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The strained silence of fear
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In India, the teacher has been venerated and elevated to a position of power. No price that he or she asks for is too big. Part of that power has been to assume the right to punish the student, to ask favours as a matter of right, or to demand servility. Looking at the issue of corporal punishment in schools, G. GAUTAMA says he has often felt that the `dismal system of education' as we know it in India is because children `manage' and endure — they cope with the drudgery, sadism, meaninglessness and indignity. Till there is an Abhinav, a cheerful child who ended his life, we do not sit up to take note.
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Do only fear and discipline make a good student? The time has come for a new generation of schools, says the writer.
Good weapons are instruments of fear; all creatures hate them.
Therefore, followers of Tao, never use them.
Lao Tsu
THE sad, and untimely, "last resort" chosen by Abhinav, a school student in Chennai, has thrown into focus again the sad state of affairs in 21st Century India.
From anger to retribution, from protests to legal recourse, all avenues are stirred up. Surely this is not the first child to be punished in an ugly manner. Will he be the last? What is our stance on the issue?
Images of school children walking, cycling, travelling in crowded buses, being ferried up and down in auto rickshaws, two wheelers and cars are familiar to us. We have grown to accept this flurry as an unavoidable part of growing up, just as we have accepted that schooling is necessary for all children. Our society has grown to accept many practices and structures. We can all see that schooling has grown to mean exams, marks, stress, and tension for the parents, tuitions. Some other things go hand in hand — fun and discipline, uniforms and compliance, success and failure, reward and punishment. Surely many of us must have asked if this is the way school was meant to be. And in our silence, the answer must have echoed. "If there was a better way surely we would have seen it." Life is a mixed bag of tricks and schooling is no exception. To achieve success, some bitter experience is unavoidable." Many questions from the heart are quelled in the name of pragmatism. "Is this the best for my child? Does the child really have to be punished? Does learning mean obedience or does it mean discovering your capacity to observe, think, feel, act?" Let us say, you or I have two children who go to school. Let us assume one child is reasonably happy, well adjusted and the other is unhappy. What options would we consider as responsible parents in both cases? In the first case, how would we know that things are going well and in the second what would be our response? We need to remember that often one who is externally cheerful and smiling conceals sorrows away from the gaze of others. Who knows what sorrows Abhinav's cheerful countenance concealed? With our two children, one happy and the other unhappy, our first response as parents is likely to be:
a) Why bother when everything is going well. Surely if there is a problem we will hear about it.
b) The child has to be brave and face the situation. You cannot have everything your way in life.
c) Everyone manages, why is my child not able to do so? Something must be wrong with him or with us. School must be fine, many people manage!
The student is in a most awkward situation. Damned if you speak and damned if you don't! Is it surprising, therefore, that students cope bravely even in the face of punishment, indignity and unreasonableness? We don't seem to be able to say, "For some reason my child finds this uncomfortable. A happy child is sad. This cannot be the aim of education. However good the school, this may not be the school for my child. Maybe my child needs a different kind of education? Let me see what is possible." Today exam boards go to great lengths to protect the differently-abled child. The dilemma and agony that dyslexics have suffered can only be imagined with the brutality of the mass manufacture idiom — fail, ridicule, detention, stand in the sun, crawl on your knees, cane, whip, suspend! One may ask if fear makes one learn better.
One may ask what is the connection between kneeling on the gravel and percentages or spelling. Or is it that the student's spirit has to be subdued, so that the teacher can feel superior? What is the connection between these practices and education, right living, right thinking! Many of us feel that punishment in schools is only rarely used, and not something to be blown out of proportion. The teacher does not have to do it again and again. Superior position and power need to be demonstrated once in a while, that is enough.
