As my youngest child gets ready to start school, this is my greatest wish
When I think of my own education in India, I wonder if my own children will
discover some of the elements that made my school days so influential
Trying on his new uniform, my five-year old son spontaneously recalled a child we met on a trip to Mumbai.
How will she buy a school uniform?
The little girl, her toddler brother in tow, was hawking garlands outside a famous temple. Nearby, her mother urged visitors to buy them. Seeing us emerge with sweet-laden arms, the little girl lost her concentration and looked hungrily at us. I watched as my children parted with their sweets, confused and taken aback that someone would beg them for food.
I dont think she will be going to school, I ventured. She helps her mother earn money for food and shelter. I didnt add that food meant one bare meal a day, and that shelter seemed the least appropriate way of describing their tattered plastic tent. And the fact that the little girl in Mumbai was emblematic of millions of underprivileged children around the world to whom turning five means nothing other than the readiness to start pulling their weight around household jobs.
His innocent question got me thinking about the modern-day lead up to school. After attending a string of orientations over the years for each of my children I feel as if I could write a small book about all the ways in which their primary school will safeguard them.
There is a reassuring protocol on things I wouldnt even have thought of after-care, chess club, prayer, Lego, discrimination, camp, bullying and more. I faithfully attend the sessions, dont learn anything new, but at least am not labelled an uninvolved parent, God forbid, and it gives me a chance to marvel at how things have changed in just one generation.
I attended primary school in the Indian state of Bihar if you have heard of Bihar, I assume it would be in the context of dangerous crime, grinding poverty or crippling illiteracy, the trifecta that makes Biharis everywhere, especially in India, the butt of jokes.
On my first day of school, I tumbled out of a jam-packed bus to join an even more crowded classroom. Sixty of us sat three to a small desk. The teacher wielded a commanding voice and a big ruler, just in case. My big bag of books weighed more than me it would take me years to correct my posture.
Long school days were made longer by the girl who decided I shouldnt share her friends. Nowadays her popularity combined with her barbs would be termed bullying, but back then I dusted her off and joyously realised that there was a friendless child practically everywhere I looked. In a room full of other opportunities, why care about one bad apple? If this was my first lesson in resilience, I didnt know it then.
I remember my teacher holding my hand to teach me how to write. Noisy children milled everywhere, yet I held Miss Rubys undivided attention until the alphabet had been conquered. Those few magical minutes of devotion gave me wings to write, and years later I returned to tell her so, much to her delight.
When I think of my school, the class sizes alone would have psychologists salivating. If my parents had thought to ask, they would probably have been told to mind their own business, but like all parents, their presence at school was like a blue moon because they were too busy working or guarding the household against pests and thefts, more present dangers than upsetting a childs feelings.
I attended a private school because the government school didnt function but you wouldnt use the word amenities and my school in the same breath. A tidy, basic workshop would be a better description. By modern standards there was little to it, but the students thrived in that environment.
Just recently in Melbourne, I met a suave Indian, properly private-school educated, who looked me up and down and asked me blunt questions about my education before confessing her genuine bafflement. All the way from Bihar, huh? I have never met anyone like that! I felt a little like a zoo exhibit, but incidentally, this is a very typical Indian response to Bihars 100 million people, who are thought to not just be backward and uncultured but also doomed and undeserving. When it comes to Biharis, make no mistake, the caste system lingers on.
I couldnt be bothered engaging her, though I could have needled her disbelief by revealing that my humble school produced a Rhodes scholar, a couple of Fulbright award winners, brilliant scientists, a fashion designer, teachers, authors, businesswomen and numerous doctors and judges. Looking back, the success seems disproportionate.
Growing up in a lawless society with no resources for children turned out to be the making of our character. We came from modest backgrounds; our parents didnt just struggle to pay the fees but also struggled against every imaginable injustice and social obstacle to educate their daughters. The school didnt just produce good students but spawned a generation of thoughtful and hardy women with a social conscience who are making a difference right there in Bihar and around the world.
A sound education to shape a good individual isnt this what every parent desires for their child? To the pundits, an education in Bihar will never be synonymous with that good start but I look back with considerable pride and gratitude for mine and this is why:
The children had a collective and instinctive understanding of the life-changing value of an education, perhaps because we lived alongside the wistful children who couldnt access it. We were eager learners, even those who struggled, like I often did at maths. Perseverance was fashionable and it delivered visible results that inspired the onlookers. We taught ourselves self-reliance because we had to our teachers didnt have time for yard duty. We triaged our problems and learnt to get along with a thousand children because there was no way out. The teachers were busy marking papers and it never struck us to involve our parents. We also learned to pull each other up. Try harder or you will fail, my best friend said as she crumpled another artwork.
To the detriment of many, there was no concept of individualised learning but our teachers cared about us, rejoiced in our success, and redoubled their efforts when we struggled. Their greatest attribute was their genuine investment in us it was tangible and we wanted to earn it. I hope that my own children will discover some of these same elements that made my school days so influential. They are provided for, but I hope they learn to provide for themselves. The mother in me wants to shield them from unpleasant realities but the citizen in me wishes them insight and perspective, hard to come by in our lives of plenty.
I want them to understand that their right to education is a privilege elsewhere, one that children like the little girl in Mumbai cannot access due to the tyranny of circumstance. When the school tells them to be kind and respectful, I want them to remember that they dont have to get on a plane to meet seriously underprivileged children they exist in our midst too.
What do you want to be when you grow up? is a question we often ask children. To this, I would add, Who will you still call thirty years from now?
On the eve of his starting school my greatest wish is that my child will form some enduring friendships there.
There is an old saying if you have one true friend you have more than your share. There is something intrinsically sustaining and comforting about childhood friends who grow old together.
There are no parallels between our experiences of primary school, but if my childrens first years create a fraction of the foundation that mine did, they will have been fortunate.
Source: The Guardian
