its absolute peak season out here in India. people are falling sick all around us. this is a family bonus fever, which attacks all family members around twice a year. once, in this month and the other will begin again in march or sometimes april. the symptoms are nausea, headaches, stomach ache, yelling screaming etc etc... its starts with the youngest member and moves on to the eldest. now dont get me wrong.. it is not a life threatening illness. its just seasonal. it happens during exam time and locals call it 'exam fever'. The mother will hover like a helicopter on reserve fuel... over her child.. ready to crash on him any minute. the elders of the family, will pity the child and demonize the tuition teacher or the parent who is responsible for the stress caused to their precious 'family jewels'. And the child who hated to take a bath, will take that extra 30 minutes of sanctuary... with helicopter-mom banging away on the door.
its that time of the year when teachers forget that our lives DON'T depend on naming all the figures of speech correctly or proving the theorems in geometry. i believe, that if my child can name 10 family members correctly then that means he is in touch with his core. i believe that he needs to prove his sincerity more than the theorem.
today, children barely manage to converse in their mother tongue.... then how can we enforce more languages on them.. which might be called national or state but seem alien to them? doesnt the child, who speaks in hindi and marathi at home 24/7, have an added advantage over other children who just speak it for that half hour period in school. how can you expect such a child to write an essay on their favourite leader!?!
yes, there are certain subjects which are absolutely required to build up a common base of education in a child's life... but then to judge them... based on something they wrote under stressful conditions is not fair. NOW ALL OF THE ABOVE WAS WRITTEN FROM A PARENT'S POINT OF VIEW specially someone who is going through one such harrowing time.
but look at the other side... AS A TEACHER i feel that exams are a must... but all teacher's need to keep the syllabus reasonable!! it doesn't have to be half text book now and half text book later. it should be ok to ask something meaningful rather than something that's quantitative. as a teacher i feel, that the child will get complacent if he knows he is not answerable. the teacher, herself, begins to develop a care-a-damn attitude. an examination is as much a test for the teacher as it is for a child. the teacher is tested on whether she was successful in explaining a concept. did she make a difference in the child's life or not? will he remember that small historical anecdote she told in class during one of the lectures? it is as much her experience as the child's. so whose reputation is on line here!?!
so finally, i dont know what my children are going to write for tomorrow's marathi paper.... but i wonder who is giving the exam? my kids?? me??? or their teacher????
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