Make an example of one and the whole class is subdued and will behave. You can then complete your agenda, the syllabus in an orderly class. Not a cheerful and easy class, not bubbling with the energy of youth, but heavy with the strained silence of fear! Schools have large numbers of students. Schools are institutions and mostly have 30 to 60 students in a class. The school has many sections. A school's "strength" is 400 or 500 or 3,000 students, much like the platoon strength is 15 or 20 in the army. If one were to pause at this rather unfortunate choice of words and reflect, one could ask if schools should be talking about "strength" in the same way that armies do. Can a school say that its strength is the relationship between students and teachers? Or the quality of initiative we see from students and teachers or that the students do not tease each other, or the quality of conversation between students and teachers? Or would such a statement be incomprehensible, making too much of nothing.
Schools like the ones we know were spawned during the Industrial Revolution.
Armies and the church had uniforms for the soldiers and the clergy.
Uniformity, predictability were the idioms of mass manufacture. The colonial empires were at their zenith and neat rows of soldiers were not only symbols of strength but also stability. The "new" thinking lashed the existing order like a hurricane and uprooted the "beautiful tree". The existing order had small schools, pathashalas, madarassas, gurukulas and church schools. India had thousands of pathashalas and gurukulas and madarassas, so many that the British were stunned at not only the range and width but also the efficacy of these institutions.
Mass manufacture caught the fancy of the Western world. Trade was used to colonise the Eastern nations and Africa. Mass manufacture permitted the smooth transition from the colonial empire to economic empires for the European nations. It is not surprising that the idiom of mass manufacture, economy of scale overtook the traditional pattern of the small school. They had existed for thousands of years and had been honed by the hands of time.
THE model of the small school had survived the vicissitudes of history and this experience was rudely tossed aside by the device of "recognition". By proclaiming all education in other contexts as "unrecognised", the old order was delegitimised. Till yesterday it was fine for me to go and study with a teacher in yonder village. Suddenly for my brother the recognised schools were needed.
In the large institutions, backed by the model of relentless regimentation, like in the army and the church, it is not surprising that the manner of maintaining order was also inherited. In the army, bad behaviour fetched you punishment — lashes, solitary confinement, standing in the sun, or hard labour. The church, with terrible zeal made it a crime to think afresh. The inquisitions of the medieval era and fear evoked by high authority made even the likes of Galileo shrink. Is it then surprising that schools had not only the noble intentions of educating large numbers of students, but also carried the traditions used by the regimented institutions — the army and the church. In India the teacher has been venerated and belongs in a high position. Parasurama could curse Karna and Dronacharya could ask for Ekalavya's thumb. The ambivalence that permits us to hold Drona with high regard is what makes us impotent in the face of injustice being done to a young child. Would we be able to say clearly that what Dronacharya did with Ekalavya was terrible, unjust and most unbecoming of a teacher? Or would we say "the teacher has a right". We hear in India many adages such as: the hand that feeds will be the hand that corrects; only fear and discipline make a good student; the teacher is God and nothing is more important than to be God fearing. No price that the teacher asks for is too big. Rhetoric such as this has elevated the teacher to a position of power and part of that power was the right to punish the student, to ask favours as a matter of right, to demand servility. There are few teachers who do not get trapped in the myths surrounding the role.
Caught in this warp of circumstances, historical marches and minds swayed by the drum of industrial power, parents in the new world found themselves with little choice but to send their children to schools, the new schools, with chairs and tables, with uniforms and ties, with neat rows and columns. The power of the institution is so great that it has dwarfed the love that parents feel for their children. I have had occasion to hear from agonised parents, stories about their children — most parents treat the unhappy child as a problem and impatiently wait till the child "adjusts" to school and is able to carry on. Then they can carry on with their lives. Some, however, took their children seriously and could not ask that their child "adjust" to indignity and casual horror. I have often felt that the entire system of education as we know it in India is because children "manage" and endure — they cope with the drudgery, sadism, meaninglessness and indignity. And children often do with a smiling face. Till we hear of an Abhinav, a smiling cheerful child who ended his life, we do not sit up to take note. I dare say that if adults, caring parents listened carefully to their children, the system would change. Love for one's offspring, one's loved child, would create options.
