The March To Utopia

The March To Utopia

Should school vacations be regimented?

Come March, the build up of examination pressure ahead of the annual feature and its subsequent exodus at the submission of the last answer sheet brings forth a kaleidoscope of visions in a student’s mind. Hours of unhindered playtime, a family vacation, or an annual visit to grandparents at their hometown are just some of them.

Many moons ago, children chugging into this station of Utopia were a common sight. Throwing all caution to the wind, they lived the good life, their worries and troubles a distant two months away. Friends ganged up, games were created, teams were made, rules were tweaked and heroes of the day decided on the itinerary for the next. Breakfast happened at eleven in the morning instead of nine, lunch at four in the afternoon instead of two and cell phones- they were blissfully non existent. All mom knew, or bothered to ask, was your whereabouts and expected time of return, which she knew would stretch by at least an hour. The scene was no different at granny’s or at the holiday resort. The odd film or a visit to the circus and the annual fair, were but add-ons to the jolly good times. After months of restrictions, regimentation and rigour these were days of gay abandon well earned, giving the little minds sufficient time to reboot for the vagaries of another demanding year ahead.

Children, then, having a cursory interest in any field sometimes used these holidays to develop the interest into a hobby. This was only a small feature of the holidays and there was no compulsion to take part or pressure to perform. Cut to the turn of the millennium and slowly but surely, the way economic progress brought in the mall culture, so has it the corporatisation and commercialisation of the summer vacation. Different companies with varied areas of interest now put in their might to give children a ‘structured and purposeful’ vacation with their holiday programmes. Their quick fix assurances and projected turnarounds by the end of the vacation are the crowd pullers. They are attractively packaged, aggressively marketed and priced fashionably high. In exactly the way a walk around a mall and a survey of all that is on sale can give one a sense of inadequacy even after an expensive purchase, the media bombardment of the innumerable ‘avenues’ now available for children can give parents the feeling of not doing enough for their child or worse still, the belief that the child does not want to get exposed to more streams. This feeling of inadequacy is further fuelled by the competitive streak in people, who want to be one up on the Jones’s and the Joshi’s in this race to nowhere. Busy or working parents justify their child’s inclusion in these camps because of their disposition and still other’s because of a herd mentality. Then there are those, who, with the inability to spend quality time with their children, find gratification in big spends as compensation.

Whatever reasoning they adapt, it’s from the children they extract their pound of flesh. Disciplinary orders, cosy mornings deprived of sleep, long hours away from visiting relatives, missed games with friends, unending hours in schools which come in the garb of holiday camps, the pressure to excel and become a trophy the parents can proudly display, all these come at a time originally meant to be the child’s own.

The picture though is not all black. One cannot grudge the organisers of these programmes as most of them do a pretty decent job of creating modules for children and ensuring the children get the best out of it. Learning a craft, picking a hobby, exposure to a sport or an art form like dance are definitely not harmful indulgences. What does mar the prospects of these trials are pressures of over ambitious coaches or over zealous parents probably expecting every such outing of their ward to be a milestone en route the ulterior motive of being a coach or parents of a reality show child prodigy.

According to Mrs. Maitreyi Satyadev, Principal of Sindhi High School, Kumara Krupa Road, Bangalore, one cannot discount the benefits of summer camps and holiday courses as they are a safe haven for children whose parents are indisposed. With play areas shrinking and playgrounds vanishing there are not too many places where children are safe outdoors. These are also avenues for meeting peers and making friends. But it is also true that with these structured holiday programmes there is a definite loss of randomness and spontaneity. Kids then begin to behave like teenagers and teenagers like adults. The victim here is the kid, the child, and innocence seems to be the casualty.

Her views are seconded by Dr. Mythili. M. Sarma, a child psychologist, practicing at Aadhihara Clinic in Bangalore. She is of the strong opinion that it is better to let the child bloom on its own and that creativity blooms when the child is ‘doing’ nothing. One cannot justify gunning a summer camp down a child’s throat just because of one’s disposition. Time management here is the key. Parents wanting to feel good about themselves or those with a competitive streak, in the process, tend to forget the child in their son or daughter, making him see much ahead of his age. What is of prime importance is to show that you are interested in your child, paying close attention to see what the child shows a desire to learn. It is here that the true benefits of these camps can be felt. Lonely children may be prone to maladaptive behaviours, so meeting their peers in a pressure free and genial atmosphere will definitely aid their growth. A holistic approach is the need of the hour. Treks and nature camps, where children are close to nature and with a lot of adventure, give them a booster dose of self esteem and a sense of achievement. So these are definitely advisable.

