Happy Teacher's Day

Perspective:

Through some of the fancy Indian cinema, we learned that some other kinds of schools do exist in the motherland than the one I went to in my childhood. Many kid serials, often would be shot at a metropolitan city gave us the idea of the way school should be. Hogwarts of the harry potter also flinched with our imaginations. We passed through the phase – half burnt, half baked.

In the Indian land, school is a matter of privilege, not just to this time but for thousands of years. At first, there was a caste-based distinction that the people belonging to upper castes would only attend the teachings. However, through the medieval period and to British India, the concept of modern classroom teachings had emerged. Few isolated innovations like the Shantiniketan of Rabindranath Tagore keep on happening in parts of India. We are nonetheless fortunate to have better infrastructure and facilities at our schools than those of the few in parent’s generation who attended school. 

A half-baked privilege:

In our times and in my case of being a dweller small town, when it would rain we had a roof over our top, electricity would depend on the regular regional cuts, fresh drinking water facilities were available and we had toilets in our school. More so, teachers were regular-salaried so they would come to school premises on a daily basis. There would be celebrations on special days like Teacher’s Day, Independence Day, Republic Day, sports festival, cultural fest and so on. We would attend daily school prayers standing in line outside the small space in front of the school. After the prayers, our basic attire was situated and we were disciplined accordingly. Our school also had buses to bring students from their homes. Our teachers also interacted with our parents and they would receive the feedback.

As far as the syllabus was concerned, it was the one as prescribed by the state board (M.P.). We would be tutored with a separate teacher for individual subjects. The chapters would have to be completed before the academic year and yet there were few up and downs on it. Although it was an English medium school, we largely conversed in Hindi. As an average student, my spoken English was pathetic and I could not write a complete sentence without many mistakes and half confidence. Hindi being our mother tongue, we still learned it with the mindset that those with good English are superior humans, in matter and soul. That continued much longer after the schools.

Questions:

As a person and experience with our school mates, I could say that we had no brief idea about the history of the subcontinent. Much later into the colleges, I could specifically mark Europe on a map. I didn’t know that a part of our lands is illegally occupied by Pakistanis and the Chinese. I had not much idea of the other independence revolutionaries and about their causes and ideologies. Some of it we come to know from the cinema. Today, when the tagging of an individual as left, right and center is very frequent in our country probably because of the mainstream media and independent efforts by individuals from the arbitrary social media channels, our shallow understanding of the subject does matter.

Larger questions are should I blame my being carrying caste prejudice to the school or my social settings? Why would we make fun of fellow students as per their individual identities and never introspected? Why is that we had class prejudices and we are biased and inclined to the ideas of a richer looking person?

Slight depth:

We are into 150 years of MK Gandhi’s birth anniversary. We had no idea that apart from the causes of truth and non-violence (though there were frequent student fights in the premises and lies as well) what Gandhi fought for. Why did he want decentralization of the polity? Why Municipality and Panchayat are more important? These are important looking at the apathy of our leaders today who are fighting a shallow battle even though there is fire all around. Through the stature of the national podium, a prominent leader talks about pseudo-scientific ideas and we would believe in him, making no counter-questions and asking no proofs to his imaginations.

We, those who could complete the schooling, spent a major phase of our lives in schools – a healthy 14 years at the peak of our learning abilities. A majority of Indians, 70% of the population still live in rural areas where there is no dearth of facilities available. Independent surveys and researches have brought forth the draconic severities in those areas. In fact, we have to integrate our nutrition enhancing schemes with the school activities (Mid-day meal school schemes) to entice students to at least come to the schools. Just yet, a school in the rural set up is an Anganwadi center. Many of these places have no segregated boys & girls toilets if they at all have one with the facilities of full-time water availability.

From this pillar onwards

There is light at the end of the tunnel. We are the youngest country in the world. The attempts of technology to make it reachable to the last person are a good sign. More numbers of rural kids possess an android mobile set and are connected with the mainstream. We could do wonders. We could. There is hope. We need to spend aggressively on education. The recent National Education Policy 2020 is a step to it, only until it has to be complemented with the required capital & human resources. The rural-urban divide must be capped to its maximum. Teacher's monetary well being must be protected. Our integration with the ground realities is a necessity. This calls for regional social & science projects and inculcating the skills of the daily hacks. The presence of libraries & diverse quality of easily available books is a must. More Navodaya & Shantiniketan-kind schools need to be inaugurated at the rural areas with the state-of-the-art facilities in a socialist backup… If you have made it to the down of this article, you know that your plate is served comparatively better than your compatriots. Let’s pledge to make it universal!

On the occasion of Teacher's Day, with a sea of gratefulness, I pay my respect to the stalwarts, those who showed me & my brethren a way to tap. Thank you!

P.s. In case you have a difference of thoughts, please bear. You can also let me know on the comments. The idea is to talk about an important aspect of our lives and bring it to a discussion forum with an open mind.