Schooling

It’s about that time when such long queues can be spotted outside schools. Parents go the extra mile to get a seat in the best school for their kids; the extra mile includes paying the extra large fee or donations and recommendation letters from the ever obliging VIPs. In a year I expect to join this group and while I wait with a lot of trepidation I have prepared myself for another task that is ahead, the task of getting the home school ready for my daughter.

Home school, is where children learn the most and sadly I see that folks around me are oblivious to this. What is home school? It is that schooling which my daughter picks up by observing every word and deed that my wife and I say or do and promptly begins to imitate. Every child looks up, observes, imitates and follows his / her parents thereby bestowing a major responsibility on the parents.  It takes a lot of self restraint to ensure that my daughter does not pick up a wrong word or gesture. Watch the video

Today education is a business that is tuned towards the single objective of employment and the schools that have a tradition of producing toppers is much sought after by parents who want to give the best to their kids. Sadly in this one dimensional objective, the holistic development of students is lost. Many schools do not have extracurricular activities, sports facilities, many do not even have a play ground. The children who are caught in this web of book excellence also miss out on something called value education.

I look around and sigh when I see the moral bankruptcy around me, I cringe when I see a parent taking his kid to school on a two wheeler jumping the signal, driving on the wrong side and reaching the school. The parent unspeakingly tells the kid that it is fine to cut corners and the kid will learn a lesson that will be difficult to forget. Will the kid ever think twice when he is faced with a moral dilemma?

Many parents are setting such woeful examples and they believe that their kid will come out with a great education simply because he / she is in a missionary institution. A missionary institution had a student stabbing his teacher and I believe that some where the home school failed that kid.

Working parents are so glad to unload their kids at the priciest sweat shop (school) in the hope that the money will make up for their contributions. Day scholars have become week boarders; they stay in a hostel during the week and come home for the week end.

"Mother, father, teacher, God” and that IS the right order.