The Times of India allowed this article to feature in its daily on July 24, 2013. A one line summary of this article would be this:
While it is preposterous by itself for a national daily to be carrying such a lopsided report that sarcastically ridicules the State's education system and its appointed bodies, it is sad that it is based on the author's poor understanding of the teaching ecosystem within a school, or even within a city. The author summarily ignores, not even discounts, the vital role of teacher-to-teacher interaction at the school level, and in some cases even at the school district level. For anyone accustomed to the project-work style of teaching in many contemporary schools this should appear like another interesting project for kids to come back with their comprehension of the poems; the author conveniently sidelines all such creativity that a good teacher will anyway possess.
As if it were a given, the author assumes that English teachers in these schools do not know Kannada, neither that they communicate or even share rooms with teachers who know Kannada. How dangerous an assumption, if it were true, this is that it hints at the poorest state of affairs in schools that some of our own children are being educated in. It shows what kind of isolated dins we're sending our children into everyday, where teachers do not talk to one another, do not share lessons they learnt, nor do the schools communicate among themselves, do not evolve the best methods of teaching out of such basic collaborative means. What kind of future citizens (of this city?) are we making out of our children by indirectly providing such isolated wells as schools where one is supposed to learn the fundamental lessons for one's life?
If such assumptions of this author are indeed true, there need not be any doubt that these schools are designed to drive our children down the rotten lane of life. If untrue, I wonder what a national daily like TOI is doing by printing such articles time and again!?
It's preposterous, in this context, to say that everyone living in Bangalore is expected to know Kannada. This is one more example of not much thought going into the production of schoolbooks.The context being alluded to here is the appearance of some Kannada poems printed in Roman script in textbooks of classes 1 and 2. Oh! What a shocker, isn't it? What is? That the author, while talking about textbooks, makes a big mistake in relating the school going children that are taught Kannada to all the people living in Bangalore!
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| (Source: TOI) |
As if it were a given, the author assumes that English teachers in these schools do not know Kannada, neither that they communicate or even share rooms with teachers who know Kannada. How dangerous an assumption, if it were true, this is that it hints at the poorest state of affairs in schools that some of our own children are being educated in. It shows what kind of isolated dins we're sending our children into everyday, where teachers do not talk to one another, do not share lessons they learnt, nor do the schools communicate among themselves, do not evolve the best methods of teaching out of such basic collaborative means. What kind of future citizens (of this city?) are we making out of our children by indirectly providing such isolated wells as schools where one is supposed to learn the fundamental lessons for one's life?
If such assumptions of this author are indeed true, there need not be any doubt that these schools are designed to drive our children down the rotten lane of life. If untrue, I wonder what a national daily like TOI is doing by printing such articles time and again!?
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