Longings for an Empathetic Education
Author: Srajan Bhatnagar
It was the autumn of 2003; it was raining outside and the students, with the attention span of a goldfish, were starting to shift their focus from the Hindi lesson that was going on, to the concentric ripples within the muddy puddles. I was eight years old and a part of this class (didn’t really want to be though).
The teacher at the helm of the proceedings was a middle-aged lady whom we all feared. She would scoff at us if we were not standing in an upright posture during the assembly, and if we mistakenly brought literature textbooks for a grammar exercise, we would be slapped. She’d berate students if their shoes were soiled or if their socks weren’t wrapped around their legs, looking like dressed up bamboo poles.
This was the norm in the overtly strict environment at my convent school in Delhi, a place I spent the most memorable part of the foundational years of my life from 1999 to 2011. It was the place where I learned friendship and found love; but it was also the place that took a toll on me and many other students and many of us continue to reel under the shadows of those experiences, even a decade down the line.
I didn’t especially love studies or even going to school, I didn’t know then that the boy sitting right next to me — nibbling on his eraser — would be the most valued friend I’d have almost two decades down the line; that morning, I was just an eight-year-old in Standard 3rd in the midst of a Hindi lesson who was more interested in the rain and the puddles.
“Srajan Bhatnagar!” the lady said my name loudly and asked me to pick up and continue reading from where she’d left. I wasn’t paying attention and had no clue. With trembling hands, I picked up the book and tried to pronounce the squishy script. A CD fell from the pages of the book and rolled down the aisle towards the teacher. All hell broke loose! I didn’t remember keeping a CD in my bag, though I’d often exchange computer games with my classmates after school. I was called to the front of the classroom. My hands were caned with a wooden ruler. I remember counting as the lady hit me with the scale thirteen times — then the scale broke against my palm.
This wasn’t a one-off incident and I have been hit physically in school ever since I was six. Most of my friends had similar experiences. The offenses ranged from something as innocuous as not having a brown cover on your notebook to forgetting to shine your shoes.
I have to point out that the girls were sometimes exempted from the thrashings, which, in middle school culminated in resentment towards certain girls. They were the ones who were monitors and they usually scored well academically. As horrifying as it may sound, in 6th standard, when the monitor had to be beaten finally because her offence was witnessed by the teacher, the whole class stood up and clapped, embarrassing the eleven-year-old girl further. This brings me to the kind of favoritism that was practiced in the school — it was brutal, self-reverential, and spiraled into an endless cycle.
Usually, all teachers have some favorite students — and that’s okay as long as it doesn’t inhibit the possibilities of other students realizing their potential with the unequivocal support of the teachers and administration. But that was hardly the case during my years at my school. Certain students — often the ones who’d score well and have ‘good’ handwriting — would be given a disproportionate amount of opportunities to develop confidence and perform well in academics and extra-curricular activities. The students were selected probably based on their ‘manageability’ — most disciplined ones would be chosen. The school completely disregarded the fact that just because someone is not the best dressed, it doesn’t mean that they might not be a better speaker than someone who probably has the resources to buy five sets of uniforms. I remember not making it to the drama team in standard 9 because my hair was scruffy, wouldn’t stay combed, and would be ‘unpresentable’ after 4 hours in school.
These biases weren’t just limited to the extracurriculars. A friend of mine had to go with his parents to get a mark for answering that the Red fort is in Agra. The GK book had mentioned that it is in Delhi and the teacher refused to budge — because she didn’t consider my friend intelligent enough to pay heed to his request. I was in standard 4 when my Social Sciences teacher, without any proof, asked how I’d managed to cheat. This was because despite being a beck-bencher I’d scored 97.5 in the midterms.
In addition to stifling the confidence of kids who didn’t fit into the mould of an ideal student prescribed by the administration, innumerable attempts were made to streamline the student body. Often students were reprimanded from forming friendships with certain students. My parents were warned by two different teachers when I became friends with the guy who has now been my best friend for over 15 years — this was done only because he wasn’t a scholar, he spent more time between the creases playing cricket than in the classroom. I often wonder how many other students — potential friends — I lost because probably their parents were told something similar regarding their ward’s budding friendship with me.
