In eighth grade, I was fond of history. Not that I was good at it in terms of rattling off at the drop of a hat the nuanced wars of India or recalling which prince followed which Mogul king in which year. But I kind of enjoyed imagining how those times and its peoples would have been.
Unfortunately, my imaginings peaked during the history period when Mrs R (who was called Missss R; all teachers were called 'Miss' irrespective of their marital status) would be droning on about some random facet of History or Civics expecting us to miraculously cram it all up. I suppose my disinterest in her drone was evident and she invariably picked on me rather harshly. One morning, she seemed to have had enough and came down on me rather sharply asking some nuanced facts about her subject which I was obviously not able to recall. I was banished out of the class for 'not paying attention'.
It's been over two decades but I can vividly recall the humiliation at what I felt was being 'exposed' in front of 60 other girls. Since then I have dreaded Social Studies classes even though I thoroughly enjoyed the subject.
Missss R is not an imaginary character; she is a very real tall dark lady who'd always have her hair oiled, bun lined with flowers, and not a speck of grey peaking out. With dark eyes boring into the child, she was intimidating and menacing by any standard. This anecdote is also not imaginary, but in fact only a metaphor of what happened several times to several of us in school very often.
One might think this is so common in every school, why is it worth even mentioning here? In fact, one might argue I ought to be glad we were not caned. Precisely for this reason it is pertinent to mention it.
Lots of kids have been running away from their homes, some consciously for a few days; some dangerously clueless for how long. The cops tell us a majority of them are trying to escape because of school pressure. They also believe the kids use this threat of 'running away' as a ploy to arm twist their parents and teachers into not coercing them to study.
I am not sure the reason observed by the cops has been sighted enough for them to generalize. But even if it is not, we ought to pounce on this opportunity to take a hard look at our education system and renew the debate on child behavior with fresh perspectives. Thankfully, the establishment too has its set of doubts about the incumbent system. CBSE has made Board exams optional and Gujarat Board is looking at Semester system for higher secondary education next academic year. We also toyed with open book exams but did not get very far. The good news, however, is that there is now at least a concrete debate that the education system needs a paradigm shift from result based to learning oriented. It's a good start I'd say.
I am not looking at being a child therapist as an alternative career and neither is 'insensitive behaviour with children' a new debate. Every single parent and teacher would have had this discussion very often. Still then, why are we so tactless when dealing with children, especially in school?
Simple acts of being banished from class for no apparent indiscipline, loudly reprimanding a reticent child for stammering his answer in class, mocking the student, are accepted forms or 'teaching'. But for the child, it is traumatic. Teachers and parents are their role models. When smacked by them in front of friends and classmates, it deeply wounds their little self respect and ego. It may not mean much to us adults with so many worldly issues to worry about, but for them, I have come to realize, it means the world - literally.
For instance, I had extremely high regard for Missss R. I actually thought she looked beautiful in oiled hair lined with fresh flowers and garish golden jewellery. After her sharp rebukes, I developed a deep resentment for things that remind me of her, one of them being gold jewellery. I have actually never studied history in a classroom since then. Even back then, I distinctly remember thinking 'cramming' is such a futile exercise. So when I saw the movie 3 Idiots, there was this huge rush of emotion and immense relief at realizing it wasn't me after all, it was 'Missss R'.
The pressure of exams, report cards flaunting only A+; internal marks, competition with classmates for every half a mark, parents' censure at 'foolish mistakes', the other moms' derision and mocking eyes, relatives' regular phone calls - 'so what was her result?'… (sigh) childhood wasn't easy. And guess what, I am told it is much worse these days. School days were great, my schooling was something else.
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