Skip to main content

Children - no more childlike?



The above is a real picture of the condition of school education in India.  A front page report in the Delhi edition of The Hindu (13 Nov 2013) carries the photo from a teacher training institute in Dharwad.  The institute (DIET) which trains primary school teachers has only one student, and 6 teachers.  The previous batch had just two students.

The Times of India carries another report on the same day: 'Need Parenting Help? Call a Coach.'  More and more parents are turning to experts for advice on how to deal with their children!

Why have children become such a problem that parents need expert advice
and teachers seem to be terrified of them - so terrified that teacher training institutes are running the danger of shutting down?


Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. jahidNovember 13, 2013 at 5:14 PM

    Kalyug hai Sir, ghor Kalyug :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 13, 2013 at 5:56 PM

      Jahid, I would like to see Kalyug from a secular, scientific view and use the concept of entropy: nature tends from order to disorder. The more evil is allowed to creep in, the quicker will entropy be. We allowed too many undesirable things to children... Now they think getting elders shut up in jail is their right!

      Delete
  2. AnonymousNovember 13, 2013 at 5:48 PM

    This is really a Sad State of Affairs...Until and Unless Childrens knows the importance of Education,How can our Country Prosper...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 13, 2013 at 5:59 PM

      Children are like clay, Harsha. It is up to the adults in their life to mould that clay. But adults like teachers have been rendered helpless by various systems.

      Delete
  3. JeevanNovember 14, 2013 at 1:34 PM

    Oh my God! This is terrible. A noble profession on it's way out?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 14, 2013 at 6:36 PM

      Teaching is too old a profession to become extinct! But at what level will it survive? Who will be the people that carry it forward? These are questions worth asking.

      Delete
  4. drchinmoyhazarikaNovember 14, 2013 at 7:54 PM

    Traditional "moulding" does not work as it did before. The "moulding" need not be onto children alone, the "moulders" may need to be moulded too. Hence, it becomes such that the would-be teachers know what to mould the children into.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 14, 2013 at 10:39 PM

      "Moulding" is not perhaps the right imagery, Chinmoy. It's a very old concept that I borrowed for convenience's sake. Pruning would be a better imagery. The gardener should know when to prune, how to prune and which parts to be cut off.

      The idealism apart, would you ever be willing to be a teacher? :)

      Delete
    2. drchinmoyhazarikaNovember 18, 2013 at 10:57 PM

      I already am :)

      Delete
  5. UnknownNovember 15, 2013 at 5:48 PM

    This is quite depressing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 15, 2013 at 6:05 PM

      The actual situation in classrooms and school campuses is even more depressing, Pankti. Unfortunately I can only write in analogies and riddles. My next post will be on the same theme but written against the background of Golding's novel, 'The Lord of the Flies'.

      Delete
    2. UnknownNovember 15, 2013 at 6:20 PM

      I look forward to it.

      Delete
  6. Jeena R. PapaadiNovember 15, 2013 at 10:31 PM

    I thought youngsters were not interested in the teaching profession because of the unattractive remuneration compared to the other (popular) professions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 16, 2013 at 6:53 AM

      It's a complex situation, Jeena, as complex as most social problems are. The remuneration is just one dimension.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
34 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Empuraan and Ramayana

Maggie and I will be watching the Malayalam movie Empuraan tomorrow. The tickets are booked. The movie has created a lot of controversy in Kerala and the director has decided to impose no less than 17 censors on it himself. I want to watch it before the jingoistic scissors find its way to the movie. It is surprising that the people of Kerala took such exception to this movie when the same people had no problem with the utterly malicious and mendacious movie The Kerala Story (2023). [My post on that movie, which I didn’t watch, is here .] Empuraan is based partly on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The riots were real and the BJP’s role in it (Mr Modi’s, in fact) is well-known. So, Empuraan isn’t giving the audience any falsehood as The Kerala Story did. Moreover, The Kerala Story maligned the people of Kerala while Empuraan is about something that happened in the faraway Gujarat quite long ago. Why are the people of Kerala then upset with Empuraan ? Because it tells the truth, M...
13 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
8 comments
Read more