The other day, I was fantasizing about my son’s first day of school. How he would probably be the one to console me as I prepare myself to be detached from him for more than two hours. How my dad would leave him at the school gates, watching him walk in sheepishly. How he would win over his teachers with his charm and intellect.
My mind rewound itself to twenty (plus) years ago and all my school struggles flashed in my mind like a feature film.
Back then, in our school, we had five sections for each class—‘A’ being the billet for the exemplary while ‘E’ was the dwelling place for the substandard. As if we were consumer products being categorized based on our competence.
As if the stratification was not demoralizing enough, they made sure to make it evident during the morning assembly as well by making the topper of the class stand in front of the class line and lead it. What could be the rationale behind it? Was it to encourage the meritorious to keep up the good work or to belittle the average students by compelling them to follow the commands of a student whose success was being measured by a rank purely based on their performance in a class exam—I mean, who cares about leadership skills, communication and positivity? Ranks are all that matter. It could be possible that the twelfth ranker is a future frontrunner for the Nobel Peace Prize, but who cares?
Okay, it’s certainly not possible for the school authorities to comb for the next prospective world leader to choose as a class leader but they can surely use worthy factors when appointing a student to lead a class of sixty students. That would knock out the barriers between the students and motivate each of them to focus on the quality of their education rather than the mere arithmetic gauges of success.
I still remember how distraught I used to feel when I see the double-digit number on my report card despite scoring distinction (80% and above). It crushed my spirits when I was shifted to another section based on my class rank.
If caste bias is worse, then what do you call this?
Imagine being in the last section (E) and getting condescending looks from the prior sections as if they are Oxford University graduates?
Thankfully, the school realized its mistake and abolished the “section system”. They merged the whole class and filled the sections with a mix of each—excellent, average and poor.
The excellent was forced to mingle with the “inferior” (as they perceive) ones. And the system was to blame more than the students for this display of arrogance.
They have polluted their minds by treating them like royalty and ingraining this vain attitude right from the beginning.
Let me relate an unforgettable incident.
When the sections were merged, the teacher of the class was systematically assigning seats to the students by placing at least one bright student in each bench so that he/she would help out the so-so ones.
One girl who ranked first in every test and exam was allocated a seat beside two poor students. At once, she cried out saying, ‘No way, ma’am! I’m not sitting between those two!’
‘Ma’am, she’s the class topper. How can you make her sit between them?’ another girl, probably her groupie, protested.
‘You guys need to help out each other. That’s the whole purpose of this seating arrangement,’ the teacher explained.
‘Please, ma’am, no,’ the girl looked close to tears. As though she was being coerced to sit in a mud pool with two pigs.
‘Not a word! Go, take your seat,’ the teacher ordered.
She stomped off with her backpack on tow and sat between the mortified girls, sulking.
Schools are supposed to imbibe moral values like humility, integrity, honesty, etc. in children. But what they in turn did was to shape the students, especially the bright ones, into snobs who view everyone else below their standards as trash.
At least now, the education system has been tweaked to do away with many forms of discrimination and focus on moulding the kids into virtuous citizens. I’m grateful to God that my son wouldn’t have to deal with the kind of pressure I used to be under when the ranking system was effective.
I’m going to close this with one of my favourite quotes.
Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people – your family, friends, coworkers, and even strangers you meet along the way – Barbara Bush.
LASS IN A MESS 