SPEAK TRUTH AND FACE THRASHES FROM PEERS – SCHOOL EDUCATES STUDENTS

On visit to schools, finding physical conditions in poor shape and hygiene can fill one with anger. But when one sees how the children have become so conditioned to acting against their own best interests and instead are serving the interests of others – in fact they are serving the interests of the very people who are responsible for the poor state of their schools – then one becomes very depressed and despairing indeed.

The other day, on visit to MCD Primary School, Old Seelampur, Delhi on July 30, 2011, one shift had ended and another of boy students was starting. The second shift of class 5 came in. I casually asked one boy – ‘do you sweep the classroom?’ Other boys quickly crowded around the boy to whom I had asked the question. They answered “No sir, our teacher is very good, we are never made to clean the room.” All the others added words to show agreement with him. One innocent boy added – ‘when we were in Class IV we were made to clean every day – but now we don’t have to”. The poor chap had inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. I turned away to leave. Suddenly I looked back and found that all the other boys had gathered together and were beating up the boy who had given away the truth.

Is it not bad enough that the children have to put up with unhygienic toilets, holes in roofs and dirty classrooms, but why do they have to protect those who are responsible for this state of affairs – to the extent of turning against one of their own? Who has terrorized them so much? The teachers? In fact the teachers should unite with students to complain about their dirty classrooms. Why don’t they? Whose interests are the teachers serving? Are they terrorized too? Of whom? Why are they sacred to speak the truth? This subservient mentality, when will it go? We will rain blow on each other, we may even kill each other but we will fear to offend ‘the masters’. If this is the mind-set that the next generation is learning in our schools – will we ever be independent? Will things ever change?

AshokAgarwal, Advocate

01.08.2011

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