To start with let me tell you straight that we want a generation to move ahead because the previous one (I mean the living one) has drowned itself in a game of coins!
That smile on a child’s face in a school speaks out as to what a teacher’s caliber is! I do not think that anyone can differ with me here!’
-‘Wake up kids because schooling is the only option because without education and necessary qualification none will ask you as to who you are’!
-‘Schools have reopened, the children are back. The virus has gone or not is a different matter of fact. Maybe this lethal form of influenza will find itself in the Biological books but the metamorphosis of the same has to be studied! The scientists and researchers are doing that’!
-‘The children are back in school. They always wanted to be there. Maybe the attitude would have changed and put them back downstairs but we in J&K have a trai load of teachers who can work wonders. But it’s the smiling faces of the children that impresses everyone. Be it the parents or the teachers!’
It’s been almost fifty years of life I have lived and I realized that I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at schools of J&K. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing. Many would differ with me.Had brotherhood of mankind been taught Jammu and Kashmir would have been a different place. But now things will change. The first lesson has to be love for humanity and loving each other! Perhaps many may not differ with me here! The second is that books are the best teachers. Every lesson is there and every good teacher teaches from the books! It’s not a government job but it’s a moral responsibility to get a smile on a pupils face!’
-‘Smiling children and parents started walking to schools and colleges on Wednesday with a sense of relief as schools open after nearly 32 months. Yep the blue and white dresses were back and it was the classrooms that were buzzing! I as a father of daughters, three of them had gone to drop them at the college gate! The eldest said, ‘Dad you have not shaved and you look like Coleridge’s ancient mariner. I smiled and asked her, “kid did you read the great poets, epic poems, ‘rime of the ancient mariner ‘or what? If you want to make a simile or a hyperbole of me then I will suggest the lesson today is ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’! For a moment she stood stunned and the gasp was ‘Oh! Shit! Dad who wrote that? My second daughter whatsapp on heels, ‘and I was doing her practical’s while she was snoring’! I smiled and asked her then asked what did you tell her’! The elder one had a loop face by now but she was spot on, John Keats!’ Kids are like that and teachers know them better than parents!
-‘Incidentally for the kids, I will say that the poem is one of the ‘Great Odes of 1819’, which also include ‘Ode on Indolence’, ‘Ode on Melancholy’, ‘Ode to a Nightingale, and ‘Ode to Psyche’. Keats found existing forms in poetry unsatisfactory for his purpose, and in this collection he presented a new development of the ode form. He was inspired to write the poem after reading two articles by English artist and writer Benjamin Haydon. Through his awareness of other writings in this field and his first-hand acquaintance with the Elgin Marbles, Keats perceived the idealism and representation of Greek virtues in classical Greek art, and his poem draws upon these insights.’! Students get back to books and teachers start loving them once again!
-‘Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.These lines were said by one man and he could have been by the name of Albert Einstein’! I want each and every student of J&K to look into this and read the message delivered by reading in between the lines as to what the great man said!’
I asked a child while he was cycling because trendy bicycles are the latest rage and craze amongst the children. It was a week before I asked him while he was riding through the alley where I stay. He lost his control and banged me from the rear side. I did not topple over but stopped and he with a mum face said, ‘I’m sorry uncle’! I liked the innocence smiled and said, ‘why aren’t you in school? I see you every day wandering around.’ ‘Yes uncle I will be there tomorrow’! ‘You should have begun from today?’! He did not reply but I was glad when he met me on Thursday with a broad smile, nicely turned out and walking to the school bus. But he did not forget to say, ‘uncle extremely sorry I hurt you yesterday’! But I love the brat and he must be a favorite with his teachers!’
If you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk. That is what schools are for and that is what teachers tell.
Ot is great that the authorities have directed to create an air of festivity in schools. DSEJ&K in a message, said that this week it will be more playful, more fun. “We should make small groups of children so that they share the experiences of long pauses, the woes, the happiness, the stress keeping Covid appropriate behavior! Parents, it is time to change the gears and teachers are just another big foot on the gas pedal so the educational matrix gets into top speed!’
