IS AGE A PRIVILEGE?   

All through childhood we are taught to respect and revere age.  We are taught this at a very young age and at home.  We are taught through training and examples.  We, at home were taught to get up (if we were seated) if anybody older than us walked into the room.  Knees were never to be crossed , foot never to be pointed in their direction and disrespect never to be shown in any action, not even voices were supposed to be raised.  Men were not supposed to smoke and drink in the presence of elders.  These were values ingrained so hard and so deep that we were made to think that these were eternal values never changing, never even thought to change.  Until recently...

Children grow up to pass on these value systems to posterity.  And things go on without break.  What exactly do we teach our children?  In the sense, what do we really teach them to revere in age, their age in terms of numbers, their experience or their wisdom?  And what do we teach them to revere in experience and wisdom?  Knowledge is infinite and constantly fluctuating. What is true today in one circumstance can never be true for tomorrow.  Tomorrow is always different.  Relationships differ, equations differ, perspectives differ, human beings differ then why not eternal values, if there are eternal values at all.

Values which do not change, are values which burden us.  I am reminded of something that a teacher of mine taught his daughter 25 years ago. It took me a quarter of a century to learn from that incident.  A domestic incident turned nasty, the wife an unwitting victim to the tyranny of the mother in law.  The son indignant at the treatment meted out to his wife. A familiar story everywhere,  but the husband, already a father for quite a few years, told his daughter  “ if i behave in a similar fashion when i turn old, throw me out”. 

Old age need not be a privilege always.  Should not be. There is no excuse for being rude and badly behaved.  If elderly people behave in whatever fashion they deem fit and expect to be condoned for it, then truly it needs to be thought twice.  Relationships are delicate and needs to be nurtured.  It is not a law,  even a law is amended.  Nothing can be taken for granted, rather nothing ought to be taken for granted especially relationships.

Going through a troubled phase in trying to find the right balance in relationships took a toll of my health.  Until then i was unselfish,  giving what I could most importantly give, time and money.  There are roles that one has to play.  For  women it is never easy. She needs to balance a family and a career. She is a daughter, a wife, a mother, a sister and maybe many more.  And when she balances many roles, she cannot be chosen only for one role and the other ignored.  If that is so, then the entire essence of what she is , is lost.  Either way, she needs to be respected for what she is in entirety.  When that does not happen, her equilibrium is upset.  This is what I went through which prompted me to examine relationships all over again.

I have heard enough of parents left unattended and uncared for.  I have wondered why this happens.  I am surprised that one can walk away from people who love you and had cared for you all your life.  I had vowed never to belong to that group.  Today, things have changed.  My values have not altered.  What has altered are their values.  My son told me  about an advertisement that he remembered   “unconditional love or no relationship”.  I understand that the advertisement was for jockey.  I was struck by what he was saying because that is the basis for every meaningful relationship.  But relationships today are one sided,  either from the children or parents.  Children we can teach, but parents?  If we attempt to do it, there are great emotional upheavals creating big gaps in relationships.  We are expected to compensate for age, age is a privilege or should it be?

Children watch us compromise for not wanting to hurt their (parents) sentiments.  Balancing is never easy.  And children learn from these very experiences.  Their learning tools are defective; it does not teach them the right values.  They will pick up what is accessible easily and here the behaviour of the older generation triumphs because they get what they want.  And that the children want.  So there it is, values do not change and the viciousness is generated year after year.

I reiterate, values cannot be forever, they need to change.  There is no excuse for bad behaviour, age is not a privilege, it is a huge responsibility. 

                                 

                                  school.....chool ...hool...ool  !!!!!                         

               

 I keep wanting to write about this but somehow never got beyond my own experiences.  Do I have to personalize everything in order to understand someone else’s thoughts?  Do I have to empathize? 

One is the eternal nagging thought of having to send my child to school which drums into his head, routine, run of the mill type of education: a learning system which leaves no room for imagination, which does not in any way ignite the natural curiosity of a child.  This is perhaps the complaint of some parents, maybe in a way of all parents.  Enough has been said about this route learning practiced in school.  Or has it?   I am going in circles.  Talk about the mind of a woman who loves to jump back and forth not wanting to be boxed into the dull and dry logic of everyday talk and speech.  It’s fun to be disorganized. Every time you have to dig your way into something that you know you have but don’t know where you have placed it is quite demanding and exciting.  The eureka at the end of the search is so rewarding!!!  

