My grandson will be with us in a few days. The excitement is palpable. Everyone seems tobe walking on air. The old house is being spruced up. The wood has been polished, the windows are squeaky clean and the ancient and worn out floor is almost gleaming. Everyone is busy and yet time hangs heavy, refusing to pass reminding me of Bergson’s theories. The same time will fly once the little fellow lands and then hang heavy again when he leaves. But the purpose of this post is not to write a treatise on time!
Little Agastya is just 8 months old. His whole life awaits him and as any dotty granny I wish it is filled with all that is good and beautiful. Do we not always wish that for our children! And yet what we forget is that we are responsible for what lies ahead. We adults hold the coloured crayons that will fill the blank canvass. The little child will become what he sees, hears, feels and experiences. It is for us to show them the very best.
In a recent TV debate on violence and aggressive behaviour, someone said that what we failed to teach the young of today were values such as compassion and empathy. In a world ruled by possession and control, principles like fellow feeling and tolerance seemed passé and outdated. Children grew up to believe that the measure of success is in the things you had to flaunt and vaunt. Hence you smothered your child with objects of all shades and hue, the bigger the better, the dearer the better!
A good heart is better than all the heads in the world wrote Edward Bulwer-Lytton. I wonder how one teaches a child to have a good heart in our day and age. How does one teach compassion? How does one teach concern, tolerance, humanity. By example of course but examples are few and moreover the child should never feel alienated. I remember a friend who had no TV when her child was growing up. One day the child came back from school upset and crying. The reason was simple: she could not be part of the break time chat that revolved around the latest episode of the latest TV serial aired. So how do you strike the right balance in your quest to teach values to children. The TV programme suggested that compassion be taught as a subject in school. My mind went back to days where we had moral classes in school. But those days are gone too.
My little grandson is still too tiny but as he grows I would like to make him discover the true meaning of things: make him feel the caress of the wind, listen to the humming of the birds and the rustle of leaves. I would like to read to him passages of the Little Prince and make him discover the secret of the fox. As he grows I would like to teach him to celebrate difference, make his own choices and walk the road less traveled.
A mail dropped by in my inbox. It was from an organisation that was launching a new funding campaign. My first reaction was to trash it immediately but something made me read on as the mail seemed to be personally addressed to me. I was curious to know what was wanted of me. The answer was in the last para: Your blog is extremely well written and read. A mention about Anand Charity, its mission, its current projects or the fundraiser would immensely benefit us. It would allow us to reach out to and touch more underprivileged people. We would be very indebted to you for your help.
How presumptuous! Did people not know that I ran project why and hence was also constantly looking for funds to survive. But again I did not trash the mail and decided to find out more about Anand Charity. I clicked on their website and as is always the case with me looked for the faces behind.
What I saw filled my heart with pride and joy. Seven smiling faces of young Indians, each from the best schools and universities, each with a message that went straight to my heart. They were, all just like me, paying back a debt they felt they owed. It had taken me half a life to get there. They had not wasted any time. They were true children of India and the very best. They had learned the fox’s secret in the Little Prince and knew how to see with their hearts.
Today their organisation is reaching out to help organisations like project why. They fund projects related to education, health and disaster management across India and they have launched a fundraiser urging people to part with just 5$. I wish them success andI hope they succeed. They have to so that they become role models for young Indians. And perhaps they can show me the right way!
It is only when more young Indians learn to see with their hearts that India will truly change. God bless them.
Restore, not remove is an article I urge you all to read. In the wake of the decision of scrapping class X Boards, it comes as an eye opener and is quite unusual as it urges the powers that be to restore two jaded institutions namely the NSS and the NCC as ways of continuous evaluation of children as continuous evaluation seems to be the flavour of the day.
I must confess that I would not have thought of this and yet the more I ponder over this suggestion, the more I like it. I had blogged recently on the grade system wondering how it would actually work in situ. The task seemed daunting as one had to train teachers to accept new ways and that is no easy task. Kaveree Bamzai seems to have come up with the ideal solution, one that does not need any new inputs or training as both the NSS and NCC are part and parcel our education system. As she says in her article today’s over active and energetic children would be better off playing soldiers and doing real social work than watching useless TV programmes targeted to the young.
The NCC and NSS may at first sound a little passé and outdated. But I urge you to look at them with fresh eyes. The NCC teaches discipline as well as opens new avenues to young minds who can learn a host of activities ranging from battle tactics to para jumping. The NSS is a way of teaching compassion and responsibility. What better values than we think of. I myself can never forget the weekly visits to the orphanage during my school years in Saigon. I think somehow what I do today finds it first seeds in those visits. Instead of finding new ways of creating good citizens, a relook at these two institutions could do wonders. They just need some smart repackaging.
