Taking a whipping...

On Monday and Tuesday mornings, I teach Plus-1 students at JM’s upper campus—called so because it sits on top of a hill in central Tirur; whereas, the “lower campus” sits at the bottom of the hill.

The Indian school system only goes from 1st to 10th standards. (Tenth standard students being equivalent in age to American high school freshmen.) After 10th standard, Indian students have an option to matriculate to the “Plus” standards—Plus-1 and Plus-2—which are equivalent to American high school sophomores and juniors. After the “Plus” standards, they can then move on to university. Typically, students who are in a “Plus” standard have plans to go to higher education.

On this Tuesday, I entered the upper campus and climbed four flights of stone steps to the teachers’ lounge on the third floor. There, I found six Plus-1 students—all boys—standing in a line outside the lounge door looking stone-faced and rather sheepish. My teacher instincts told me they were in some kind of trouble.

I walked into the lounge and found Vinod sitting at the long table that takes up most of the space in this narrow, crowded room. Vinod teaches Computer Science and has the best English of any teacher I have met at JM.

“Trouble?” I ask, pointing beyond my shoulder at the students, who could be seen through the lounge’s glass windows.

“Punishment,” Vinod said. “Latecomers.”

“What is there punishment?” I asked.

Vinod gave a quick nod of his head. I turned around. At that moment, another teacher walked up to the boys from the other end of the hall. He had a thin bamboo switch in his hand. He curtly inclined is head to the boys, and they all dutifully stretched out their right arms (as if they knew what was coming). The teacher then whapped each boy three times on the wrist. Fwip! Fwip! Fwip!

The boys flinched in pain and then withdrew their arms, rubbing their wrists. A couple of the boys smiled with false bravado. (I knew the look well from teaching at Hogg.)

“Happen often?” I asked Vinod.

“Sometimes,” he said, engrossed in going over his lesson for the day. Vinod is slight and light-skinned with a rakish flop of wavy hair parted to the side that makes him look oddly like an aristocrat from Stuart England.

“What do kids get punished for?” the boys outside were still rubbing their wrists but now quietly commiserating with each other about their collective fate, chuckling and playfully punching each other on the shoulders.

“Being late. Not turning in assignments. Being disrespectful. Causing a distraction,” Vinod said, then he squinted his eyes thoughtfully.

“You know,” he said. “It is necessary.”

My raised eyebrows must have given Vinod the impression that I wanted more of an explanation, which I did.

“Necessary because a lot of these kids—most of these kids here in the Plus-1 and Plus-2 standards—have come to us from government schools,” he said. “They did not have the structure at the government schools that they have here. We have rules and regulations that they are not used to.”

“For instance?”

“Well, at the government schools, for example, kids can just get up whenever they want and leave the class,” Vinod said with a resigned waggle of his head. “It is unfortunate because a lot of times teachers do not even show up to these government schools.”

I had heard that complaint before—in the newspaper, from my ATI supervisors, on Indian TV, in books. Teachers at Indian government schools had a notorious reputation for profligacy and apathy. Though, I had to take all this evidence at face value. The only schools I had ever taught in India (both in Kolkata and in Tirur) were private schools.

“Why do these students come here? To JM?” I asked.

“A law was passed just recently, that limits class size in Plus-1 standards to 60 students per class. The government schools in Tirur are all filled up,” Vinod explained.

“SIXTY students in a class?” I asked, clearly alarmed.

Vinod smiled slightly. “Sixty students. And every government school classroom in Tirur is full.”

“So these are the students who were leftover?”

“Some. Well, most: yes. Others made the choice to come here. Maybe their families did not like the government school and thought they would get a better education here. Others have been at JM since 1st standard.”

I could not help but ask my next question, owing to a rough class period I had had the previous day. “Is that why these students are…a little more…wild?”

Vinod smiled again. “They are a challenge. Their English is not as good and, like I said, they are not used to our rules here. So, yes, it is harder to teach them”

I thought it propitious how my discussion with Vinod had dovetailed neatly with an email I received the othe day from my mother, who still teaches in public schools in America though she is semi-retired. The email contained a link to an article from The New York Times Review of Books critical of the recently released documentary Waiting for Superman. The film—though I have not seen it—levies much criticism at American public education while promoting charter schools as a viable alternative.

I cannot comment on the film, but it is interesting to note India’s gargantuan education bureaucracy is also dealing with matters of “school choice” and accountability. Maybe just on a much, much bigger scale.

The bell rang, and I readied my materials to go meet my class of nearly 50 students.