Strictly weighed burdens of satchels on the shoulder and less on the mind, please!

Isn’t this a sorry state of the country where a ban was imposed on satchels that weighed over the limit by the government? Now government intervention (government which is unable to withstand the burden of its own responsibility and the nation at whole) needed to limit the physical damage to the kids in school itself depicts the sorry state of the education system and the misconceptions regarding the philosophy of learning.

Now that’s some mockery of school and the sentiments of the children themselves with government coming to their rescue because schools don’t understand that education is not gained by carrying many books on satchels to school. And that it is not studying that induces wisdom and understanding of the real theories to be able to analyze them in contextual terms and draw inferences to carve out a future for themselves and the nation as a whole.

Drawing a more realistic portray of the aforementioned metaphor would coin studying derivative matrix, practicing several similar problems numerous times throughout the whole of the academic calendar and scoring almost the perfect score with studying without learning which is not the need of the hour if students were to grow up to use those derivative matrices learned (and not studied) in school as a tool to relate the effects of derivative market on the economy of a nation and inadvertently solve some imminent issues of financial market crash humbling one large economy down. No wonder, (Asians) Nepalese are good at solving maths but not at creating mathematical theories or even contextual economic theories based on maths. (#Sheep) History is my witness.

The murky fact that schools are learning centers has been burdened underneath years of wrong values and culture. People believe that it is a place to mug up theories and words from the book, centered on the words scribbled in books and knowledge without actual wisdom and understanding. They never screech out beyond the present value to imagine critically question each theory from applied standpoint and contextualize them to reality under our senses.

This misconstrued belief is what has metamorphosed into a cult of carry satchels heavier than the school kids’ own body weight. If you miss one book or one exercise book for a class then you’re doomed. You’re on the receiving end of stringent punitive action by school authorities, extending to abuse by the headmaster or the headmistress. Now, at this time when the world sees abuses of all sorts as heinous crimes, Nepalese children have to tolerate the abuses from school authorities if the abuses unaccounted for at home were not enough.

I, as a student during my school days, was never a happy follower of this trend and a culprit of blasphemy at school for my attitude of bringing to school just one exercise copy. I’ve been on the receiving end of such abuses a few times while in school for rebelling against this notion which never appealed to my desire to learn and not study, and never valued the writings in the books which the teacher either jotted down on the blackboards or dictated to us to copy to our note books. (It was probably my academic performance and my teachers’ belief that I had potential behind my lackadaisical side to come out with flying colors that saved my day on each occasion.) I still vividly remember our 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Stanley Benson Rowe telling us in one of his lectures that when you copy from the book or someone’s note to your notebook, the writings and the knowledge merely travel from the source book to the destination book and never transit in the mind of the copier to even stir up imaginations in the culprit’s mind. Now that for me is blasphemy in school and education.

It must be that very thing that played on my mind consciously but unconsciously, even before and always after, English was the only subject where the teacher breached the code of school’s educational conduct to perforate beyond the walls of ordinary teaching methodologies to tread upon the endless terrain of imagination into a quest to find the boundless human ability to think and learn to stir up our understanding which I believe is the right approach. So, mathematics for me was the devil’s code, easy to understand from the teacher’s perspective, easier to solve to score high but never able to stir up my imagination- it is what I called incompetent mathematics unable to carve out a path for the students to create mathematical theories and contextual theories with practical implication in applied studies/education.

Now, coming back to contextualizing that to the present day, the schools still believe that education is what is called mugging up the theories in the books and asking “What is it that you studied” when the actual test questions should have been “What is it that you learned and can you find practical application of your learning”. I remember my compatriots from the computer faculty during my engineering undergraduate studies reiterating a statement made by one of their teachers, quoted in his words as, “In Nepal we have memory tests while the right way is to have IQ tests.”

This is exactly what the students learn in school- to memorize and then write them down in tests to earn great grades- which they believe reflect their ability to perform and to do things well. What they fail to understand is that letting their ego come out in a competitive state of the mind to mug up the entire book and pour their memory’s content out into the answer sheet in a test is not the true reflection of one’s ability. This brings into perspective the relevance of one saying and notion in Nepal’s case- “A good student may never be the best employee.” Now the writings all over the wall if you see that the evaluation is as wrong as the values and beliefs themselves are or perhaps more wrong if it (evaluation) meant anything at all.

So re-converging to the main issue draws up a question, “Does one’s reluctance to carry a weight up to 4 KGs of satchels for a student up to grade 5, 6 KGs for a student up to grade 8 and 8 KGs for a student above grade 9, a measure of his/her inability to learn and excel or does it exclude one from the herd. It may perhaps qualify as a blatant crime in the eyes of the authority, since these are limits imposed by the government, and make students liable to punishment and physical abuse.

