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?”
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?”