In earlier days free time was spent reading books. Sadly today children have stopped reading and watch TV instead. The slum children or their parents never savoured the joys of reading; they just jump started straight into the TV era. Parents both privileged and underprivileged have scant time for their progeny, schools have abdicated their real role and the huge void thus created had been filled by useless and often absurd activities. As the author of the article points out the youth of today, our so called good citizens go on UTV Bindass’ Dadagiri to look for cheese cubes in a bowl of leeches and eat sauce mixed with human hair.
We desperately need to look at education again and why not restore what was good and healthy like the NSS and NCC or the forgotten SUPW (socially useful productive work) which took children to slums and old age homes.
We cannot afford to have a generation of MTV roadies. If this does happen we would be responsible of having failed our children as children are just what you make them to be.
The recent scrapping of the class X Boards has been welcomed by one and all. Then why is it that I am feeling uneasy and slightly rattled. I sat for a long time trying to figure out what was disturbing me and why I was not jumping with joy. Was I not the one who had always been against examinations that tended to assess a child’s future on her of his performance on a single day. Was I not the one who once extolled the benefits of alternative schools to all those who would hear me. And yet here I was brooding over the news of Boards being scrapped. What had changed? The answer was simple: then I thought of my kids, now the faces that came to mind was those of the pwhy kids whom I had seen toiling over class X exams for many years now and succeeding. What was disturbing me was how they would perform in the new scenario. What would we expected of them and how would they be able to compete with their peers from privileged homes and schools? I decided to try and find out what would be expected of them in the new continuous evaluation system.
The new CBSE grading system would comprise of a summative and a formative assessment. While the former would be based on the term end examinations, the later was far more complex and would evaluate class work, home work, assignment and project work. The system again seemed to tilt in favour of the privileged schools where project work and assignments were the order of the day. Sadly in government schools that was not the case at all. In such schools the only thing that mattered was learning and mugging for one exam and one did that with the help of guide books, past question papers et al. Now all this had ended and much of the performance of the student would be assessed on work done in class along the year.
I read somewhere that special training classes were soon to be held for teachers. I wonder how they will achieve changing mindsets and old ways. Extra classes and tuition days are now passe. Every child will have to perform day-after-day. Knowing the situation prevalent in government schools one wonders how that will happen and one also wonders how one needs to reinvent one’s self to address the new situation. I guess things will fall in place after a few batches and that in the ultimate analysis it is all for the better but I still ask myself how a student whose family can barely buy her guide books will be able to come up with all the resources needed to complete an assignment or project that the child will have to complete in a cramped tenement she shares with many.
Sohil is the new kid in the special section. He is 6 years old and has hydrocephalus. He also has spindly legs and malformed feet making his gait unsteady and awkward. But that does not deter him from doing everything his new pals do.
Come dance time and Sohil surreptitiously moves towards a wall and takes his position. In this way he knows he will not fall. And once the music plays, Sohil dances with his heart, his huge head and tiny body gyrating and moving just like any Bollywood star. Little Sohil is very talkative and loves asking questions. He is extremely friendly and goes to every and anyone. He is the darling of the class and is loved by all but his special friend is little Radha and they are often together. My heart misses a beat each time I see them. Do they actually realise that they are soul siblings? Do they know that they both have truncated lives and can not dream of many morrows? Is that why they are so attracted to each other.
Radha and Sohil are both extremely bright and intelligent kids. In spite of their handicaps they are extremely independent and have a rare thirst for knowledge. They are like little sponges wanting to imbibe everything that comes they way and always wanting more. Their joie de vivre is infectious. They deserve to live long and fruitful lives and yet we all know that their sojourn on this planet is short, very short. Had they been born on the other side of the fence they could have perhaps dared aspire to more. But that is not to be.
When Radha and Sohil are in class there is no space for gloom or despair. Everyone gets touched by their special brand of optimism and moods get lifted by magic. Life is celebrated in its purest form and everyone is joyful. And for a brief moment all is well on planet earth.
Watch Sohil dance, you too will be touched by his magic
My grandson will be with us in a few days. The excitement is palpable. Everyone seems tobe walking on air. The old house is being spruced up. The wood has been polished, the windows are squeaky clean and the ancient and worn out floor is almost gleaming. Everyone is busy and yet time hangs heavy, refusing to pass reminding me of Bergson’s theories. The same time will fly once the little fellow lands and then hang heavy again when he leaves. But the purpose of this post is not to write a treatise on time!
