Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
It is sad that parents in smaller towns face the pressure to enrol their child in an English medium school, thinking that this is the only way to higher education.
This is a real conversation that I came across.
Mother A : “My little one is going to get an admission in a convent very soon.” Mother B : “Oh Good! I am also planning to go for an inquiry at Shamaldas Vidyalaya.”
Mother A : “Oh God! Not a convent?” (Putting both the palms on respective cheeks with eyeballs almost out!) Mother B : “N…no!” (She replied as if she had admitted a crime)
Mother A : “How would your kid make it to IIT then?” Mother B : “What?”
Mother A : “You see. Now a days, English medium is a must. It prepares your kids for IIM and IIT. English medium students become so smart.” Mother B : (Already lost in thoughts…)
END OF THE STORY..
Mother B has cancelled her visit to the Shamaldas Vidyalaya, and will convince her husband and other family members to go for some English medium school.
What type are you? A or B? Well, none of them are wrong. It is a very normal conversation now-a-days. The other one is, “Which board?”
These must be very familiar sentences for you. You might have said or heard them. If I am not wrong, you must be remembering one. Right?
Well, the idea behind this article is a photo. There were a group of school kids in an auto-rikshaw with mixed facial expressions. Some were tired, some were playful, some were looking at the camera with questions. But two things were common: the size of their school bags and an unseen burden.
Kids are doing what they are told to do, Go to school. Go to tuitions. Go to music class. Learn piano. And many more things which we decide on their behalf till they are a certain age. We try to do good for them. We want their future to be glorious. We are not wrong in that.
But along with this all, one bug has entered into our mind so firmly that we are not ready to remove it. That is the teaching MEDIUM. Gujarati medium, English medium, Hindi medium and many more.
This should be decided by the parents and family only. But where is the logic? I mean if you are deciding on the base of a conversation such as one described above, then it is completely illogical. Go and survey. How many IITians and IIM students have done their schooling in their native language? It will score more than you have imagined. It is a simple thing. Why do we complicate it?
How can you say if your 6-year-old kid would ever see IIT or not? You don’t even know about his likes and dislikes. He is just a kid.
I am not saying that English medium or any medium other than the native language is bad. It is not. But to think that mediums other than English are bad should not be acceptable. A kid’s smartness is not dependent on his medium of schooling. It is dependent on the environment he is living in, the people he is living with, the exposure he is getting.
Many cities don’t even have good and decent English medium schools and convents. But still, parents might succumb to peer pressure and put their kids in such schools. Now, the only one who will suffer is the kid. He would neither be able to understand English nor his own native language, as the teaching of English might be poor in such schools, and the child will not stick with his native language, making social circles off limit for him. And that is definitely not healthy for any human being. And this is just a kid, a growing one. The more he meets different people, the more he learns. See, smartness is about these things too. It is not measured by his English vocabulary and fluency only.
There are some English medium schools I know where they give your kids balanced knowledge, where equal importance is given to your native language too, where schooling is not a burden for your kids. If your city has good schools of other than your native language and if you can provide a suitable environment for his healthy growth, and most importantly, if you and your family are confident about it, then go for it. I am repeating myself, it is not BAD.
We are living in an advanced world with so much technology around, but still such core subject is the subject of a question. Why?
Image source: flickr, for representational purposes only.
read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
Please enter your email address