What is a good education?

We hear so many phrases these days, like 'eco-friendly', 'sustainable development', 'green initiative'- sometimes I wonder whether these phrases crop up from time to time much like the fashion trends - 'the fall collection' or the 'spring collection'! Every few months there is a fashionable new catch-phrase which is liberally sprinkled in conversations and in writing. The addition of the current catch-phrase automatically makes the user/ the written work, accepted by society.
Pause for a minute and go back a few decades.
When I was in school ( St Thomas in Delhi, then known as 'Mrs.Jacob's litle school' - more on Mrs Jacob later) , I was inculcated with a set of values that even today, forms a part of the basis of my life- and work-ethic. To some, these may appear naive, to others, far-fetched; however, these were part of our everyday life. Here are a few:
Thrift - take the example of school notebooks. Today, come summer vacation, every parent is busy covering dozens of brand-new notebooks and textbooks with brown paper, and sticking labels on them. When we were in school, every subject had a notebook in a particular colour. Maths was in Yellow, English Pink, Geography green, History blue, etc. We were specifically told NOT to cover the notebooks,so that we could easily identify them. Imagine the amount of brown paper and labels saved! We were also not allowed to buy a new notebook, even at the beginning of the academinc year, if the previous year's notebook still had unused pages. We had to staple the used pages of the previous year together, and use the rest of the notebook in the new class till all the pages were used up, before buying a new one.
Moving on to text books, all the children in a particular class had to give their text books to the children in the next junior class at the end of the year. They would in turn, receive their text books from their seniors.
Similarly, there were rules for new pencils, and other stationery. In art class, we had the good fortune of being taught by Mrs Hore (wife of well-known artist Somenath Hore). She would make us paint on newspaper sheets. The paints were dry powder which we had to mix with water.
Basic skill-sets - All of us were taught basic cooking, sewing, knitting, laundry, first-aid and home care. Each of these was taught with tips on thrift, economical use of resources like water and fuel, as well as correct and proper ways of performing each task. Although I opted for Science in High School (in those days, we had the luxury of studying on our selected subjects and English, without the added subjects like social studies etc for a science student), I was still well-trained in basic Humanities, Language and Home Science before I entered High school. Those skills are still with me.
Dignity of labour - 2 students were allotted 'sweeping duty' every day, and had to stay back and sweep the class before they left. This was not a punishment, but a routine duty by turn. Teachers also taught us easy and simple ways to prevent dust from flying all over the classroom, while sweeping it.
We were also made to visit the Dalit colony (then known as the Harijan colony) next door, once a week and do any small service for them.
Our uniforms were made of Khadi, and used to be stitched by the school tailor after taking our measurements.
So it was not just t we were merely told in school about good behaviour or conserving water or reusing and recycling, but actually experienced it every day.
At home, too, we saw our parents practising economy and thrift in everything they did - saving the water used for washing vegetables and rice and watering plants with it, using leftovers the next day, using outgrown dresses as hand-me-downs for the next child.....so many instances.
If school children were taught these values today, perhaps we wouldn't have to scream ourselves hoarse about 'recycling', environment' etc.