Now, this brings into limelight another issue of physical abuse not limiting to the walls of the school premises but also to homes by abusive parents. This would open a whole new chapter into the issues of poor human rights and child rights eminent in third world countries like Nepal.

These issues would scoff out a raucous wave of disdainful laughter from that section of the crowd which has been silently watching these scenes with full understanding but been timidly sitting, mocking the vociferous minority and hapless majority. They believe that every voice they hear is not their concern and they are above them as they are able to shrug off such biases in schools for their children with the sheer wit and might of monetary power and assertive relations with authorities not just of schools but also bureaucrats and diplomats. For them, both the government (Nepal as a country) and people fighting these negative influences and energies controlling the government are incompetent and the war raging on between these parties merely amusing, not worth their attention, never a match to their wit and wisdom (as needless as it was to even mention here).

Yet, they are unaware of tabooed jolts of human nature that may hit them when avalanches of stones pelted at the authorities may misfire and gullibly find ways to their glass houses mistaking them for the authorities they befriend so dearly and so gleefully with unbound pride.

And I may be treading upon that pride as I say that rhetoric is what people hate, especially when they are on the receiving end of such rhetoric and annoyingly it is my forte. So, I might as well not raise questions like, “is it not in the child’s right to say enough is enough- no more of ragging their innocence and playing around their sentiments to woo over the people’s trust, rubbing cold oil over the fresh wounds of child abuse and lackadaisical approach in schools?”

Strike Striking the Nation, Crippling the Minds and Nothing Else

Education! Education is for those who don’t have skills for survival and need to work to meet their daily demands; we protest articulating our demands to be met in the streets not through skills learned in the school. Schools after all are shut every now by the teachers themselves demanding their lavish (not basic needs) be satiated and all the learning you draw from schools is just “Demand You Rights, rights you inherit as Nepali and not that you earn through bearing civil responsibility. So schools have since long have been redundantly incepting ideas of political Bandhs (nothing creative). It has finally emerged clean from the dearth of Nepalese poverty- A Cult called Bandh! (Now that’s hip.)

Bandh is a culture deep rooted in the psyche of the youth. Youths are imparting their rebellious ways/visions upon the silent majority, creating an aura of fuming pressure cooker in the Nation through bandhs, and bewildering the national economy and educating the young minds about demanding like spoilt brats of rich parents (Countries), totally discarding the thing called national civil responsibility. The political faction is there to look after these necessities. (Yeah Definitely!!!!) What they voice raucously for is their demands which they want though they may be unaware what exactly they’ll do after the demands are met.

(Empathetically- Speaking like them)

Who cares? Let tomorrow think about it before it comes to us (Nepal). For now, we don’t care about thirst, hunger, pain or empathy. Who says the economy is suffering? Nothing new! So let it bear some more excruciation, since we voice for the greater good and we don’t look at the aggravation culminating our nation, jolting down under woes of faltering economy, the imminent food shortages and the ominous inflation in daily consumer goods, we won’t hear more complaints about hungry children or sick infants or crippled people/economy. The people are resilient to such food crisis as well, since half of the population has learned to live off single meal and devoid from the luxuries of lavish cuisines like in many of the moderately developed or all of the well developed countries. This is how empathy has grown in the young and fervent minds taking shape of apathy to the observers outside the pressure cooker.

So what is it that is happening in the nation, what is the cause of it, where is it leading us and how are they leading us? We have to know all this about ourselves since even a blind person would want to know where s/he is going since we are not handicapped and have perfect senses- if feeling accounted for sense, this perfect sense phrase would be an irony here. Yet, more importantly, where are the proponents, the strident crowd, propelling the notion of state restructuring with division done on the basis of caste and ethnicity? Or are they just similar to the bulls’ herd rampaging through in San Fermin (Bull Running festival shown famously in the Hindi Movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’s last scene) on the back of the vision imparted by the visionary leaders who might have had an undiagnosed case of myopia, metaphorically.

I guess, the nation which is steaming up to the deadline of Constitution in Nepal, Jestha 14 and the scenes are reminders that we are indeed being treated royally for wanting some change for better. Well, we might have been getting something better, a better show to say the least, something to pass time, watching the news channel as there is a people versus people war show on TV. Yes, a war indeed, an internal conflict to term it perfectly, but for what- an uprising for something called caste, ethnicity and culture? Well we might not be aware that newer unheard castes and ethnicities have emerged in an outcry seeking a state for them as well, more like a piece from the Nepal’s (B’day) Constitution Cake. Moreover we have already created another culture- the bandh culture.

