The year is 2011.

You wake up on a fairly calm day. You have your school, but you also have to study IELTS, so you take a bus and go to your offline class, where you see 25 other people in the same group.

Everybody has only printed materials. You do not see a single laptop. Only half of the people have phones, and half of them do not even dream of having one because phones are a luxury to many. There is only one teacher. There are no assistant teachers, or maybe even if there are, you do not really see them.

You communicate with your course mates. You have three or four friends you really like in the same group. Your teacher gives you a task, leaves, and comes back again. You practise everything you are given. You do tests from the book that everybody else is using. The number of books is so limited that you have to do the same test again and again if the teacher said so.

There are no Telegram channels. In fact, there is no Telegram. You have only one option: to use what you have. And what you have is not that much.

There is no ChatGPT. In fact, there is no AI. You just use your brain, and maybe you Google a little if you have access to the internet, because not everybody has access to fast internet.

What you don’t know—you discuss it with people around you.

This is learning. Despite all the limits, you still get your IELTS. You still continue your life. You are still trying to learn many things, mainly on your own, with a very limited number of materials and information available to you.

And that was an absolutely normal reality 15-20 years ago.

People still got what they wanted. People found things. People struggled. People cried. People failed, but they still eventually got what they wanted if they were consistent and hardworking enough.

Now, you have everything. You have Telegram channels. You have different AI platforms. You have a teacher and assistant teachers. You have academic support. You have online courses. You have offline courses.

And people still find a way to complain about not getting the right teacher, not getting the right person, and not getting the right time.

The conclusion is that the more is not always the better, especially in education.

I wish younger students had an opportunity to look at this situation through the eyes of older people, people who did not have all these opportunities and all these facilities, but still learned everything that was given to them.

If you are complaining about IELTS in 2026, just know that an average broke guy without a phone in 2011 outperformed you in every possible aspect you can imagine. He didn't have much, and he still won. Maybe that gives you a perspective you need to study better.

@dilshodbekravshanov 💬