3Idiots

I'll come back with my comments little later. First, this is what others, the Professor community are saying.
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From today's TOI
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Break the idiotic mould: IITians

Prithvijit Mitra | TNN

Kolkata: Watching Aamir Khan come up with a simplistic definition of a machine and getting thrown out of class for not following the textbook description in 3 Idiots turned Sridhar Rajgopalan nostalgic. The former IITian could identify with Rancho — the character played by Aamir in the film — when he sought to argue with his teacher that even a trouser zip was a machine and an example like that could help explain things better than tongue-twisting bookish terminology.
“There is a big lesson that engineering institutions across the country need to learn from the film. Teaching in technical colleges has turned mechanical and students memorize lessons rather than learn them,” said Rajgopalan, who has designed modules for schoolchildren that discourage rote learning. The engineering fraternity in Kolkata accepts that ‘aal izz not well’ with them and that it is time to break the mould.
Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) vice-chancellor Ajoy Ray believes there is a lot of substance in the message that the film seeks to deliver. “We need to change our teaching methodology and evaluation process. Students should enjoy attending classes and learning lessons. They shouldn’t just be driven towards scoring good marks in semester exams,” said Ray.
Thousands of engineering students switch to management or change streams since they don’t have the aptitude to excel in hard-core engineering, say teachers. “This is probably more true for Kolkata than many other cities. Every year, I come across scores of students who would have excelled in basic sciences or in some completely different stream. But they are forced by parental and peer pressure to take up engineering and struggle to complete the course,” added Ray. He cited the example of one of his former students, an IIT graduate, who couldn’t follow his heart and pursue mathematics.
Rote learning is a major reason why colleges are churning out money-spinning professionals rather than innovative thinkers, say teachers. Even the IITs are
guilty of driving students towards plum jobs, they admit. “Over the last decade, the focus has shifted from excellence in studies to landing a job with a five-figure salary. The system is geared towards that and this has somewhat undermined the importance of learning. As a result, aptitude has become secondary and everyone has joined the rat race,” said R V Rajakumar, professor, IIT-Kharagpur.
3 Idiots urges students to follow their heart and do what they love doing. “This may sound idealistic but nothing could be more true. An engineering degree might land you a job but won’t ensure success. Only with passion can you inspire students to think like Rancho and design innovative tools like he did for his students in the film. From the teaching point of view, projects and exercises need to be more realistic and interesting to encourage free thinking,” said Rajgopalan.
But nothing could substitute strong infrastructure and a sound teaching system. “You cannot overhaul a system that has been successful. But we need to look beyond the conventional and change with the times,” said Partha Pratim Biswas, professor, Jadavpur University.
Besu has realized the importance of innovative teaching and introduced discussion sessions that review the lessons taught in the course of a week. “We also enact dramas over engineering problems that help to hold students’ interest and teaches them to apply what they have learnt,” said Ray.

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Here, I am! A very very good film. A good way to send a serious message, the fun part was never missed. While all the seniors - parents, faculty members are shown as villain (except one - when Aamir Khan becomes teacher), the student community except one is spared. My experience as an engineering student in no distant past was not the one where student community in general are bubbling with innovative spirit, neither is the case now. People prefer safer, proven track and are risk averse. Today in another article I read Ex-President Kalam asked scientists not to mind initial failures. We have not learnt to accept failures.

In the TOI report the faculty members appear to be defensive. May be the reporter picked up only those quotes that suit the story. The faculty members at IITkgp very much encourage innovation, give marks even if the definition is not 'bookish' and there is a very very cordial teacher-student relation. Few weeks back I heard a teacher saying, "I increased everybody's grade by one, the students were pleading so much!" While some other teacher won't do that but there is never such a case where a good performance is given a bad grade. I cannot say the same for a bad performance which often gets good grades.

The film narrative requires people, institutions to be painted in black and white - good and bad, for easy consumption of audience. Life is not like that. It is different shades of gray. Let us accept the portrayal of characters in filmy spirit and take the message that "All is not well" and we can do a lot and the teacher-student division is anything but artificial as far as innovative spirit is concerned.