If they don’t get something, then the only option at their disposal, their arsenal of wit, is Strike!! Nepal Bandh!! Now even kids have learned that Phrase- Nepal Bandh! One day, our kids in our homes will protest if their parents don’t buy them a Play Station. They will go on hunger strikes against parent for reprimanding them for not focusing on creative studies. Well, no one will be able to complain about such demands and protest. It is now a culture for Christ Sake!!!! (As you sow, so shall you reap?) And every culture is for good, isn’t that what we grew up learning in schools and that Nepal is a country of diversity in demographics, language and culture. Here’s another culture to add to that list of omnipresent cultures. Now that’s creativity on part of Nepalese. (I am hearing Loud Applause or is it my hallucination?)

But where did this culture stem from? Now this is a part of the deductive reason skills we lack in school or are forgotten to be taught in school. But wait…. It isn’t even part of our age old curriculum. (No!!!)

(Empathy lesson again)

We, the bandhkartas, the proponents of this Bandhs, didn’t learn it; we are but merely cult followers. So who are the trend setters? I guess this is lamely rhetoric question to ask. The political parties, of course!!! And the major political parties should take the biggest credit for being such pioneers. We are, but following the trails of the footprints left behind by our leaders- our visionaries. They have been talking about Radical Change for the last 20+ years since the reinstatement of democracy in 1990.

Now, the vision- of changing Nepal into Switzerland or USA in 20 years- was portrayed by the then revolutionary cult setters. And now seeing that they failed in their mission of creating a Utopia in Nepal, at par with those two exemplary countries, bewildered by their ravenous appetite for money and power, and overindulgence in riveting acts of corruption, the herd called people has taken over charge to getting along the mission themselves and creating a world beyond their imagination. I guess, here ignorance and years of suppression under fascism and staying aloof from the world around may have kept them away from knowing the history that Modern American History dates back a few centuries. Well, no one can blame them or the country itself neither the usurped Tyrants- Kingdumbs- for not including Modern American History in the course syllabus. It would be silly unless if the teachers never bothered to relate those events and teach critical analysis.

Having elaborated about all unnecessary analyses of my own, I escaped the major issue of concern here, the ones circling the facts- The News! But I guess, it is elementary and even our neighbors’ kids give Nepal Bandhs as reasons for not going to school. I guess, no one needs news now, everyone knows. Since there isn’t much making the headlines except the bandh, and every event transpiring from Bandh- protests, road blocks, vandalism of vehicles, shops, businesses, man-handling and much more. They are all news for now, how entertaining!

-          Written By: Romeo Maskey (रोमियो मास्के)

Date- May 21, 2012

Transparency in Governmental and Bureaucratic Activities

 

A few days back, I had a small discussion with my mom and she came up with an idea which at that moment sounded brilliant to say the least. It is about having transparency in the government's activities and reports which will be done by youth groups at youth's initiative.

Asking myself a question, "Is it not my right to know where all the tax money, we pay goes, and how all activities that government plans every year are carried out?" Then I realized it is every citizen's right to know about government's activities.

As a matter of fact it is the essence of the time that the country is passing through. We ought to know where all the money allocated for development activities in the budget are spent, whether or not they are spent the right way at all.

Can CIAA assure that all of their staffs are fair and that they do not befall prey to the temptation of big bucks these corrupt current and ex-minister, the bureaucrats and the rest are willing to pay? Is their morality priceless or one that doesn't bow down to hard cash? The answer is: NO.

So what is the answer to all these loop holes and the flaws in governmental assurance to the public that they have everything covered. The answer could be youth and one new youth initiative out of many recently.

Let's form a committee of the youth, with some one from within these youth initiatives who are born leaders to lead this activity. The youth led committee will ask the government bodies for all records of activities of the government. The committee will then see the credibility of these documents and overview all government activities and prepare a report.

It doesn't have to be in a large scale, as big as the government bodies doing these jobs. It can be a small committee with groups assigned task to check the credibility of particular department of the government. They can exercise all their rights in the jurisdiction vested upon by the people- we.

This initiative can take shape even before the constitution making process is over. It can look at the wrongs hindering the peace process. This is just an idea which can be an trigger to an avalanche of other ideas. This idea is very raw, so it could be with the wisdom of the elite group heading such youth groups like Gari Khana Deu, Die Nepal Bandh DIE and Entrepreneurs for Nepal.

So please ponder upon this idea and come up with a solid plan one that can assure full transparency in Nepal's governmental and bureaucratic activities. Peace.

Jai Nepal!!!!

Romeo Maskey