So, back to the conditioned mind. I was telling you about school but not about the teaching.  Rather the news item was about doing away with corporal punishment and if flouted imprisonment!  Wow!  This should really put a scare into teachers!....

If a teacher so much as touches a student, oh boy do we have a swell time!!  But then we forget they are teachers!  They do not have to touch at all.  That’s the whole beauty of it.  The word is corporal punishment, not harassment you see so there’s nothing that teachers have to be apprehensive about.  Sound elusive and disjointed?  I love being elusive and so disconnected.  Let me share an anecdote.

A child had tummy ache at 8.30 in the morning.  By 9.30 the ache disappeared, school missed.  This was every day. The mother was perplexed, worried.  She took him to the pediatrician and the verdict, a mild infection.  Two doses of medicine did not work.  The ache was still there. The trip back to the doctor was with more apprehension.  The doctor listened patiently and nodded.  She turned to the child.  Where does it hurt? She asked.  The child was 5 and said ‘’here’’ pointing to the tummy.  When does it hurt? asked the doctor.  "When I have to go to school" said the child.

Is the story incomplete?  I prefer to leave it so

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Teachers can demoralize students without lifting a finger.  The reasons could be numerous.  Corporal punishment is the outcome, the reaction and not the cause.  The human mind is capable of such suave monstrosity which for a moment makes us wonder why on earth were we regarded as the crown of creation? My English teacher in school had hated me enough to fail me in the class test because i did not obey her!!!  My principal in college was shocked when i had told him that the English teacher there was boring!!! But he did not punish me.  It does not take much for teachers to be vindictive. Basically i feel that there is insecurity in their minds and the absence of the right kind of upbringing.  I will not call it education.  Today education does not make sense. There is a beautiful Urdu word for it ‘’thaleem’’ which brings into its ambit, culture, tradition, learning, respect etc.  If somebody can add more I would be thankful.  This thaleem is what makes one human.  And being human is being androgynous.  And this makes one complete.  There is something so incomplete in the teachers of today.  There is perhaps no commitment; no heed to the calling, in fact teaching is just another profession.  It is just another market that one caters to for a living.  You sell to live.  Of course i am not generalizing.  I am a teacher too.  I see and therefore I know. 

Teachers no longer reach out.  They are secluded, isolated and terribly afraid: afraid to connect and make meaning lest they fall short of expectations. But then that’s the fun of teaching, falling short means that one can gear up and keep learning, but perhaps not for everyone.  Hence the corporal punishment

A legislation making corporal punishment a punishable offence is quite welcome.  But how do we spare the child from different forms of psychological torture/pressure at school? How do we teach them to brace up against different temperaments of teachers at school?  And more importantly how do we teach teachers the art of bringing up a child?  A child, my son’s pediatrician had said, is like a blotting paper.  They soak up anything.  When that is the case, how do we teach teachers the art of pouring the right mixture and the right amount onto the blotting paper?

Children are curious and tender.  They need to be tutored with patience and understanding.  But schools do not seem to be doing that. Barring a few teachers, a majority of them have taken to the profession because it is just that, a profession.  Maybe I am old fashioned as a teacher, but it gives me immense satisfaction to know that I have been able to mold one tender mind into the correct form. To know that a student of mine steps into this confused world with balanced thinking and without prejudice of class, caste, gender, region, language, etc. is a great achievement. That they are emotionally secure is my trophy to myself when i retire.   

  At the end of the day, it is this that matters, not whether I have been able to teach a Dickens or a Lawrence successfully. The number of MPhils and PhD’s produced fails into insignificance before this.

Teachers ought not to bring in their personal prejudices into the classrooms.  They should not carry personal and professional baggage when interacting with children.  This is true of every class, more so for small children.  The tummy ache of a child should disappear. We really do not need doctors to cure tummy problems, we are the doctors.

Schools can be scary places for children.  It can make or mar them.  Teachers have to shoulder a moral responsibility for every citizen who has taken the wrong path.  We are the conscience builders of the nation and unless we have our conscience intact and ethics right, we fail in our duty as teachers.