And So It Begins

My soon-to-be-3 started school yesterday. She had been to play school for a year, but one never knows how a kid will react, so we weren’t sure what was going to happen. To our relief, she didn’t cry at all. In fact, the teacher told my wife that this one even told a few other kids who were crying, “Don’t cry. Mamma’s waiting outside”! A line she learnt from her play school days, no doubt.

I was reminded of what my cousin’s wife said about kids starting at school:
“They’ve just entered a very lo..ooong tunnel, one they will exit only when they are 18.”
Of course, most kids grow to hate school. And teachers. And the education system. And soon enough they can fully relate to Pink Floyd’s lines:
“We don't need no education.
We don’t need no thought control…
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!”
And pretty soon they feel that they are not being treated as individuals, and the schooling system’s belief seems to be:
“All in all you're just another brick in the wall.”
I couldn’t resist creating this pic of the transformation to a brick in the wall:

And thus they continue to feel until they are ready to pass out, of course. And then they’ll grow all senti(mental), and if they are girls, blubber like, well, girls! It used to be that way when I passed out, and it seems to be the same today based on my niece’s Facebook posts as well.

I guess my wife summarized it perfectly it on Facebook when she wrote, “And so it begins”.

Comments

  1. KumarJune 4, 2014 at 4:50 PM

    Excellent. Thoughts too deep for....

    One picturization is that education system is looking upon a child as 'just another brick in the wall'. Another way to picturize could be this: "Educated children are products of mechanized forms, somewhat similar to chicken production." What adds to the woe is that such young minds have to study with undue stress. Stress for what? To produce results. Results for whom? For the parents first, teachers next for the school further. Parents want their worry about their children reduced, the teachers cannot afford slip in the target number of passes and grades, the schools' competitive edge in the market depends entirely on the children having to achieve. [Why, occasionally a few schools have even gone to the extent of sometimes requesting not-so-bright children to change to 'lesser' schools. Since we live when the population is exploding, such sad happenings are inevitable.]

    And then, we want a great person, a wonderful citizen to emerge from the young initially-innocent boys and girls. A very tall order indeed. If they do not go the wrong way, after the stuffing of data into them in order to produce results for others, not for themselves - that itself would be something we can feel happy about.

    Swami Vivekananda said, "education is the manifestation of the perfection that is already in man". It may work out that way for one among a million among us. But the least we can do is to ensure that education for the children through which they can think better and feel better. And surely we can avoid pushing them into the rat race, when they are so young.

    [In the mean time, there are politicians waiting to treat the entire education as sop, by assuring every child attending school 80 per cent marks as minimum. Over the time, the politician would also decrease the children's burden by waiving attendance too! All that for their own vote-bank and their own power. Otherwise the politician would ignore education altogether. The real point I am trying to make is that no politician will ever come forward to offer our society with right education. That is for sure.]

    About our systems stressing out our children, while it looks terrible, what can be done? There seems no easy answer to that question. It appears that we are not going the rat race way; it is rat race which is choosing our way. May it all change and may we have the right attitude for life and our surroundings.

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