On paper, there was a student cabinet meant to provide leadership to students and to facilitate interaction between students and the administration. More importantly, it was a framework to provide students with an experience of leadership. But it did little in this regard and instead seemed to function just like a group of students who were chosen to help teachers punish the offenders. Right from the beginning of the day — the assembly — the cabinet members would catch students who weren’t in impeccable uniform, or those who didn’t participate in the exercises enthusiastically, and so on. These students — often as young as 7–8 years old — would then be caned by teachers. Additionally, the process of selecting the student cabinet was such that the same people got a chance to serve for multiple years. Often these were the same students who’d been monitors in middle school. The rest of us were told to aspire to be like these students, at the expense of our individuality.
All of the resources, including time, effort, and opportunity in various facets of student life like sports, arts, leadership, and academics was focused towards a handful of students. As a result, other students questioned not only their talents but also their self-worth — most of us belonged to the middle class. There is often a lot of emphasis on academics for kids from working-class families as, unlike those who belong to rich business families, there is no generational wealth or self-employment opportunity awaiting students from the middle class when they graduate. From the moment you step into the hallowed chambers of any school, there is undue pressure is on your report cards.
These self-doubts, exacerbated by the differential treatment, took a toll on my mental and physical well being. Tragically, these experiences made me aim lower than what I’d have otherwise aimed for in life, had the system not structurally dented my self-confidence. I remember when I did exceptionally at the entrance exam for one of the best schools in Delhi and got through, I was as shocked as anyone else. The same cycle of disbelief repeated itself when I was able to get into one of the better colleges for my higher education. These revelations became a constant part of my reassessment of my own self. I was surprised when I was able to articulate myself publicly in large crowds because I’d only gotten one chance to speak onstage during my years at school. I also had to find courage; I was riddled in self-doubt when I got the opportunity to lead a club in college — I’d hardly even gotten a chance to discover or groom these qualities during my time at school.
Retrospectively, now I feel that the school missed a chance to expose us all to the ideals of democratic communities, and to prepare us for the conflict of ideas that all adults face. Instead of accommodating a broad set of ideas and people, the system turned education into a monolith. “Obey or suffer.”, the system seemed to be telling us while crushing our curiosity. While the pedagogical debate around the inclusion of conflicts in classrooms is ongoing, not many deny the fact that life requires us to interact with varying ideas and opinions and formulate our views. It is not only a function of education, it is education itself. Overt disciplinarian methods and favoritism kept some voices from being heard, which stifled not only peer-to-peer learning but also limited the ideas that floated on campus.
Over the years, I have talked to my friends who have had similar experiences and most of them resonate with my experiences. While it is normal for people to rediscover themselves during college years, some of us had to fight and break that misconstrued idea of our capabilities that had been imposed on us. A lot of rules are imposed on us by the system without reflecting on whether that’d enable our individual growth.
During the course of myriad conversations with friends and classmates at college, I realized that these experiences weren’t unique to my school. Physical punishments and mental pressures were structural tools used by schools while trying to ‘groom’ students.
Instead of inculcating a sense of value into each individual student, these tools often blemish the fabric of a young scholar’s imaginations and take them away from their creativity and dynamisms. Notwithstanding the policy issues and the rote learning models that abound our education system at large, these individualistic patterns of behaviors by our teachers and administrators often lead to the system failing many of its students, thus rendering itself inefficient. Education is not only a way up the social ladder for middle-class students with ambition, it is also pertinent to building better communities — building the country’s future should have at its center the future citizens of India, its students.
I believe that the road to inclusion and betterment begins with introspection and acceptance. While I wouldn’t trade memories from my student days for anything, I still believe that all of us, who are a part of the educational system that pervades and moulds the Indian society, should reflect on the experiences that we subject our kids to. We owe them an education system that works for all, an environment that’s safe mentally and physically for their innocent selves, a culture where individuality is accepted. Additionally, every educational institute is a space for people to fumble and learn irrespective of their level of confidence, skill, and personality type. After all, it isn’t education till it teaches us all to build an accepting and safe society, where everyone leads their own selves towards the betterment of everyone.
About the Author: Srajan Bhatnagar
Srajan Bhatnagar is a resident of NCR. When not entrenched in deep nostalgia of his childhood, he loves talking about books, films, photographs, and the city of Delhi.
For Mental Health Support visit here
Read our story May the Best Memories be Free of Stains and Scars here
For Submission Guidelines visit Write for Purple Speaks
