Monday, November 17, 2008

A VISION...


Once upon a time I often used to dream
Of a school which is naturally the crème de la crème.

Offering the Edwardian vision of achievement
Coupling zeal for perfection with attainment

Where the students are all true copies of Dilton
Comprehending with alacrity both Mendel and Milton

No truants like Holden Caulfield to upset the applecart
No Tom Browns to gently question the system from the start.

The story of each teacher would like the last chapter of “Goodbye Mr. Chips” read
But could all touch their hearts and be able to deny any deed

That smacks of favouritism, nepotism and petty politicking
Of small cruelties, rank injustice and deliberate backbiting

That may a shatter a young mind, or a promising career
Tearing decency and integrity into shreds like an angry terrier.

I would also dream of an ideal management
That would consider teachers god and bleat in agreement

To feather light workloads and bountiful of cash
Shut their eyes to parents’ concern and consider their opinions trash.

‘The children will to their potential grow’- would be the explanation
If your child does by merit fail, send him for private tuition

The infant may with his bag load of homework faint
The syllabus is completed on time – so let there be no taint

Upon the school’s reputation which shall shine ever bright
For in the darkness of illiteracy, have we not brought the light

Of spoon feeding, thought control-call what you may
Remember, Education is also an enterprise- so don’t stand in the way!

From such a nightmare I woke one day
Fearing the vision that ahead lay ….

Of the young Frankensteins that we would help to nurture
Who being cheated of a cherished childhood would build a monstrous future


Without the warmth of empathy or consideration beyond self
A genius without conscience, a selfish giant who will crave for help

Yearn for love and weaknesses that make him human
For such qualities also resided in every Aristotle and each Henry Truman.


Can’t we therefore envision a different school?
Where the future Noble Laureate may parley at ease with the fool?

“Where the mind is without fear and the head in held high”
Where the sight of the school gate may not let out a sigh

Where education becomes a search for learning the treasure within
Where a team player is moulded and not a king pin.

Let us hold our child’s hand and become a guide
Help him to seek and not allow to hide

Under a mountain of incomprehensible knowledge that for him has no use
For he knows not his aim, no one has given him the ruse

To hanker for answers that his fervent mind quests
And to cross the unexplored vistas his first footstep sets.

Let us train each child to lift his eyes to the sky
And unfurl his untested wings in order to fly

With Jonathan Livingston Seagull and gather wisdom of his own
To light the first spark with an early man and to know how the first seed was sown

Let every child put together his first two plus two
Watch the falling apple and learn the way Newton knew

And to arrive at the concrete e=mc2 from the abstract yet mundane
Features of life that range from the hissing of the tea kettle to how pigs are slain.

Let us allow a child to know a little less geography
It’s no less important to bring in that cricketing trophy.

My dream school therefore shall such a syllabus follow
That spurs a child to think and absorb knowledge and definitely not wallow


In a quagmire of information spouted from a frothing teacher
Frantically demonstrating his memory power, feature by feature

Spoon feeding is to be banned along with tongue-lashing
Gone are the days when each lesson was taught along with a thrashing.


In my dream school no question can be stopped by a foreboding frown
Any quest for knowledge by anyone is as priceless as a reigning monarch’s crown.

In my school’s timetable a lot of colours are used
Study time, play time –the contours becomes diffused

Feinting in the football field, messing about with glue
Throwing a fit in dramatics and diving into the aqua blue

Singing, dancing, debating -our days are quite full
Our children are not the ones to passively learn and let their heels cool.

A mixed bag of students we’ll have- feisty, brilliant and quiet
Yet in each will burn the love for others-steady and bright.

A medley of teachers there will be-as friends and discerning guides
Holding the hands of their young companions along the narrow and wide

Knowledge will be dispensed here with clarity and verity
Discipline will be tempered with understanding and charity.

The focus here will be on the child, his growth and his mind
There’ll be room for everyone, every creed and every kind.

Lessons will be framed keeping in mind his age and his need
For teaching-learning is both a reciprocal and a continuous deed.

Books will not be the only resort…
Technology, field trips, television-the ship of learning will touch many a port.

The teachers will indeed be the captains of their ships
Working alongside the rawest crew to prevent any slip.

Their hearts too will be ‘with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.’

They too will marvel at ‘the tiger, tiger burning bright
In the forests of the night.’

“Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya” the ancient sages had intoned
To that end will be our journey, to that end our skills honed.

The ideal management will not be the one with palm open for donations
It will have to be the one with heart open for students and ears open for suggestions.

Is such school a figment of imagination, a Hogwartian piece of magic?
To dream of such an ideal, can the end be only tragic?

Still I will dare and dare to dream such a dream
I shall await that enchanted hour and wait for it to chime

I know that the road ahead is going to be steep
And also that in future “I have miles to go before I sleep”

But I know that I no longer want to hear Pink Floyd say with conviction
That teachers do “ Thought-control “ and children say“We don’t want no education”

Therefore my new motto is “I can and I will”
If needed I will part the sea and move the hill

The journey is not easy, but the path is clear
There is trepidation but no longer any fear

For I know that, I in my quest ,shall companions find
Many voices echo these words that are in my mind.

Fellow educators, pupils and parents, together we’ll go
For friends are we, neither antagonists nor foe.


(i had just joined Oakridge and fuelled by the excitement of becoming a part of a brand new pedagogy, had simply reeled out this poem...believe it or not.... at one go......looking back it seems hopelessly optimistic and definitely sophomoric...but what the H...did get a national prize anyway. ....)











5 comments:

Sehba said...

Amen..

Saswati Biswas said...

aar likhchhis na keno ?

Sehba said...

Read it again. I still can't get over how fabulously worded it is. Keep Posting.

Vinay said...

I'd LOVE a school like that! But slightly idealistic, don't you think?
Of course, a student like me would thrive in an environment like that.... :D

Love the rhymes too, maybe you can still be as good as me someday. ;)

Nok said...

I like to call schools "education camps". This may remind some of the nazi concentration camps. While it may seem like an exaggeration, i feel more mentally prepared to deal with going into a concentration camp now as an adult than I did as a child going school. Yes I may die in a concentration camp, but much of me was killed at school too. Hope, imagination and optimism replaced with fear, boredom and cynicism.

The children who assist them are not there voluntarily, and if they are, threats and violence have made them say that. They can't even get distracted from the boring class because they might be forced to take ADHD medication.

It's wrong. There should be no schools. I'd rather be a complete illiterate than live with the consequences of my schooling. Every time there is a school shooting I feel this sick feeling that vengeance has been served on the "school entity". Maybe it's because I'm so detached from the victims who have lost even their lives at school, but I wish the worst for the institution and it's enablers. I think most of us victims of that system do, consciously or not.
For me, school has had a nett-negative impact on my life, and sometimes I doubt the nett part.
To all the teachers, please refuse to teach people who are forced or intimidated to learn. If you can't, then at least make it good enough that every single one of those children would choose to be there could they do so (good luck with that).