Dear Ma’am,
This is from one of the many parents who chose your school as the source of education and enlightenment for their children.
I still remember when my daughter turned 3, and I started looking for the best schools in town on the internet. I stumbled upon your prospectus, got floored by your projected academic performance (well, that’s the basis for judging a school, right?), and made a, so to say, a well-informed decision of getting my daughter enrolled!
It has been 8 years since, and here’s what I wish to share with you!
My husband and I earn decent enough, but the day we decided to get our baby into school, we were in for a shock. 50,000 odd bucks to get a toddler into school? That too in addition to the tuition fees? You name a major chunk of it as infrastructure and development fee, right? Do you send choppers to pick them up every morning?
Nevertheless, we came to terms with reality, thinking of the inflation rate and how, apparently, educating children might be such a costly affair for schools that with approximately 300 children in every batch, they just somehow make ends meet with the fees they charge!
When school began, it was all hunky dory! Little kids dressed in cute uniforms, just go to school, play around for four hours, and come back home all tired, yet happy. It used to be a blissful sight. But the trouble began when evaluation entered the scenario.
From simple smilies and frownies on a yellow chart paper called the “Superkid Evaluator”, stuck to a classroom wall, those tender young ones jump right into a whirlpool of bizarre numbers we call marks and percentages. I don’t blame you; marks have always been a problem, right from our times. But my issue with you is the changing form and face of the situation.
"Do you really think that my little 6-year-old daughter, who had just learnt to curb her urge to crumble every sheet of paper given to her, would have been the one to paint Arhar Daal blue to make rain drops in that painting adorning the notice board right outside your office?"
“Show and tell” on every Friday, compulsory Fancy Dress every last Saturday of a month, innumerable best out of waste activities, and other things I don’t wish to recall, lest I am infuriated. Do you really think that my little 6-year-old daughter who had just learnt to curb her urge to crumble every sheet of paper given to her, would have been the one to paint Arhar Daal blue to make rain drops in that painting adorning the notice board right outside your office? Of course, it was ME! And what was the waste? There wasn’t any. Of course painted daal later became waste; we couldn’t eat it because the poster colours were not organic, hah. Some humour for the ride!
You claim to be the only school in town to encourage all activities possible, in addition to studies, to make sure a child grows into a well-rounded adult, with an assortment of skills to conquer the world that awaits him/her. But do you realise that imposing it on children does more harm than good? What if a child hates science? Would a compulsory project for the upcoming inter-school science exhibition do anything to incite the latent Einstein in him? Why can kids not be allowed to take up things they are genuinely interested in?
Smart boards are an important part of every classroom in your school, but do you realise how teachers in your classes use them, at least most of the teachers? Well, interactive learning is the last thing that goes on there. After all, which teacher has time to look up the internet and get interesting supplements to regular curricula? And I really don’t push the baton to them; they have a lot of other things to do to stay on your payrolls.
Your website says “A home away from home”, umm what? I don’t pick and place my son into a never-ending fight for being the best, with other kids in the locality, to get them started with the rat race so soon in life. So it sure is anything, but home. I understand the rating for the best school in town is something you die for, but being the best isn’t warranted at the cost of the dying desire to learn in our kids.
"Learning and education are supposed to widen the horizons of thinking and need not necessarily come from mathematical axioms or historical chronicles"
When children stop looking forward to learning, lose the charm on their faces every time a test is around the corner, (which by the way is twice a week, all term –long) and keep comparing percentages to check where they stand in class, and as you have made them think, in life, it hurts. You set a standard to be followed, a direction to think, a notion to develop. Creativity, for most schools like yours, is restricted to the Art Class, which by the way is again a pain for some students because still-life sketching isn’t everyone’s forte, and yet is mandatory.
You would revert to most of the above-stated questions saying the fault lies with the system, the whole country is stuck; you might even claim to be looking for a solution. But it is high time. We are not sending students to school to rote learn whatever is being passed on to them for ages, through books that never seem to update the syllabus. Learning and education are supposed to widen the horizons of thinking and need not necessarily come from mathematical axioms or historical chronicles. It happens anywhere and everywhere that the child finds a true calling, and to help a child do that is your responsibility.
I would end this long saga by saying just one thing. We understand that schools follow a curriculum, but to bring about change, everyone needs to take a step. Parents’ protests against policies are not enough. What is needed is an intervention, from both parents and the schools, to make sure that never again does a child get up in the morning because he/she has to go to school. Let’s try and make the situation such, that a child wakes up because he/she wants to go to school!
And with this, I rest my case.
Thank you!
