I have been meaning to write about issues of villages of our
country and the state of education there. Villages contain about 60% of our
population and yet are voiceless.
I left school with many fond memories, but almost all were from
my last years of schooling in JNVs. School experience before that had been a
nasty one, and whenever I listen to the song Another Brick in the Wall, it
strikes a chord with me.
We don't need no
education
We don't need no
thought control
No dark sarcasm in
the classroom
Teacher, leave them
kids alone
Hey, teacher, leave
them kids alone
All in all, it's just
another brick in the wall
All in all, you're
just another brick in the wall
-Another Brick in the Wall, Song by Pink Floyd
Enough has been written about schools, teachers, and
education. Contrary to what people might suspect, I will not denigrate
education as it is given. Instead, I highlight how the fruits of education
remain off-limit in rural areas. For this article, I draw upon my own
experience and observation of the educational ecosystem around my village.
In rural schools, most teachers are people who get no other job and turn to teaching or becoming teachers because they are the only ones with a college education. I believe that the top 20% of students at better schools like JNVs, KVs, or good schools in cities would easily outperform teachers at these schools in their subjects. Their salaries are around 4000 to 6000 per month. Unskilled laborers are paid better. Most of them have had no teaching training or education degree.
Our village does not speak Hindi but Awadhi. In childhood, if we saw someone talking in Hindi, we would say he spoke English. In school, we were often told that Awadhi was vulgar language. Abusing in English was praiseworthy while expressing in our tongue was an offense. I know most teachers knew the language and even spoke it at home, but in school, they acted as if it was a sin they were free of. So, we began school learning that we spoke the language of lesser ones. Irrespective of the fact that before adopting current standards of Hindi, Awadhi was the primary language of literature and had excellent works like Ram Charita Manas.
I started looking at people who spoke Hindi with great admiration, and as someone I could never be. I was not very comfortable to talk in class as I did not have command over the language. Our teachers or gurus, as they consider themselves, never faltered in shaming us for the language we speak. They would even make you stand before the class for that offense. Those who used words like iscuzme (excuse me), thainkyu (thank you), or recited 'tunkle-tunkle litisista' were considered intelligent and praised.
In these schools, thinking is actively pruned, and the most
rudimentary form of rote learning is the standard way. A lesson in any subject
(except mathematics) is taught like this: the teacher instructs students to
stand and start reading the textbook. The rest of the students, who are not
even capable of processing those sentences, must follow the reading with their
fingers. Anyone who goes astray and is found tracing the wrong line in the
textbook is punished. Sometimes the teacher may read himself. But that is all
to their teaching, i.e., only reading. A text-to-voice program would do this
job better as it has better pronunciation and reads more coherently.
After the lesson ends, they go to exercise. The teacher
picks up key terms from the question, searches the same terms in the text, and
then tells students to copy down related two-three paragraphs as the answer. Teachers
choose any section that contains those terms no matter irrespective of the
context. During my last vacation, I saw some notebooks. Many answers were
paragraphs with a casual mention of the terms in question. They had nothing to
do with the question itself. Then there is a copy-checking ritual verifying
whether a student has copied those lines down. And a lesson is finished without
students knowing the lesson's content.
No student would find such teaching of a subject enjoyable
or even bearable. Any student whose thinking capacity has survived even after
years of such education would find it torturous.
Additionally, many schools have turned to English medium to
attract parents and charge more money. One can see the most absurd thing
happening in those schools. No one there knows the language well enough that it
be the medium of instruction. Those who are willing to teach must translate it
to teach. If the earth revolves around the sun, then it revolves. How does
reading it in English over Hindi make it a better fact, especially when it
cannot even be understood in English.
My childhood memories of early schooling are not sweet ones.
I went to school because what other option does a child has?
In class third, I went to a school with a nice building
compared to the poverty-stricken rural landscape in its surroundings. The
school had glass windowpanes, cemented floors plastered and painted walls, electricity,
and fans. And this made the school the best school in the area. It also gave
the school the right to charge a hefty fee from parents.
I remember the first day in that school. The first two
classes were not remarkable, and I do not remember them. As the third bell rang,
many started crying. It did not take very long to know why. It was mathematics
class, and the teacher was a sadist, or if there is some other term for a
person who enjoys cruelties on children below age ten, he was that. He would
write sums and multiplications on the board, and we needed to write it down, of
course, scared. Then he would check copies, and if any error were found, he would
slap at full of his strength. Whoever got his slap would cry the rest of the
class, but he hit crying students seven harder.
One way of punishing them was he would tell the student to stand
in attention and sing the national anthem. As the student would sing the national
anthem in the middle at an unapprehended moment, he would slap and leave him
dazzled. Another creative way was to ask the student to hold the desk, and he
would strike the hand holding the desk. The rule was if, due to pain, you left
the desk, strikes would get even harder. As is the widespread belief inculcated
by teachers that they are equivalents of gods, parents allow such cruelty in
the name of students' own good. While the reality is, those beatings are
insecurities, frustrations, and anger taken down on powerless students. It
takes some different kind of mind to justify these cruelties, especially if
students are under 8-9 years old.
There was another madam who had a rather strange way of
punishing. The student would be called in front of the class, and she would
open her pants and command him to keep standing there for the whole class.
Other usual and less creative ways have been forgotten.
I was lucky enough to be relatively good in class and evaded
most punishments. Still, the environment was repulsive.
There were punishments for not paying school fees on time.
It was ensured that the whole school knew who the students who had not paid
their fees were. You would be called out in assembly, standing out for two or
three classes, and the whole school would know that you are lagging in your
fees.
On one of my semester vacations, I went to a school and tried to teach physics, only to find out it was almost a lost cause. Teaching class 11th physics needs at least some mathematical background. Officially they had it and passed the maths exams of previous classes. In reality, no one knew anything. I tried to introduce essential differentiation and found out no one understood plotting graphs, slopes, exponents, etc. Taking a step back, I tried to take on those concepts, but it turned out that even more basics of solving linear equations were strange to them.
I was overwhelmed
and didn't go to teach again. It seemed like pushing a mountain with your
hands. When I taught students like it initially, I tried to explain physics as
it should be, relating it to happenings in the surroundings. Later, students
also didn't like it for asking them whether they understood or not, revealing
their ignorance of class 8th concepts. On the other hand, for
regular teachers there, it is not difficult to proceed. They come, they write
things on the board, students copy them down, and so on.
It has been a long time since I left those schools. Still, every year most children in the area are admitted to those schools and eventually get disinterested in studies and drop out or are admitted to dummy colleges that give degrees for money. People are stuck in vicious cycles of ignorance. Every year surveys reveal unacceptably disappointing levels of learning. Yet, after publishing reports, there are no further discussions and no substantial efforts made. Bringing the light of education to these areas is the most essential thing that can be done. Now it does not remain a question of choice. It has become a necessity. This has to be taken up.
And how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
-Blowin' In The Wind, Song by Bob Dylan
~Anurag
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