What’s It - Play ?

 It was Nelson, who as a child asked – What is the thing called fear?  Our children may not ask the same question, But the question they may well ask is – What is the thing called  play ?

As it is,  children are being deprived of wide open spaces, where they could have had fun and games.

With concrete jungles springing around everywhere, and living space becoming more and more cramped, there is hardly space  left for children to go wild.  To make matters worse, the child has no place to play in, neither has he the time.

Loaded with books, over-burdened with lessons, and taxed with homework, the child feels he has bit off more than he can chew.  And all the while that he is made to mug up a lot of relevant and irrelevant matter, the precious years of life, the El Dorado of childhood keeps slipping away, till it will be too late to lock the stable after the  horse has run.  What a raw deal for the poor kids.

The whole system of education, especially education needs a radical overhauling.  A shifting of chaff from the grain.  Poor Madame Montessori, would have a thousand fits, if she could see the mess that prevails in primary education.

The present system does very little to develop a chi8ld’s flair and individual capabilities. 

Right from the primary stage, education should be more aptitude – oriented.  What we have on the other hand, is a stock-in-trade education, a dreary drill of repetitive lessons, where the child is not given any scope for individual initiative  and expression.  Parrot wise the child repeats what is taught.

With or without comprehension, so long as the child answers the questions, the teacher is satisfied.  Lessons are memorised for the ultimate end- the examination marks.  It is a hell-for –leather grind, and the alpha and omega of it , the examinations.  In the vicious circle , if the child has a penchant towards any particular art or field, it gets atrophied.

In the competitive world, even the K.G. class examinations( Oh God, examinations for a K.G. class ) are prestige issues for the parents.  The parent, whose child betters the marks got by the neighbour’s kid, is as pleased as punch.

It is one up on the Joneses ! Between the teacher and the parent , the child is caught between Scylla and Charybdis.  The tragedy of it is, the child doesn’t even know, what he is missing.  The glorious days of childhood , where open nature and a free mind, would be a far better book for the child, t6han any printed book.

Even as I write , I hear my little daughter laboriously spelling out the words – atmospheric pressure, sure it is pressure, pressure on the child’s mind. By the time she has got it right, she is almost in tears, I wonder if Hercules, would not have failed, had he been set the difficult task of learning what a legislative assembly and a democratic government is, in St. 111.

So in airless, stuffy classrooms, the child who should be running with the wind in his face, and chasing wisps in the air, bends over his books.  If he isn’t quick on the uptake, he gets caned into the bargain , by the impatient teacher.  As if all this weren’t enough, to heap coals on fire, the child is set a heavy load of homework.

And parents who thought they had finished with education for good and all, are back on the band wagon.  For home work , is for the child, and for the parent too.  If a quarter of the teaching job  is done by the teacher, the rest of it is passed on to the parent’s shoulders. Staggering under a load of books in the hand, and lessons in his head, the child who goes to school , dare not tarry, to watch a bird on the wing, or a flower in the hedge.  The child who walks to the claustrophobic confines of the pent-house school , also walks away from childhood that is lost to him. 

Constant dripping wears the stone’.  Too much pressures on young minds will wear them too.  Like the Aegean Stables, our educational system needs a thorough cleansing. When   shall the task begin?