April 18, 2009

Raising cattle or teaching kids ?



You all might have heard of the inhuman act of a primary school teacher that lead to the tragic death of a small girl. I was literally shocked by the news - i mean a small child treated in such a cruel way that too by a teacher. Its totally unacceptable.
I personally know some incidences of such cruel acts to young children. The first thing that come to my mind is about a friend of mine in kinder garten. I don't remember his name but he was a really active kid. But he did something really bad - we were not told what it was, and the teacher called him and asked him to put his palm on her desk. She held his hand and took something sharp; i think it was a blade, and threatened to cut off his fingers if he ever repeat what ever he had done..He was terrified at this.. who wont be? He was in a terrible state for a few days after that. But slowly he returned to normal, but never to the active child he originally was.
May be he had understood his mistake and had changed for good, but that was a horrible piece of teaching to a 4-5 year old.
Another such incident is during my school days while i was in 4th or 5th grade. There was a boy who was not a "bright one" according to the school standards and got into trouble quite a lot of times. So naturally the teachers and especially the principal was not very fond of him.
We had to wear shoes as part of our uniform. But one day, this boy came to class wearing chapels. Our principal who has this irritating habit of peeking into class rooms and checking on the students during his rounds caught him and scolded him. He was asked to return home ( his house was near the school) and come back with a letter from his parents.
He came back after the interval, ie after 2 periods, but he still wore the same chapels. But there were spots of blood on this shirt with fresh scars of beating on his arms - his dad's anger to the principal. I dont really know what made this evil man beat his own child for no fault of his. But this boy, he took it rather well, was telling us this with a smile on his face. He was transferred from our school the next year and i don't know what came off him.
He was a really nice kid - the best athlete in our batch and was also exceptionally good in one subject alone - Maths. This alone tells us where he would have reached if given the chance.
These are the incidences of cruelty to children i know of. But ive heard in news that the child star from the famous movie Slumdog Millionaire were beaten by their parents in front of the media. Dont they know that these kids too have feelings?
And ive seen a lot of children in the streets who are beaten up by their parents to beg. Once incident remains as a painful scar in me. Some time ago, while i was going to the Trivandrum Railway station, there was a woman with her child who was barely a year old i guess by the footpath. When i walked passed them she pushed the kid toward me asking her to beg to me. She pushed her so hard that the poor child feel face first on the concrete pavement. I was soo hurt and angry, i just couldnt do anything. I was so angry that i felt like kicking that bitch's face with my shoes.
The sad thing is i dont find any notable difference between this begger in Tvm and the educated asshole with B Ed degree in New Delhi.
If this is the case what is the purpose of education?


SHOCKING NEWS:

Slumdog kid Rubina's father puts her on sale
check out this video from Times of India
(thank you Priya for notifying this)

32 comments:

Priya Joyce said...

sadly :( still there are people who treat kids like that. Huh! its very sad..and i still haven't come over that school gal incident ..It was a very sad news..

:(

I have seen such incidents in front of my eyes..but am happy that my parents are strictly against it and have never treated me like that. They are teachers(princi s) by profession. Am not a spoiled child..am saying it coz some parents and teachers think if they aren't rude or strict kids become irresponsible and so on...

Ahh! Well Btw Cattle too deserves respect don't u thnk so ? ;)

This was a nice post ..socially conscious.

muthu said...

kids sometimes become a vent out for the adults with sadistic tendencies and anger management issues.......

this is the most lowest of the lowest of the things one can do... hurt a kid.....

I hate people hurting kids.......

good post....

Dhanya said...

I know! I hate it when kids are treated so bad by adults. Not all teachers are nice. I was subjected to rude, snide remarks by teachers when I was young. I know it hurt like hell for few weeks, but thank God I bounced back. Such remarks can be as scarring as physical abuse.

Amal Bose said...

@Kochu
thanks for the comment :-)

Amal Bose said...

@ Priya
ya some people do have that idea..
n yes cattle too do respect. but here not even humans are getting it, then its better not to think of their condition :-(

Amal Bose said...

