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Thoughts on a certain 5th September

Many a time I think of my education, be it at School or College. Not just my higher school or college but surprisingly I have vivid memories of my play school and kindergarten as well. How each time we would be given brightly colored sugar coated fennel seeds as reward (Minju, as I had started calling it which was then roughly = minute + meetha) when we would write the alphabets correctly, narrate a rhyme or spell out a word right :D  The entire day was spent looking at charts that adorned the walls of the room, clapping our hands as we recited words, playing Ring-a-ring o' roses, a pocket full of posies… or swinging by the swings. And well if you’d not spell them right for the ma’am, she would still give you the fennel seeds anyway but in less amount.

As I grew older, school is reminiscent about the transition of notebooks covered in brown sheets that had penmanship broad lines to regular single lined notebooks, from a fancy pencil box to dull pouches that hoarded sufficient stuff to be supplied to half of the class- pens, compass, D, fluid pen, from pencils to fountain pen and gel pens eventually, from the water bottle which had put-a ring-game on it to the smaller ones that could fit in your bag, from watching cartoons in the library to stealthily hiding The Famous Five and  Nancy Drew books in different racks so that nobody else could issue the book before you, from merely listening to what was being taught to questioning the whys, hows et all.

I was wondering why do I remember so much of it and that too most of the events in an unmistakable and explicit detail? I guess prolly of the fact that during all those years one thing has remained constant and that is because of presence of a Teacher! And for me luckily there were no beatings, no thrashing and no abusing of any kind.
And I feel sure that I have been most profoundly shaped by my school days.  :-)


It was a little later that I started looking at the importance of a Teacher from altogether a different angle. How one teacher is good enough to kindle your interest in a subject so vast that you’d yearn for their classes to start. You don’t realize but you unknowingly mimic the actions they do, think what they want you to ponder upon, speak the words they speak and make the choices that you do. And it takes precisely one teacher to kill a subject and make it dreadful for you. The same rote learning, the mugging up of formulas, the pointless lectures attended for the sake of 75% attendance, the useless lab manuals and their made up readings. And not necessarily that we’ve channeled that joy into our own unique philosophies. Sometimes it is rather the pain, the anguish, the scolding that have helped us in taking decisions that you’d rather not do a same thing their way but in another way, a better way.

Coming to think of it, in large part, we are all teachers precisely because we remember what it was like to be a student. Someone inspired us. Someone influenced us. Or someone hurt us. And we’re always looking for an opportunity to share them—with each other, seniors, juniors, colleagues, friends and families.
What shapes the best in us dies when the best education dies! The best in us shall always be undermined when they that are responsible for shaping the best in us remain undermined. It is a vast topic and I’ve digressed but a lil' on what I feel would be a Utopian vision of Education.
That true Education would be wherein students will not just learn from books but life. It is not something that can be taught on moral principles but the one’s teaching them should be living examples of the said. Where there is no learning without understanding. Where creativity, freedom of expression, accommodating different believes, integrity are all acknowledged and valued equally. And where teachers are seen as true epitome of education and that the society learns to value them!


It’s no complex algorithm- the better the education, the better the nation. Any society is shaped by the perspective and understanding of the populace. And I suppose we all know how well is it going for us in the current scenario :P It would be better if we introduce the young ones to the concept of community sharing, caring for environment, collaboration: the things that really do matter, from the very nascent stage rather than emphasizing on what we have been brought up like!
A heartfelt thanks to all the people who have interchangeably played the role of friends, juniors,seniors, mentors and teachers! Thank you to those who couldn’t keep me inquisitive enough and didn’t bother during lectures, I finished many Novels oblivious to what was happening around XD
~ To group studies, mugging up CT, HT, PIC formulas through crazy and weird methods and to self for constantly staying motivated, cheers ;)

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