay.”