Children are just children. You cannot judge them. They will remain restless, tantalizing, noisy, fickle, restless, blabbering things. And they can be cute! You would keep falling in love with their innocence now and then. Sometimes they would so heartbreakingly loving that you would not know what to do. Especially small children. Nothing escapes their notice, may it be your clothes, your speech, your way of reprimanding them, your love and care, your excesses if any etc, etc.
-Ma’m, you have got so many pimples!
-Why don’t you tell me to write on the board anymore?
-my father is a great editor!
-You look beautiful today.
It’s their world where interaction and responses are spontaneous, natural and uninhibited. That doesn’t mean that no sins are committed at all. They have their own quota of meanness and wrongs. You do find bullies, big- sisters and big-brothers among them who often make rules for the rest of the children.
It’s the world of children.
Handling very young students who are less interested in studies and are usually very restless and naughty can be exhausting and difficult, especially with children whose manners and sense of discipline is not a product of healthy home environment. In a crowded classroom, it can be hard to handle them and teach at the same time. Sometimes queer and unpleasant things happen because of miscommunication. Take this- A boy was not listening or writing in the classroom. The only thing he was doing was getting up from his sit and distracting and disturbing other children. The exasperated teacher threatened to punish him with a certain number of ups and downs if he didn’t relent. Three lovely and brilliant girls were sitting on the front bench. It usually happens that the bright and the well-mannered often hang together. The loudest among them, the monitor, toed the speech of the teacher-
-Ma’m, if he still does not behave , you will make him do up and down, a hundred times.
The teacher dismissed it as a casual remark and nodded smilingly. And to her horror and dismay, it turned out to be an issue later when she was summoned to the Principal’s office. Moments later, she was being asked why she had punished a small child with a hundred times of ups and downs. She was ill at ease because she had done nothing to earn the reprimanding. She was informed that the class monitor had executed the punishment according to her instructions. She had to explain that she had not done anything like that and it could have been a miscommunication on the part of the child monitor, and she had to pacify the angered father of the punished child who genuinely felt aggrieved. Then she recalled the casual remark of the monitor and was shocked at the profoundness of the situation.
The situation in school is growing becoming complicated, especially in private English medium schools. Schools are mushrooming and survival and growth is an issue. Parents are important and are not to be displeased. The notion of good teaching has already been revised as securing good marks. Other things like gaining real knowledge and growing into balanced personalities is not the important goal anymore. The Principals are under pressure. They have to ensure the growth of the school and a consistent money inflow too so that the institutions grow and strengthen. The teachers are under pressure to act, not necessarily to the tenets of ethics and morality which may mean remaining sincere to certain principles that facilitate real education, but to please and to compromise. The immediate goals have become growth in terms of money, marks and advertisement.
Nobody can deny that commercial viability is very important in a time of tough competition among institution to draw in the maximum number of students. But shouldn’t we start thinking in terms of acquiring knowledge along with marks and turning our children into great human beings and future citizens with not only a balanced approach to life but also being instrumental in opening up new vistas and avenues for numerous aspects of life and being courageous enough to transform their knowledge and perception into reality in full view of the world. Doesn’t their evolution as classified zombies in specified sectors or money-making machines hurt our sensibility? Our children can be all these and much more. So, let’s start thinking beyond our limited spheres and make the wishful dreams of our great forefathers, a reality.
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