Where have all the dreamers gone?

"What is your dream?" 

I asked a group of 19-20 year old students on a lazy afternoon, inside a mundane square shaped room. 

The class had just begun and the day's topic was A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

There was an uncanny stillness, which might have been welcomed in different circumstances, but I was eager to hear a sound – any sound. 

Thud!  Someone dropped her book. 

I asked again, believing in the virtue of perseverance. 

Some looked at the whiteboard; few glanced at the clock, and the rest remained busy scrutinising the rough contours of the desks.   

I tried to rephrase my question. "What is your aspiration? What keeps you running or nudges you forward when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place?" 

There were 43 students to be exact. These starry-eyed optimists – eager to discover and enhance their abilities, are from different corners of the country, joined together for one unique purpose – to obtain a coveted university degree. 

There might be gargantuan dimensions of diverse opinions that present themselves while writing or discussing about education in our tiny country. Then again, if not anything else, a wide window of argumentative opportunities for think-tanks and intellectuals to point out the discrepancies and functional atrocities in all the educational institutions will arise faster than the unfinished high-rises. 

Let's not get carried away and blame the system, let's go back to my story. I took refuge to the last resort as a teacher. "You guys will be graded for this!" 

The studious ones sat straight, the middle bunch – a little confused, still gathered enough courage to look at my direction and even the notorious lot uncomfortably and hesitantly started searching for an appropriate answer.

I smiled inwardly, though not a satisfactory one! Sadly, the grade tag at times takes the joy out of a lecture. Then again, you cannot always be a chooser. 

The first student answered, "I want to be a banker."

"A private banker," she reassured. 

Second one, "A banker."

Third one hesitated, told me his dream is a little different. I was curious.

"My dream is to be a businessman," he said.

The dream list turned out to be like this: 27 students dreamt of being bankers, 4 wanted to be teachers (to please me, I guess), 5 businesspersons, and 7 corporate officials.

I have to admit, they all looked content and quite sure. 

Were these the answers I was looking for? Of course not!

Was I upset? Not really.

Did I know they were going to answer this way? Perhaps. But I sure have dreamt differently!

I decided to give Mr. Shakespeare a rest and closed the book. 

I have asked this question in other classes too, and got similar answers. 

How did we get here? Somewhere along the way, we forgot how to dream. When did getting a job become a dream? Where did all the dreamers go? Why is it that no one wants to dream of achieving something completely foolish or crazy? 

Why not dream big; why just pick or choose a career? 

When I was a kid, our English teachers would assign us essays on journey by bus, train, or boat. After every four months, we were weary of traveling to new and exotic places on our exam papers! Then, there were teachers who wanted to test our imagination and challenge us to write about journey by bus and train, or train and boat together! We had to invent new roads, rivers, and tracks all over again. Amongst all these modus operandi, the schools or teachers never dared to ask us to write about a journey by plane or a spaceship. Somehow they figured that genre of travelling would fall into a fantasy category, or would be extremely expensive! We had learnt a valuable lesson from the schools, which was to put a cap on our imaginations. 

After so many years when I asked my students about their dreams, they just followed our legacy and could not dare to dream big.  

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a banker or a corporate official, or a businessperson. But that will be a career choice.

You get admitted to a university of your choice or affordability, then pursue your career path to become what will eventually help you to be successful or financially solvent. 

But that's not a dream. Your dream should not be only about getting a job, rather getting the best job in the universe! Why limit your imagination? Reach for the stars. Dream big, even if you stumble and are stuck somewhere in the middle, don't stop dreaming. 

And who should be the best person to teach them that – their teachers. 

So I urge fellow teachers - it's not the students; we need to dream big for them. We have to open any or every closed channels that might limit us to limit our students. They should not waste the best days of their lives by limiting themselves. Let them dream of becoming the best! 

Will all of them become the best? No. But that should not guide us to hinder their dreams. Let them dream, let us help them to dream. 

As the class was almost about to end, one of my students, an aspirant banker, asked me, "Sir, what is your dream?"

"My dream?" unhesitant, I replied, "I want to be the best banker in the world!"

The writer is a journalist at The Daily Star.