What are some changes for the emergence of better school system, a system not oriented to marks and invalidation or a system, which is humane and recognises the child as a precious asset of the world? Having schools smaller will be one approach to many of the educational problems probably including corporal punishment. Beyond the burning question of the economic viability of smaller schools, we must also see clearly that just the size will not change the culture. There must be a shift in the structure of thinking of adults in school. There must be mechanisms to see that there is a positive drift as well as clear ways of deterring wrong disciplining practices of teachers. This also means taking the right step decisively, to tolerate no breach by teachers in the area of corporal punishment. Ongoing teacher education is needed to bring to the consciousness of teachers the necessity, the imperativeness of humane education. However, any school's management which makes such a demand must be open to learning how to function effectively without punishment. Many times the "effective" teacher develops a "right" to punishment — the ends justify the means. The school gets "good" results and is willing to overlook the means, particularly if they are not extreme. One can see that this is a dangerous game and, even within the parameters of the school, can get out of hand. From time to time there are problems. And schools carry on.
India is a signatory to the United Nations charter for the Rights of the Child and this splendid document outlines the rights of a child that adults are supposed to protect and nourish. Educating a child in his/her rights means adults give up the rights that they have claimed by virtue of practice and convention, through understanding and affection for the new generation — it means that punishments are out, the right to be heard, to protection, food and medical care are the rights of the child.
The ball may start rolling in the right direction if children are educated into their constitutional rights. It will facilitate the awareness that teachers and parents need to develop in the 21st Century. At least the physical agonies that students undergo will be restricted or minimised. It is clear that even this move will not make any inroads in the area of psychological abuse. One only has to study the news to sense the immense amount of the physical and psychological abuse that underprivileged men and women endure. One can then extrapolate how much worse it must be for the smaller children, who would naturally get cowed down in the face of adult size and authority. It is not surprising that in advertisments of children's products, the image of the adult as a foolish, clownish, boorish person sells — the world of children experiences the unreasonable hand of the authoritarian adult.
THERE is an anguish every parent experiences sometime or the other when one's child is unhappy at school. Parents, when they cannot brush aside their discomfort, try and meet the teachers or the head of the school. There is delicate balance. No parent wants to do anything that will make the child's life more difficult. The child also does not want this. What is the resort for the intelligent parent? I have had occasion to listen to several parents on this matter. If a child is unhappy and the simple redressals have not worked, I advise parents to pull children out of school. Often individuals are shocked, since that is rather extreme, and what is the guarantee that the situation will be different in the next school. I also advise parents that if they are concerned with humane education, they must be willing to explore alternatives. There is, realistically speaking, no single best way of educating children. And as Prof. Yashpal writes in the famous Yashpal Committee report (1993), "... more pernicious is the burden of incomprehension. ... a significant fraction of those who drop out may be those who refuse to compromise with non-comprehension — they are potentially superior to those who who just memorise and do well in examinations." Would you and I be willing to support potentially superior children, those who refuse to compromise or would we through inaction and doubt foster adjustment, compromise, and a deadening of the spirit? The home schooling movement has made great strides. There are many small schools that have come into viable existence, schools with a humane ethos.
Till E.F. Schumacher wrote the path breaking book Small Is Beautiful, there was no cogent voice to argue against the industrial-economic juggernaut.
