Be like water, be fluid | "Fluid" by Ashish Jaiswal

Be formless, shapeless, like water. Be water, my friend.

Ashish Jaiswal writes against the compartmentalisation of subjects, and speaks against its rigid boundaries. Through “Fluid”, he breaks apart the rigidity prevalent in the disciplinary approach to education. He inspires us to incorporate and include various subjects into our field of view, and widen our horizon. After reading his work, we might be enlightened with the exemplary modes of education that stalwarts like CV Raman, Steve Jobs, Tagore, Darwin have included into their lifestyle. We might be emboldened to swim about at the confluences of the array of disciplines before us, the multitude of subjects in our view.

Ashish’s book begins by sharing an anecdote with very relatable characters, the kind of people we all see around. Through their decisions and mindsets, he introduces certain barriers to his concept ‘fluidity’, that he calls ‘anti-fluidity’. He talks about gross blunders they were making, and how their constricted concepts weren’t letting them pave their way for success. Starting from this, the author then delves deep into properly introducing his fluidity concept, citing numerous data and historical incidents on the way.

The main idea that the author uses as a stepping stone for his more in-depth principles, is the clash between STEM (Science, technology, engineering, medicine) subjects and the humanities subjects and the arts. He constructs certain characters and uses their conflicts and personalities to make his point—such rigidity in subjects is not very promising.

Did you know that Leonardo Da Vinci was as equipped with his unparallel knowledge in architecture and anatomy as he was with his painting skills, that led to the masterpiece Monalisa? Did you know that Charles Darwin, the father of evolution as he’s called today, was trained in Geology? Were you aware that the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, a maestro in his field of Economics, was a scholar in Sanskrit text in his childhood?

 Be it Rabindranath Tagore’s wide array of creative interests or Darwin’s multi-subject knowledge, what actually made these great personalities emerge to be who they were?

Ashish contradicts the popular notion of orienting each of our principles, interests and efforts towards a linear, singleton discipline approach. He shatters the belief that it is only by staying rigid in our own respective subject specialisations, can we become specialists in our fields. He repeatedly urges us to broaden our perspectives and include more approaches and thoughts into our respective domains. 

Moreover, the author doesn’t let the current Indian model of the education system escape his groundbreaking analyses. He talks about the boom in the number of engineering and management colleges, and the effect it has had in the quality of education. He talks about the elaborate churning of half-witted graduates who themselves do not know what to do with the lessons they’ve been taught in classrooms. He cites the projected dominance of artificial intelligence and robotics, and what it might do the job market scenario. 

Towards the end of the book, Ashish contradicts a popular T-shaped model of subject specialisation and brings up his own innovative model, which he calls ‘Fluid-wheel model’. “The ‘T’ shaped model simply expects that an individual should keep on acquiring in-depth knowledge in one particular discipline—represented by the long arm of the ‘T’—and also at the same time be open enough to keep gathering from various fields—as reflected by the shorter arm of the ‘T’….Although the ‘T’ shaped model was certainly a step ahead of the one-dimensional specialist approach, I was not fully convinced by it.” ---The author writes. 

While countering this with his own innovative model, Ashish includes his own opinions and principles, which he believes will portray his thought better.

Supported by his cutting edge, in-depth research on the field of education, Ashish writes an eye-opening book that includes facts with figures, theories with proofs, histories with examples and in all, past with the present and future. This book is a must-read, and shouldn’t be missed at any cost.

➦ Grab the book here!

➦About the author: Ashish Jaiswal has a PhD in Education and a Masters in Higher education from the University of Oxford and is currently an associate fellow at the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies. His debut work "True Dummy", an inspirational magical realist fable, has received worldwide acclaim. 

 

Disclaimer: This review is in lieu of a review copy. 

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