Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Absolute Power Corrupts absolutely

“Maatha Pitha Gurur Devo Maheshwarah”
In a country where Teacher is considered even above God, their behavior seems to be nearer the devil. Parents send their wards to school, telling them to consider it as their second home and trust the teachers to treat them as their own children. This absolute power and trust seems to corrupt abslutely.

In US the teachers cower at the thought of going to school, as they are never sure when they might get shot by some student holding a grudge.
In India, the students have nightmares featuring their teachers from school.

Having heard about so many great teachers in the history, it pains me to see the absolute indifference and downright cruelty of the teachers of today.

I remember my primary school days, when I used to pray that I could grow up and go to the higher classes very soon so that teachers would not hit me.

The dedication and the urge to strengthen the foundation of the nation that used to make teaching the noblest profession, is no more. Today if a person does not get any other job they just take up teaching. The saw “Those who don’t, Teach” is taken literally.

The young students are hapless victims of these people who take out their ire and irritation from personal issues on them. What angers me is that they do not find anything wrong in the saw “Spare the rod, spoil the child”. For every child the teacher hits, they must be hit back twice harder.

I know of a person who became mentally challenged when his math master hit him on his head for not doing his homework right.
A student in north India was made to clean the toilets in his school, because the teacher had a grudge against him.

A student in Chennai had her hair cut by the teacher because she did not have it in two braids.
A student in a school next door got locked inside the classroom by a careless attender, and after almost two hours when the girl’s mother came searching frantically for the girl, she was found in the classroom, frightened out of her wits. Instead of comforting the child, the school’s headmistress whipped the girl for not having been more careful, right in front of the mother and the mother did not even stop her. (I would have whaled the lady and sued the school, but that’s just me:-p)

While we know all this to be true, the schools still insist that it never happens and the management just does not care. But what is really sad is that many times even the parents do not find anything wrong with it. One parent told me that his father and teachers used to hit him when he was young and look how high he had come. I could only look at him with disgust and shake my head.

While the number of dedicated teachers has gone down, it would be amiss to say they are no more. There are thankfully still a few teachers left who really want what is good for the students rather than a convenient whipping post to vent their frustrations.

Illiteracy – The darkness

Close your eyes and think for a minute. You are illiterate. When you open a book you can admire the beautiful pictures in them but not the squiggly stuff printed on it. You are eager to know what the picture is all about but cannot find a way to do it.
You cannot read books, check out the internet, understand many things being said on TV and have no clue what the newspapers say.

*shudder* Even thinking of such a world is worse than a nightmare. All those beautiful stories never read, opportunities lost, and always dependent on someone else for something even as basic as signing your name.

I was reading this book about a rancher who, to give his brothers and sisters the opportunity to go to school, forgoes school himself and ends up illiterate.. He subscribes to National Geographic, so that he could at least see the pictures of beautiful things if not read about it and he keeps his illiteracy a secret from everybody.
The story goes on about how he faces a lot of difficulties until a teacher he meets helps him learn to read and write.

But the point here is that I was trying to put myself in the rancher’s place and think what my life would be like if I could not read and write. No books to read, no blogs to write, friends lost as I would not be able to keep in touch. No place to go.

God!!!!! That would be the ultimate definition of darkness, wouldn’t it.