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| Why Do You Come to School? | | | D.K.Vaid, KAS Retd | 6/25/2011 9:41:24 PM |
| I was, I think, in class seven of my village school; when one day we pupils were suddenly put to inspection. Surprised, as I was, to see the fat gentleman with receding hairline and a quirky necktie; he had suddenly barged into our classroom, uninvited, unannounced, unscheduled and without introduction. Even when he made an unceremonious entry, he almost pounced at our teacher with deliberate impoliteness.
The lanky bespectacled teacher of ours, caught in the middle of his nap, bounced out of his chair like a rubber ball and had to hold himself back, so as to keep the bounce under control. But the intruder was beyond control. He went on petulantly with his speech – which was immodest in texture and noisy in temper. By that time, our headmaster too had arrived at the scene. His standing in attendance and our teacher’s taking the cuss stoically, was enough to indicate the hierarchical status of the shouting gentleman. He was the chief inspector and had gone bananas to find our classroom teacher enjoying his siesta. And then, this inspector abruptly turned his torso to the right. He now was looking into the eyes of the class. Slowly his anger dissolved and gave way to a countenance which was at once compassionate and childlike.
‘Why do you come to school?’ he asked in a tone which was directly in contrast to the one used before. But the question was completely new to us; even when it was asked with an endearing empathy. We had no clue to the answer. We sat there in silence. I tried to conjure up a few replies, but rejected them even before their coming into being.
The inspector asked his question again. No hand in the class was raised. He purposely let the liquid of his eyes (they had turned almost fatherly by now) flow into that of ours and exhorted us to say something. Not a word from the entire class! He looked defeated and left the classroom in agitation. His exit was no different from his entrance, but his question was unusual and uncommon. ‘Why do we go to school?’ It was such an innocuous enquiry. None of us, including our teachers, had ever bothered to explore the possibilities of such a query and the range and scope of the answers available thereto.
The Inspecting Officer left the school, but his question did not! For many years, as it happened, this innocent question was debated and discussed in the school programmes. The idea was, perhaps, to find out as many answers as possible. And there, indeed were many; but none in my eyes was original. Those were the days when the lessons were religiously learnt by rote and debates won on the strength of mugged texts; generally prepared by teachers of opposite camps, to outsmart each other. All answers were either right or wrong; correct or incorrect. Solutions, propositions or conclusions too, were weighed on predetermined scale. Terms like ‘original’, ‘creative’ or ‘ingenious’ were considered controversial and purposely avoided.
My college education weaned me away from my school time enthusiasm. And thus, a question of immense importance got lost somewhere in between. Issues relating to friends, love, life, family, society, culture, language and literature; came to be occupying a place of prominence; pushing several childhood issues into the dustbin of time. As riding on the band-wagon of government jobs is considered respectable and secure, I too catapulted to one and somehow could secure a comfortable and cozy seat. During the course of this journey, or rather towards the end of it; I came to be inspecting classes myself. It was at this juncture that the old question of ‘why to go to school?’ revisited me. Now, I began to throw this question into the classrooms and encouraged the students to come out with on spot replies. I was happy to see the answers were not only quick and spontaneous, but were also varied and viable. I, however, was waiting for some sparkling and touching reply.It did come. And again, from a remote village school! The student of class seven expressed shyly but fluently in a language which was not the medium of his instruction. Obviously, he was not comfortable with the medium, but when encouraged to speak in his mother tongue, it came out that he was not uncomfortable with the matter of his reply. He said, Sir, I came to school to commune. One may get the warmth of words through personal tutoring, but the warmth of the herd lies in herding alone. School is a Society. The skills acquired here are, at once, collective and competitive; taught in an inclusive culture. A carpenter learning his carpentry in exclusivity tends to get self conceited, vane and self possessive. He is like those traditional Hakims who die, uneasily bearing the burden of their unshared knowledge and expertise in their pious profession. A School knows what sharing is and, therefore, is the best institution in the world. It may be hard to ascribe such a sparkle of wisdom to a rural backward lad of 13 or 14. But believe me; the body of the above reply is almost original. I have just put in some communicability into it.
Life, after all, is like a school; only not as institutionalized. So when in school, remember to be in ‘commune’ and enjoy the ‘herd’. And once out in life; follow Jim Rohn in his saying, ‘Life asks us to make measurable progress in reasonable time. That is why they make fourth standard chairs (desks) so small, so you would not fit in them at age 25.’
Sd/- dt.25.06.2011
( D.K.Vaid, KAS Retd.)
Former Director School Education
(Pen Name: Darshan Darshi, Sahitya Akademi Awardee in Dogri Lit.)
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