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The unit of inquiry this month is animals… In this we learn about different animals, people who look after them, and how to take care of them. I know I am knowledgeable because I explore concepts, ideas and issues.”

High-sounding stuff, you would agree. I have read it a few times and grappled with the words trying to understand exactly what they are saying, especially the last sentence.

The little para came into my hands when a parent showed it to me. His child, all of 3, was to learn it by rote and recite it the next day in class.

The parent was proud about the fact that his child had been chosen to speak in front of the others; and bewildered by the contents of the speech.

I read through the lines again. What rubbish, I exclaimed. Even an 8-year- old cannot
understand this and speak it meaningfully. And they expect a 3-year-old to do this!

Indeed. How many of us who use the words aspects, issues and the such really know the full extent of their meanings. What, I wondered, were the teachers thinking of.

As time evening progressed I learnt that the child and the child’s mother had worked on
the lines, and the little endeavour had borne fruit. The child now knew the lines, and some of the meaning of the lines, and was now fully empowered to recite the entire passage.

Mission accomplished.

In my years as an editor, I have had the opportunity many a time to sit in judgment at school debates and elocution contests.

Tine and again, I have been awed in admiration as young boys and girls, toes and badges in place, eyes fixed into the far distance expound on theories and arguments that to me seem far beyond their years.

Yet, they seemed to know what they were saying, and spoke with confidence and conviction.I wonder now if much of what I had seen was empty rhetoric. Like this child who would speak of issues, though she was yet learning to speak English, were those children too, tutored and encouraged to learn by rote something their parents or teachers had put together?

What, I wondered as I mulled over the thought, and recreated a mental image of a tiny tot mouthing four-syllable words, is the point in this exercise.

Was it to impress the visiting inspectors or the headmaster? Was it to impress other teachers? Or a test of mental prowess? Surely the children in the audience too would be unable to understand the words and the concepts behind the words. Was this the first lesson they would have in how to look interested while bored to tears!

But look at the way we ourselves have grown. My school song was in Latin, at least part of it was. The nuns who ran my school were from Italy, and they ensured some of Italy came to stay with them. As children, my schoolmates and I too, would sing the school song every morning, Latin and English, and I really wonder when it was I began to understand the meaning of what I sang in English at least. The Latin bit of course still eludes me.

Closer home, how many of us can honestly say we know what exactly the words of Vande Mataram or our national anthem mean. Of course the many controversies over the national anthem have led to some translations, but before that, did we ever give a thought to something that is meant to stir our national spirit and the pride we should feel in this our motherland?

Email: ssaran@dnaindia.net