Child series - Five articles
Child series - Five articles
I was perhaps in the sixth grade. We had a teacher - a craft teacher. Craft period was when we would make products out of paper, cardboard or other material. The culmination activity at the end of the year was creation of any five three-dimensional articles. Now the teacher told students that if they bought a plastic doll from her, some velvet material and some other accessories like sequins, she would help them make a dress for the doll from the velvet cloth and the doll in the velvet dress could be one of the articles. As this is so long ago, I cant exactly remember if students had to buy the doll from the teacher for a fee or if the students had to buy the doll and the velvet cloth themselves from a shop and the teacher would help them stitch the velvet dress for a fee, but a fee was involved. Craft was not something I was good at, but I could not dream of asking my parents for money for the doll. Money was spent for uniforms (two of them) notebooks, and textbooks (second hand). Items like school bags (simple bag made of jute), pencil box and water bottle had to be used until it tore or broke. I remember that every year, my cousin sister and I would tear unused pages from our old notebooks and give them for binding to create new note books. Binding books was cheaper than new notebooks. We would buy additional notebooks from the store if the bound books were not enough.
So I made my own five articles with no help from my parents. My mother was a teacher in the same school and was busy with household chores when she came home from school and my father was not the type to sit with me and find out what I needed. Even in the mornings, my mother was busy preparing breakfast to carry to school and my father would be getting ready for office and both were not involved at all in my school life. I used to learn by myself (except Math which my mother taught me) and get ready to school by myself. Many parents I see today remind their children of the work they have to do and what they have to carry to school. I never expected that from my parents, and was usually self reliant. Unfortunately I did not take the five articles to school on the due date. I forgot.
Come the craft period, the teacher asked everyone to submit their five articles. I saw that many students had purchased the doll and the material from the teacher and one of their articles was the doll dressed in a velvet gown decorated with sequins. I saw many other students had made such exceptional articles - a bungalow, a garden, a swing..some of the students were not very good at craft like me and I felt a pang of jealousy as I knew that someone had helped them...either their parents or their older siblings perhaps.
The teacher called out my name. I stood up hesitantly and told her that my articles were ready, but I forgot to bring them to school. The teacher gave me such a dressing down that I will carry the memory of this to my grave. She said really mean things like "Just because you are a teacher's child, dont think I will spare you. I will fail you, if needed. Don't think you can take advantage of the fact that your mother is a teacher, When you are asked to get it today, how can you forget". On and on she went...I was miserable, more so because she was dragging my mother into this berating and she did not have to. My mother had nothing to do with this!!
Later on, my classmates told me that I should have purchased the doll from her as she was very nice to all the students who had purchased it and that all these students got good marks. They told me that it was not expensive at all and pointed out that a student who had purchased the doll from her and had taken her help to make the dress also forgot the articles like I did, but she just told the student "Get it tomorrow."
Why did we have such an education system? Such mean teachers? I am really grateful that times have changed and many schools are now focussing on positive behaviour intervention systems and also thankfully, many schools are now following rules that prevent any money or gift exchange between teachers and students.The National Council for Teacher Education, New Delhi, came up in 2010 with a draft 'Code of conduct for teachers' which in section 3, 'Obligations towards the Profession and Colleagues', sub-section 3.5, clearly states "Refrains from accepting any gift or favour that might impair or appear to influence professional decisions or actions". (I could not find the final version of this document). But there are still schools in urban and rural areas where students are being punished and receive physical and verbal lashings. And teachers 'like' some students and 'dislike' others based on self interest or for other reasons. Who will keep a check on such schools?
Image Credit: Freepik AI Image Generator
Excerpt from: NCTE Code of Conduct for teachers: https://etico.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/2019-02/india_2010_code_of_professional_ethics_for_school_teachers.pdf
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