Impressions

A group of chatty young girls sat in front of Sunita (their vocational trainer) and are trying to guess what today’s class was going to be about.

The class is activity based; descriptions such as adorable, confident, responsible, fair and more are projected on the wall. Each one has to pick 5 words they think best describes them. It sounded like fun!

All girls scribbled away enthusiastically. Some were honest about their vulnerabilities and picked confused or anxious, but mostlygirls wrote positive attributes such as happy, helpful, fair.

Once this was done each of the girls had to pick 5 words to describe the person next to them. What was truly interesting was that most girls described their partner as selfish (teenage girls! I thought to myself!) but they also described their partners as being helpful.

Sunita, smiling as if she was expecting this, asked two girls to stand up

“Priya* why don’t you tell us what you wrote about yourself?”

“Yes ma’am. I am helpful, confident, calm, fair and responsible”

“Good’’ Sunita replied, “Kajal* what did you write about Priya?”

“Ma’am Priya is helpful, adorable, honest, selfish and proud”

A certain group of girls giggle at this criticism, Priya frowned.

Sunita responds “Girls…should we not be proud of our achievements?”

“Yes ma’am” comes a roar.

“Now Kajal thinks Priya is selfish. But Priya think she is fair. Who is right?”

The two girls look at each other and someone from the class says “No one is right and no one is wrong”. “That is right girls…someone may have a negative impression about you but that should not affect us. We should always remember who we are.”

It was in that moment that I wished my expensive education had spent some time teaching me and other girls about self-esteem.

In our society, we do not let girls view themselves as independent empowered individuals but let them believe that their worth is dependent on other people’s opinion of them. We tell them to adjust their skirt lengths but never measure their intelligence! And here I was in a government school, in a class full of girls who were being taught exactly what we need to be teaching future leaders and young minds — life skills. I had witnessed a revolution!

While most 11th graders are taught to focus on the feelings of others, here are young adults; girls who were taught to support and challenge each other in an healthy environment. Education cannot get any better than this I feel.

*Names have been changed.