@ muthu
thank you.
i totally agree with you.

Amal Bose said...

@ dhanya
yes, i think such remarks hurt more than physical pain which we can tolerate. but that which affects our heart leave long term scars

Anya said...

sad state of education in our country... any plans to come out of this situation


www.chronicwriter.com

Deepika said...

you know what.. its an really a bad situation... we are moving towards development with such kinda treatment to the future of our country... what our system is doing... nothing more than creating negative minded ppl with bad past... our society is creating criminals and we blame politics and every other damn thing... huh!!

Such teachers need mental treatment how the hell they can even think of beating such innocent kids....

Touching post... i liked it... And i wish i could do something in practical too... here you and me talking n there those li'l kids are tolerating voilence....

mathew said...

physically punishing kids is something which i detest absolutely..even if they give immediate returns..i believe it leaves an idelible mark in the long run...

Amritorupa Kanjilal said...

amal, there are still people in this world who make a living by exploiting children. and so many people have this tendency to hit anything they know wont hit back.
what a society we are, and what a society we are bringing up :(
this is one of the reasons i am so afraid to bring kids into the world.

Rahul Viswanath said...

Saddening ..... Any ways to get out of it or better it ?? ....

Amal Bose said...

@ Chriz n Rahul
the only way is building awareness.. n i dont think that is easy in our country

Amal Bose said...

@ Deepika
thanks..
thats true. some of us writing a post on this subject once a while does no difference to the life of these children. its high time we do something abt this.
but the question is what?

Amal Bose said...

@ Mathew
it certainly does.. along with the physical pain, the humiliation to be punished in front of others definitely hurts the child

Amal Bose said...

@ Little Girl
i dont know what they have in mind. i mean how can they hurt there little kids like this?

vinny said...

i could recollect some of my school days n how some kids after being punished lost all signs of self-esteem...they would be quite n alone most of the times..

Teachers need to fulfil some criteria in order to gain their teaching degree..some child psychology n humanity course probably

Rr. Raihan Rizki Ramadhani said...

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Sure, it'll be such a pleasant for me if you can blogroll my blog in yours.
and by the way, I also love your posts! and I sense that you are good in sketching. The Emma Watson sketch you made, it is really awesome! ;D
Can you make more? I'd love to see 'em!

Amal Bose said...

@ Vinnie
I think they teach psychology for BEd.
but apparently there is no use

Amal Bose said...

@ Rere
thank you..
ya ill post them on my blog..

kochuthresiamma p .j said...

yeah. something terrible like this happens and there is an instant furore in the public, media and blogsphere. and then everybody forgets it and things get back to square one.
tragic!

Tina said...

Sad story:( I don't like what they did to those kids. Kids are kids,you could ask a child acting as an adult, that's their natural.

Think Tank said...

the world is full of sickos

workhard said...

HI... this is an excellent post.. by now u must have also heard about the boy who was made to stand out in the hot sun and then collapsed into a coma and eventually die.. School is supposed to be another home and teachers are suppossed to be like parents.. if they instill fear.. then what will the child learn..


Poetry

Amal Bose said...

@kochu...
ya, you r right. apparently we have more burning issues in our lives to solve.

Amal Bose said...

@Tina, Think Tank
:-(

Amal Bose said...

@ workhard
ya, thats what i mentioned here

Anonymous said...

I can't believe it... Even witnessing that kindof violence at 4 or 5 is scary. I've been brought up in the west where education & healthcare are free, and it scares me to think that this kind of thing still happens. Doesn't every kid deserve to live to their full potential?

Anonymous said...

Oh, and you might be interested in knowing, the allegations about Rubina are a hoax...

Here's a link
http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-39138520090420?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

I am Alive said...

Hey, you just made me feel nostalgic... From my 2nd till 4th grade, I almost lived in terror. The reason what almost similar to what you have mentioned... No doubt that the strict demeanor of my teachers have made materialistically successful academically.. But I still hate my teacher.. Even now when I think of my childhood I can not control those helpless sobs ...
Good post

AS said...

nice heart warming post ..sad but this is the very reality :'(

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