CHICHER DAY

We don't need no education 
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all you’re  just another brick in the wall.

Dear Mr. Pink Floyd, I am a little confused whether it will be a good idea to do away with education and the Brick in the Wall.

I was at Delhi recently and visited 3 Municipal Schools at Delhi as part of the Company's CSR initiative with an NGO called Aspire where we are working on improving the education levels of 1200 kids studying in MCD schools.  You must be wondering why we need to give any extra classes for these kids who are studying in schools with reasonably good infrastructure and teachers who are after the multiple pay commissions get paid well.

The primary schools that day were celebrating Teachers’ Day where students of class V dressed up in colourful bright dresses were the teachers for that one day. The young teachers were far more diligent than the usual ones in making them do their studies.

Then a couple of incidents happened. First one was a card made by a student for her teacher that day which made me feel something truly needed to be done.

 A child in class 4 writes Chicher instead of Teacher…she must be following the phonetic way of writing.  She wrote the word as she would be addressing her teacher every day- Good Morning Chicher and the Teacher never stopped to correct her? I asked the girl who made this card, Beta batao Teacher’s Day kyon manatey hain? She said on this day, the Bade Sir (Director of Education was called Bade Sir in their parlance) comes and gives us food packets with sweets so this day is celebrated as Teacher’s Day. Surely Late Dr. Saravapalli Radhakrishnan would not be smiling down from up there on this day dedicated to him!

The second instance was when we were sitting in the room of the principal of one of the schools and a couple was talking to her. The parent said that they had 2 kids studying in the same school- son in class V and the daughter on class 2. The father who was leading the conversation was a casual labourer took out a report card.

“Yeh dekhiye Madamji, mere bête ko sab number kitne ache milte hain…sab subject mein 80 pratishad se upar. Maine usko bola ki apni behan ko thoda pada de toh woh kabootar ke ka se aage nahin likh paya!” (Look Madam, my son in class five has been getting scores everytime over 80% and when I asked him to help his younger sister, he could not write beyond the first alphabet of Kabootar!)

Thanks to government's so called education policy, all students today necessarily have to be promoted without examinations. The education being imparted in some of these schools is appalling and deserves an extra effort from all of us.  Thankful to people like Aspire and others in the field who are making an effort to make a small difference to the education levels for kids who have little or no support at home and teachers who come and go, marking their attendance, of course not forgetting to knit sweaters in winters.

On the same trip met Savitri Devi in one of the girl’s schools at Delhi. She sat in clean crisp clothes listening to the Prime Minister making his long speech on the eve of Teachers’ Day. She seemed the only one in the hall wanting to hear every word the PM was saying. The school did not have a television so the school students sat in a hall with a speaker attached to a mobile phone with All India Radio playing. Everyone else in the hall was fidgety including students and teachers. When I entered the school and walked around, what caught my attention was the cleanliness. The class rooms, the pathways and the hall…not a leaf lying anywhere, not a mark on the walls…quite unlike the other 2 schools I had visited earlier.

When I spoke to the principal about the cleanliness, she pointed out the lady sitting in the room ahead of us was Savitri Devi and she was the sweeper of the school. Savitri Devi made sure that the every inch of the school was spic and span. She would even call in her husband on weekends to help her with cleaning the toilets and the water tanks. The principal ended saying that today Savitri Devi is very upset because this program of listening to the President and  Prime Minister was decided late yesterday evening and she did not get enough time to clean the hall by sweeping it with water and soap before the kids sat down today.

Seeing her dedication, got reminded of a book where in trying to explain what Passion means the author cites a story where Martin Luther King Jr once said, “ If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep the streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’.” I am sure King would have had Savitri Devi in mind when spoke.

Back home on next weekend went over to meet the kids of Prayas, an NGO working for the betterment of education of street kids. Here was delighted once again to meet my trio named ASK. As the word suggests it is all about inquisitiveness and we do a couple of rounds of quizzing on Saturdays. ASK stands for Arif, Shivam and Kartik. These are kids whose parents do menial work and the teachers at the NGO teach the kids what the school misses out on. The ASK trio is among the brighter of the lot and they have now been admitted to better private schools seeing their merit and paid for by some generous benefactors.

The three have quiz books given by some people, they write down carefully abbreviations and questions in a separate GK notebook. They question me and I question them and many a times they beat me. Some questions that stumped me were-

Who is the President of China. Being a Jackie Chan fan I quickly said Hu Jin Tao. I never miss this name as my daughter and I have seen the movie Rush Hour hundreds of times. Right Sir, ekdam.

Suddenly one of them asked me what comes twice in a week, never in a month and once in a year?  I scratched my mind but couldn’t answer and Shivam said the answer is E….zapped!

I asked them from a small quiz book, which is the most dangerous snake in the world? My book said Cobra and the trio started arguing with me…Sir, it is Black Mamba. We have seen it in National Geographic and Black Mamba is the correct answer.

This Teacher’s Day how I wish I could work with three hundred ASKs and watch them beat me everyday hollow in quiz and in every sphere of life.

When it comes to teachers and Teachers’ Day, the one person I always remember is my teacher in class X, Brother D’ Souza. He would have been about 20 years old then when we were 16. Here was a man who changed my life and many more lives. For the first time I started enjoying some sections of my studies. He would encourage me, would give extra classes for us laggards after school hours and gave us cyclostyled notes on History which I used even during my Senior Secondary as well as in graduation. He not only was good in the class room but extremely talented otherwise…playing the guitar, dramatics, sports….A Complete Man I would say. He became the Headmaster in no time in the school and could have gone on to become the principal next. Yet he chose to go to St. Edmund’s, Shillong where he started Providence which is a vocational school for the locals there, making a difference to many a life.

Here’s he standing in the red T-shirt with some of us at a get-together organized by the Old Boys to raise funds for Providence. He himself would never ask for any help but every student would love to do something for him today. If you were to ask any student in our batch the one teacher who you love and respect, it surely would be a unanimous vote for one and only Br. D’Souza.

Today in the Corporate world, every day we are bombarded with lessons on Leadership which say a leader is someone who influences you to take you elsewhere. I thought only a teacher could take your elsewhere, mould your life and transform you….often wonder if you had been fortunate with a Br. D’Souza in your life, leadership lessons would become secondary. A leader is after all a mentor and a coach to his people and a teacher is…much more.

Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu
Guru Devo Maheshwara
Guru Sakshat Param Brahma
Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah

(Guru is Brahma, Guru is Vishnu, Guru is Lord Maheshwara. Guru is verily the supreme reality. Sublime prostrations to Him)

Happy Teacher’s Day.

SS