School Experiences
We started off with everyone talking about what school meant for them. While I personally loved my school, others (*cough* Akanksha) were less liberal with their praise and fond memories.
Aveek, who went to school in Guwahati said he enjoyed going to school every day – an activity which involved a boat ride along the Brahmaputra.
Akanksha said with utmost sincerity that she missed nothing at all about her convent school. It was a school for over-achievers, she explained, who enjoyed the full attention of the teachers. Mukesh Sir added that this was probably why her school was considered one of the ‘best’ in the Bhopal!
Smarika had much more pleasant memories and felt that her school, located in the steel town of Bokaro, was the sole contributor to her social life.
Arjun and I went to the same school, in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. It was interesting to see how much things had changed. No sooner had I explained to everyone how things worked there than Arjun interjected with a, “well, not anymore...”. In the end, I had to use the phrase, “in my time...” one too many times for my own liking.
Karthika explained that she had gone to a school called Shanti Bhavan near Hosur, Karnataka, which had quite a different philosophy. Students had a lot more power and say in the way in which the school was run. They could even have a teacher who was not performing at the required standard, removed. The school encouraged students to voice their opinions and be themselves.
An Introduction to the School in Literature
Urmi pointed out how authors like Roald Dahl had portrayed a consistently negative view of the entire school experience. He had hated his teachers, the strict regimen, the homework, the punishments, the uniforms. Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) too hated school and consistently tried to get out of it, very often making intelligent arguments in order to do so. Other times, though, not so much...
Individuality and Creativity
Mukesh Sir asked us whether we felt that our schools inspired creativity and expression or only competition. He pointed out that even schools that encourage cultural activities and sports tend to do so through competition.
Arpitha felt that so much of what she learnt in school in the form of rote learning proved to be entirely useless.
I felt our school (Arjun and mine) encouraged creativity and expression – through music, extra-curriculars and public speaking. Everyone had to give a speech sometime in their 11th or 12th grade, on a topic of their choice. I recalled my seniors giving speeches on the most varied things - “Biriyani” and “The advantages of being tall”! Arjun said that his had been on reading. Mine was on prisoners of conscience.
Smarika told us about a radio show program that was held in her school for students and how, even though marks were allotted, children used to participate in it for the fun of it.
Arpitha told us a funny story about how she was punished for being too talkative in class and made to sit on the ground for an entire month. One day she brought a mat and pillow with her, promptly earning another two months of the same punishment – a patently unfair way, in her opinion, to reward common sense!
Teachers
On the subject of teachers, Mukesh Sir pointed out how much of a difference teachers can make to your liking of a subject. Urmi told us about Shantiniketan and the passion with which the young teachers there taught literature. That kind of learning made her draw links that she never thought possible.
I told everyone about how much I had disliked Chemistry in school, purely because my teacher made it more complicated than it needed to be and made me feel like there was so much I didn’t know about it. After that first year of learning Chemistry, however, I learned a few simple rules that I taught my younger brother when he first started learning the subject. He ended up loving Chemistry and being very good at it. This leads me to believe that teachers, aside from loving their subjects and teaching as a profession, must have real concern for their students.
This is brought out quite clearly in a moving performance by Taylor Mali I had been shown on YouTube. Once a teacher himself, Mali wrote and performs this piece entitled “What Teachers Make.”
School Uniforms
Urmi brought up the issue of school uniforms and told us about how Roald Dahl, for instance, thought his school uniform looked so ridiculous that he didn’t let his sisters see him in it. Then he went to school to find all the other boys dressed the same way and came to the conclusion that the English dressed very comically indeed.
Karthika explained how in her school there had never been school uniforms. The idea there was that you could express yourself in the way you wanted, and you learned that the clothes that someone wore should not come in the way of your perception of them.
Smarika said she liked her school uniform and the fact that she didn’t have to think about what to wear in the morning (Aveek and Arjun exchanged looks at this point in mild, shared amusement, relieved that this had never been a concern for them). She said that that in itself was liberating.
Mukesh Sir said that the rationale behind school uniforms was that children came from different backgrounds and should see each other as equals. Those who came from wealthy ones might show off that wealth in what they wear, creating a focus on the wrong thing.
Karthika said that kids, in the end, want to fit in, and that in her school that meant not showing off or attracting too much attention.
Aveek told us that there was a group of students in his school who were so against the concept of school uniforms that on the last day of school, they ripped out their shirt pockets, drew swastikas on them and burned them!
In all, it was an entertaining and thought-provoking discussion and I came away feeling like I got to know this year’s LitSoc members quite a bit better. Thanks for being there, everyone!
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