Yesterday, I was reading a story in the Hindustan Times about a school principal who was in serious trouble for CANING a kid in front of the school. According to the story, the pre-teen had broken school policy by going into another part of the school when he did not have permission and talking to one of the girls. Harsh, no? Well, the kid explained how unfair it was to be caned especially since the girl he was talking to was his sister. "I kept trying to tell the teachers she was my sister, but they would not listen," the kid said.
The principal had a very reasonable defense for his extreme disciplinary measure. "He broke the rules," Dude is quoted as saying. "Every student must be in the place he has been assigned at each moment of the day. There are no exceptions to this. He did not have permission to go to the room where the girl was; he broke the rules." And then, Mr. Principal says: "We must strictly enforce the rules because it is very difficult to keep track of 2,000 students with only 22 teachers."
What. The. Hell? Somewhere in Delhi, there's a school building housing 2,000 children with barely two dozen adults to keep them from declaring mutiny?
I don't know if this school is representative of the school system here, but I did think of that 90 to 1 student-teacher ratio this afternoon when my guide took me on a tour to the latest Hindu temple, just opened a few years ago. Apparently, several school groups decided to take a field trip to the temple today as well.
It rained off and on this afternoon so at a certain point in my tour, the guide and I were waiting out the rain in the corridors surrounding the temple. While we waited, one of the school groups was preparing to leave.
First of all: Elementary school children are so pure in their every way of being. They do not have the sophistication yet to morph into the person you need them to be or the person who it is more appropriate to be at the moment. Seeing this displayed today still puts a smile on my face.
The line the kiddies were forming to get on their bus was in front of me. As the kids passed, they ALL stared at me. A few stopped in their tracks and caused a little bottle neck in the line behind them. At first, many of them were too shy to say anything. How the scene transpired: The little 7 year olds walked nosily to the bus in their inattentive, uncoordinated manner and at a certain point, they just happened to look to the right AND... a tourist in the temple! The first 50 or so kids looked in disbelief and turned to their friends in line behind them, rapidly chattering and giving their peers a heads up on who to look out for as they neared the bus. By the 75th kid, I started waving at them and I think this gave them absolute relief! They gleefully waved and shouted eagerly: "Hello!" As the line progressed, more kids built up courage. After five or so minutes of waving like Princess Di and saying: "Hello," a few asked: "Where are you from?" My casual: "U.S.A." was often met with giggles and claps and a series of words that sounded a little bit like English and a little bit like Hindi and a little bit like the incomplete, choppy thoughts characteristic of children who are still trying to master ANY language.
It occured to me that I had been standing there waving forever and had only seen like 3 teachers (who looked a lot like I do when I take my students out; let's just say the temple was not a peaceful place for the adults that day!) I remembered the story from the Hindustan Times and thought: Now, see...this is exactly how kids end up getting caned! A hundred ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS out in the open in the middle of the rain and three exhausted looking teachers. I see about five or six kids right now who might end up being caned before the bus even pulls off!
I asked the guide if these kids were from a public school and he quickly responded: "No, they are definitely private school children." From what my friend/guide in Kolkata had told me, parents such as himself who sent their kids to private schools paid anywhere from $50 - $100 dollars a month (which is quite a bit of money, actually). I found it difficult to believe that THESE children - the offpsring of the business class - would be in a school environment where the student to teacher ratio was so high.
When I finally spotted a fourth teacher, I walked over to her (much to the delight of the children who were surrounding her). After I said hello and told her where I was from, I asked her how many students she had in her classroom. "Oh, only about 25 or 30." When I looked out at the sea of soft blue uniforms in front of me, she chuckled and reassured me: "Oh, no this is about 20 different classes; we have all the children from Levels 1 - 5 out today." I told her I was happy to hear that it wasn't just the four teachers I saw who were responsible for educating all these rambunctious children. "That would drive me absolutely crazy!"
She nodded and proceeded to prove she was, definitely, a school teacher. "Children," she turned to the three girls who were ignoring the other teacher's commands to hurry to the bus as they stood there giggling and covering their mouths. "Say hello to the lady." And this is when I knew she was showing off HER students. "In her language, please."
And much like an Easter program in a Black church, the girls straightened up and sang together: "Hello, Madam...how are you today?" I told them I was doing well and I hoped they were not being naughty because that would not be fair to their teacher. I think I loaded them with too many English words too quickly because they looked a little confused. One of them did recognize the word naughty, though. "Naughty," she looked concerned. Then, she turned and pointed to a boy who was no doubt a future victim of caning. Looking to be about 8 or 9, this young lad was several feet away from us, slapping a playmate on the back of his head and then pointing to any number of children in line when the aggravated playmate turned around. "Very naughty," the little girl snitched.
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