What schools are good for

Schools have, to my mind, just one function. And that is not education. I mean, when it comes to educating my kid, between my mom, my husband and me, we could at a pinch, home-school the kid. I could take the wimpy subjects like Languages, my husband could do Art, and my mom, to whom Math and Science are light reading, could take care of those.

What we can’t give our child at home, though, is the socialising. The experience of having peers and dealing with them. I firmly believe that schools are a microcosm of the world. The jerks, the push-overs, the alphas, the best friends, the mini politicians, the losers — where can your child meet them all in such small-yet-powerful sizes? At school, that’s where.

Though we opted not to home-school our child, I am not entirely comfortable with the notion of ‘school’. I’d need a whole other article to explain why. I look back on my own school years with some wariness — it wasn’t the worst, but I wouldn’t gush about it either. I guess your school experience is shaped by your own energy, brilliance and resourcefulness. Since I was neither of those things, my years at school weren’t spectacular. Looking back, I can see that the great things about our school were a wide demographic of kids and a bunch of teachers who were sensible, bright, and mostly decent human beings. (Except for my class 3 teacher, who was so nasty, mom considered sending me to her for tuition in order to placate her!)

Schools are good levelers. No matter how shiny and bright you are, the same rules apply. Many great experiences are cheerfully shoved down your throat. We had wonderfully inclusive prayers, and celebrated most festivals. We found other duffers like ourselves to befriend for life. I like that schools enforce sharing and sensitise you to issues without giving you a choice.

My problem with most schools, however, is that they institutionalise competitiveness. They teach you the difference between less and more. This is not the fault of individual schools, but is the nature of the beast itself. Somehow it seems systemically built-in that those who are brighter, smarter, prettier will occupy a space of privilege. When I was in class 2, a teacher walked in and asked our class teacher to ‘send some fair, pretty girls for the concert.’ I wasn’t picked; I didn’t feel traumatised. But since my teacher knew best, and since she didn’t pick me, I decided that I wasn’t pretty. This sort of ‘knowledge’ takes long to wear off. 

The scariest thing about school is the amount of power it gives adults over children. For every kind teacher I know or remember, there are two or three who can damage psyches. Even the nice ones don’t realize just how seriously kids take them. I heard of an ‘alternative’ school where the same teacher takes the same set of kids from class 1 to class 10. Shudder.

Corporeal punishment has been outlawed, thank god, but teachers still hit kids. A friend who went to report such a case to her child’s school was flatly told that no action would be taken against the teacher —despite many complaints against him. I know of verbally abusive teachers who terrorise small children and are not pulled up despite feedback. I guess at this time of flux, when schools are competing with one another, good teachers are hard to find. It’s tough, thankless work to run a school, and often parents simply stand in the sidelines, cribbing. What could help perhaps would be having a feedback system in place. But is that even possible in this large, complex country?

I guess the perfect system, like the perfect spouse, is hard to find, probably because each of us has a different vision of ‘good’ education. Somehow, among all the noise and the opinions, I hope we can do what’s best for our kids!

Anita Vachharajani raises a child, writes children’s books, and spends most of her time worrying about her poor parenting skills.