She introduced herself as an educator from Chicago. And just in case I did not know where Chicago was she added "USA". From her accent it was clear that she was a second/third generation Indian-American. I was little put off by her assumption and accent. But she turned out to be a surprise.
One of the questions she asked was:
"Why isn't education tailored for different people differently? For example a child in rural area is not going to comprehend what a child living in Urban will. A rural child is going to be familiar with the practices in the village- the farm, the cattle (every house invariably has a cow/buffalo), water from the well/or to walk long distances to get water...these are things a urban child will be unfamiliar with. But the textbooks are filled with examples/lifestyle of a urban child. Why can't the teacher get textbooks or modify the subject so that he or she can teach in a language familiar to the rural child."
I have no answer to it. The government policies are such that we cannot experiment unless you are in a place like IIT or JNU where you can create your own syllabus and teach what you want. You cannot even do that in DU. It is sad because as the girl pointed out it is ultimately the child who is the loser. The textbooks are dreary and filled with examples that a rural child finds difficult to comprehend. There are some changes: Pratham and Ekalavya have done excellent jobs in getting alternative textbooks. But if a child wants to pass class V/VIII board exams then he or she will have to read the prescribed state/central government textbook.
The second question she asked me was:
"What is the scope of this education? Is it that every child should go to college?"
I have wrestled with this question a lot. Invariably I have noticed that a village child and his/her parents on getting education expect a government job. And the child after getting education looks down upon the traditional work of his/her parent. They do not want to go back to the village because it is demeaning to do the same work after getting educated. And in the city their qualifications do not fetch the kind of job they expect. So they are most often left nowhere.
And on the other hand there are girls like the one I met in Varanasi who wants to become a doctor but cannot because she has to get back to work to support the family.
Sometimes life is full of injustices or as I always claim:
Life is miserable.
4 comments:
The term is Indian American! American Indian refers to native Americans.
Thanks Arvind. I made that correction.
Certainly, within American society, the terms "Indian American" and "American Indian" are used exactly as Arvind says. There is also little doubt that many in India use the term "American Indian" exactly as scribbler originally used it. For the other type, "Native Americans" or even worse, "Red Indians" is used. (It's very confusing keeping track of all these Indians :-))
I don't think there is any universal law decreeing which usage is correct. Given that scribbler writes mostly about India and at this point, her audience is mostly other Indians, "American Indian" is not an incorrect usage, in my opinion.
That said, however, American usage is sooner or later adopted by us in India. I had never heard of "op-ed" columns when reading Indian newspapers even a few years back; now the term appears regularly in the "Indian Express." We already see "Indian American" used in many parts of the English language press, so perhaps its just as well that scribbler follows suit.
On a different note: this is just my opinion, so don't take offense but I think you overuse "And" to start a sentence. There are three such instances in the last paragraph of the post alone!
Why isn't education tailored for different people differently? For example a child in rural area is not going to comprehend what a child living in Urban will.
Excuse me; I am not sure this is right. Well into the 1970s, many schools in what was called the "Senior Cambridge" system - later to become the ICSE board - had textbooks which were *exactly* what was used in England. (I think, for sometime after independence, the exam scripts were sent to England for marking!) You had English textbooks talking about novels like "Pride and Prejudice," and obscure events like "Bartholemew's fair" etc. with *no* reference to anything Indian. The only "Indian" part of the education were in History and Hindi. Still, the children who went through all that - mostly "irrelevant" material - came out of it okay.
I think the true fault with education in our rural areas is elsewhere: rotten infrastructure, mostly absent, disinterested and sadistic teachers etc. In general, the urban child is much better off in that she/he has better motivated teachers and infrastructure. You know better than I do about this.
I am not denying that bad and unimaginative textbooks play a part. But I think children are also quite adaptable and can put up with "irrelevant" textbooks provided that they are written well. As someone who had his share of such irrelevant textbooks, I can say that the reason we did not mind them was because they were well-written and we found them interesting, even if the ethos was somewhat alien. [Why are Enid Blyton, Richmal Compton and now, Harry Potter so popular among English speaking schoolchildren in India?] In saying that a child in a rural area cannot comprehend what an urban child is familiar with, you are doing an injustice to the rural child: you are patronising her/him. As someone - I forget who - said, nothing human is beyond understanding.
This does not mean that we should not write better textbooks; just that in our concern for the rural child, we should not focus our efforts on the wrong thing. In my opinion, it is more important to get better teachers and better infrastructure before worrying about textbooks. Of course, I speak academically; as someone with no real-life experience. You will have to excuse me for that.
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