The Industrial Age has had to grapple with side effects of mass manufacturing and the regimented work force. Human beings became cogs in the wheel. The lack of relationship offsets the benefits through mass manufacture. If small is beautiful in the industrial context and is also sustainable, could it be that the same is applied to schools and other mega institutions as well? Small is surely beautiful and small schools will surely be more beautiful than the imposing monoliths which we now call schools. J. Krishnamurti said many years ago "...if you are interested in really educating your children, obviously, you will start a school anywhere — just round the corner, in your backyard." The time has come for the new generation of schools, not because the existing schools have problems. The historical small hand has moved, slowly, but surely to the next number. The information age and the needs of our time point to the need for a rethinking of the educational system. Soon the exam system will be non existent or irrelevant. One who needs employment will need to give evidence of capacity — to be a learner, to work together with others, to approach unfamiliar situations intelligently. These cannot be learnt in the mass manufacture idiom. The information age has also conjured up the unthinkable transformation — one teacher used to be the benefactor before a large number of students. Today the student has access to anything the teacher has access to, and further has access to many teachers and many sources of learning. The individual student has come of age. The roll number gives way to a name and the individual has stood up.
Further, learning is the common domain being shared by student and teacher alike, the teacher centred era is finished. In a strange way so has the student centred era. We now have entered the learning centred era.
AS you read this do you hear the drum beat in your brain, does your heart race? Is this author suggesting that we don't need schools as we see them and that smaller schools are possible? Why should we fiddle with the time-tested model of schooling? What will we do if these are not good enough? If there were other options surely individuals would have found them. If the last is your statement, you are right. Individuals have found other models.
One-teacher village schools are common even now in India. Home schooling has come of age in many parts of the economically advantaged world, where individuals have the luxury of looking for quality. Small schools have sprung up all over the country, laying accent on the quality of the relationship between teacher and student.
Imagine a class of 20 to 30 children, 10 each in the age groups 5- 6, 7- 8 and 9-10. The students and teachers would meet in a place near the student's homes. The students do not commute. The teacher travels. The teacher is sought, found and invited by the parents to fulfil the basic requirements of the curriculum stated above and to generally nourish and take care of the young ones. The teacher could also be remunerated by the parent body. This will retain a close contact between parents and teachers and also bring back one of the forgotten idioms — respect for the teacher. We have much to learn from the primary school system. One teacher anchors and holds together a group of children enjoying a relationship of trust and joy.
Ask yourself if you would send your child to a small school under a qualified person whom you have chosen and with whom you have a rapport or would you send your child to a factory where you have no relationship with the teacher. Actually our laws permit a trained teacher to certify that a child has been under him/her care in the primary school and thus enable admissions into standard five. If this model is encouraged, there is hope of primary education for our children. Also, if 10-20 parents have to choose a teacher, they would be very careful.
The only option to the impersonal large school model is to find a system that values the relationship between the child and the teacher. If we set up large systems, control will have to be maintained by centralisation and authority. If we have large systems tolerance for aberration would have to be small. Schools in the United States after the various violent episodes have tried to establish "zero tolerance" systems of functioning. (Again a mechanical, manufacturing metaphor!) However there has been an outcry against the inhumanity of such a system. If we do not want heavy centralisation we must have small systems, systems where the web of relationships can be self-ordering, self-correcting and organic. We need to shift in our thinking from the mechanical model to the intelligent living system models.
But then are you and I, as parents, willing to listen to our children, and be sensitive to the new breezes that are blowing? Are we clear that punishment is not going to take us forward, and violence and aggression are no solutions for individuals we profess to love? Are we definite that we will not dismiss a child's complaint and merely put up with the situation, that for the sake of the child we will find solutions? And are we clear that we will not add to the burdens of another through punishment and indignity? For the teachers, of whom the author is one, the questions are somewhat different. Am I the agent of another, Headmaster, Trust, Society, Religion, Nation or do I have an autonomous location as an intelligent, sensitive human being? Will I punish and beat to maintain order, to hold my job, or will I refuse to do any of this?
Am I certain, that whatever I teach through fear and coercion is worthless, and hence unworthy of the teacher's role, unworthy of my humanness?
Can I relate to students with dignity and intelligence, neither looking for dependence nor for authority?
The writer is with The School, Krishnamurti Foundation India, Chennai. E-mail: gautama@mail.com
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