Restrictions, regimentation and rigour. These words come into play when the child feels he is being made to do what is expected of him and not what he believes in or expects. Let us not get blinded and understand that the child and his interests are paramount.

The ides of March have come and gone and the train to Utopia awaits its little passengers. We need to quickly take a pick. The organised chaos of a structured vacation or the disorganised harmony of a vacation of self discovery.

(Word Count-1081)

Old Students` Day

Good or Great?

That very gate. Those very corridors. Those portals, classrooms, Ah! Even the winding staircase! You wistfully amble across the school compound into your alma-mater. “This used to be my playground …” that melancholic strain, seems to play around you with a surround sound effect. You gear yourself up for more such songs from this playlist, because you are here for the Annual School Alumni Association Day.

Hundreds of ex-students come back to school on this day meant exclusively for them. The most recent pass outs obviously outnumber all the other batches. There is a septuagenarian representing the school’s inaugural batch. Then there is the NRI, now an affluent entrepreneur, who has aligned his schedule to enable him to attend this event and there are scores of other batch-mates with less dramatic introductions but displaying the same pep and verve. The thought of reprising their juvenile antics, yelling out nicknames of their friends and old teachers in harmless banter, the fear of being reprimanded giving way to gay abandon, seems to trigger methamphetaminic enzymes of ecstasy. And then comes that feeling of being ever thankful. Thankful for making you less of a lesser mortal. From the 20 times you were made to repeatedly sing the National Anthem to correct the pronunciation of that one wrong syllable, to the one instance of being lauded for speaking a small truth in spite of its little consequences, all those memories come in a flood, making you climb a mind-tree and wait happily, in no hurry for it to recede.

It is these feelings of joy, ecstasy and more so gratitude that prompt people to want to give something back to their Alma-mater. To aid this in a systematic manner, Alumni associations are formed. The Oldest Alumni Association in India is that of the Madras Christian College formed in 1891. Its membership list boasts of greats like S. Radhakrishnan, Raja Ramanna and many more eminent achievers including Indira Nooyi, holding place of pride in society. Apart from catching up with old class-mates and meeting your favourite teachers, these associations help create corpus funds. Ex-Students of the institution donate into the corpus, helping fund scholarships for meritorious or poor students, felicitating faculty members or other staff who have dedicated probably decades of their life shaping or helping shape lives of students. Even ex-students, who have excelled in some field or the other, bringing honour to the school, are given citations through the Alumni Association. Active Alumni Associations in collaboration with those of other schools help create competitive camaraderie among the schools by organising inter school events and competitions which can even double up as fundraisers for any project in the school. It does seem that nostalgia is a wonderful accompaniment to the need to payback because there are many instances of philanthropists even bequeathing large portions of their wealth for the betterment of their institution that taught them so much.

The Old Students Day is clearly meant to relive memories of the best days of our life and help keep a connect with the institution that gave them to us. Being privy to one such day after an exceedingly long gap recently, there was the obvious expectation of being flooded with feelings of nostalgia, probably even getting an overdose of it. But that was not to be. It had been such a long gap now, more than 15 years, that there was a vague sense of detachment from school. Very few faces from those hundreds present were recognisable. Teachers you revered, apart from those who had left the school, could only try their best to give you that fond recognition.  Hundreds of students pass out of their classes every year. Expecting them to place you immediately after such a long time was just fool hardy. The school`s old façade was tampered with and new blocks with more classrooms had come up. This was a strange feeling of nostalgia coupled with feeling lost in a surrounding you knew so well. Would it have felt the same if the gap had not been so long?

A palpable change today is that in the attitudes of children in schools and the schools themselves. That pride and sense of belonging towards their Alma Mater, that adoration and respect towards their teachers does seem much lesser than that of students of years gone by. As students more than a decade ago, swelling with as much pride singing our school song as singing the National Anthem, upholding the values of our school with no less help from our School Motto and the School Prayer, addressing ourselves as Germainites, Josephites or Cottonians instilled that loyalty and created a bond. This bond seems amiss now.  Most schools today have a very common motto with barely any emphasis on its adherence; no school song exclusively meant for the school and small other details like these which were inherently meant to inculcate this sense of belonging. This is one of the primary reasons why Alumni Associations no longer seem to attract students. 

The Old Students Association is the one way to bond with your institution and any effort, monetary or a contribution with service, to pay back to it only helps in forging a relationship of loyalty and joy for years to come. Schools that don’t encourage this and students who are not a part of their alumni associations are bereft of the benefits and joys of this strong bond of loyalty and reminiscence.