Corruption, Caste-ism and Education

Full disclosure: According to the technical classification, I do NOT belong to a 'forward caste' myself.  Also, I have NEVER used a handout based on the community I belong to.

What I choose to take away from Ashis Nandy's recent comments that caused an uproar, is that it must be accepted that there is a link between caste and corruption.

Before you get hot and bothered, I intend to completely explain what I mean by this. Even the most educated and accomplished among us will continue to use and stick to these labels that our forefathers stamped on our foreheads. Because our system allows it and we do nothing to move beyond it.

Reservations and Corruption
Reservations in colleges, offices etc. seem to be beneficial to the so-called SC/ST/OBCs. (I do not seem to be able to find any study/proof/statistic that supports this sentence, but let us just believe so.) But this is very grave injustice to these communities and groups.

Let us consider the example of a small village at the edge of a town. Here, some person born in to a financially deprived, so-called SC/ST/OBC community finds his way into school. My argument is that since our education system at this level is not even substandard, and there would be little support from this student's family (presumably illiterate), the child has little development. But it is possible (and occurs all over the country) that this child passes all his exams and finds his way into a reserved seat and then a reserved job (and later a reserved promotion as well.) We then expect this ill-trained person to adapt to his responsibilities, justify his salary and remain honest.All this in spite of the fact that we have taught him all his life that it is possible to get ahead without ever making an effort.
Not in any single way the fault of this unfortunate student. He had the fish plopped into his lap and he never even learned to hold the fishing rod. Either he messes up and remains frustrated and hates his job, or he continues to believe that rewards will keep coming to him without having to work for it. In my mind, even if this person does not accept a bribe, he is corrupt - he has taken a position for which he was not qualified and does not do it well.

At the same time, let us consider a city bred child in a community that does not come under these SC/ST/OBC categories. There is a high likelihood that this community already consists of extremely intelligent people and yet are not financially as well off as they would like to be. Throughout school this child will do well because there is help at home and even if the school does not help, the child will surely get there. But it is not enough for this child to just be good, he has to excel and spend his teenage years thinking of what can be done to get into the best college ever. The pressure from friends, parents, relatives, even neighbours is immeasurable. At the end, it is a matter of chance and a few decimal points - he could lose a potentially lucrative career. Any normal kid would end up being bitter with the society - it is just human. I may be making a leap here but it seems quite possible that given the opportunity and given the bitterness that he has had to endure, this person would attempt to amass wealth by any means necessary to ensure that his child doesn't have to face the same fate. Another major impact is psychological - a reinforcement of our caste-based biases and hatred.

This problem cannot be solved by providing reservations based on financial conditions. The second child in my example was poor but had the benefit of being from a well-knit and educated community. Irrespective of the first child's financial state, he had little help from his environment. Both these children suffer and the cause is the same. No, the answer is not reservations. The answer is education. If we take away the influence of the home environment, the case of both children in my example is the same. The only difference was environment. To all the cases that do not come under my blanket generalization, my apologies.

I have rambled on enough. My entire argument boils down to this: backward castes must be supported. Our history has deprived them. Through the success of one person in a downtrodden community that entire community benefits in being able to look up to a role model. But there is no point to it if the foundation is not strong. For communities in rural poor regions with low literacy rates, special attention must be provided to strengthening basic education. Until this step is taken we will continue to produce graduates who possess few skills and abilities.

The implication of the caste system is that people's capabilities and intelligence is influenced by their genes. But the importance  of environment's influence on IQ has been scientifically analyzed and there is a strong correlation. (reference in further reading) While scientists have not decided which it is yet I think there is a reason why our Varna system was devised in the first place. It was a simple world - a child at birth became his father's apprentice, he was educated in his family's trade or skill.Thus, his home environment which became his education and work environment was entirely invested in the development of his skill. Even back then our forefathers understood the importance of environment. Instead of the obsession we have with our labels today, I think it is time for us to understand these more important (and reasonable) implications of the Varna system and implement those!

Finally, if it is not yet evident what I mean by the connection between caste and corruption, let me be more explicit. We continue to define ourselves based on what community we belong to. If we choose to forget it, we are continuously reminded of it because of our system. If we are affected by it, we are bitter and would like to have our money back. If we benefit from it, we do not always understand it well and thus cannot always give back to the society that gave to us.

Further reading:
Genetics and the Environment - Genetic And Environmental Influenceson Intelligence

Links and blog roll

Some miscellaneous interesting/inspiring/comment-worthy links:

1. Follow up to Mitch Resnick's talk (that I discussed here) :
2. Engineers quit jobs to teach kids
3. Fun algebra class

Also there are some interesting reads in my blog roll! I try as much as possible to find things like this. If you have a blog or know of a blog that belongs in that roll, do send me a comment! 

Teachers - not the problem

To a thinking teacher who understands the importance of his/her job and puts in his or her life's effort into teaching, it must be tough to listen to people berate education, schools and teachers for the society's ills. Headteacher of a London school, Kenny Frederick writes about how teachers must stand up and defend themselves against this.

The truth is poor education is the cause for a lot of society's problems. In India's case, it is the lack of literacy in the first place. But the problem is not caused by teachers themselves but poor policy and management by governments. Yes! I am making a sweeping statement.. deal with it! This is a universal phenomenon. Public schools in the U.K and the U.S are constantly under attack because of poor pupil performance. While the U.S tries to solve this "by throwing money at the problem" which studies have shown does not help, the U.K debates merit-based pay for teachers (bringing forth backlash against government representatives from teachers).

On a universal scale, it is evident that large scale reform must be conducted on education policy. This does include allocating more money towards recruiting better teachers and training them frequently to adapt to changing requirements in education. Updating and improving school curricula and textbooks, ensuring that kids stay in school, equality in classrooms. The list is gigantic. Most solutions are close to utopian and discussions are few and far between. There is rarely any consensus. But it is clear that these solutions go beyond spending large sums of money. This is good news for developing countries. There is still hope for us!

India's story however goes one step below this in having to build and maintain infrastructure for schools in rural and remote areas, improving health and nutrition for children, stop private institutions from making education a market. I do not intend to oversimplify the issue, these are just a few important areas to focus on. There are many more issues and people do not really know all the reasons for our issues. There seems to be no lack of data and there is some analysis. People seem to be discussing this as well.

Coming back to my point: teachers should not have to bear the brunt for the large scale failure of our education system. It is unfair to them. Also, there used to be (and as far as I know still is) an idea that you become a teacher just because you found no other job or just because it was comfortable is absurd. I know for a fact that (most) teachers devote their whole life to their profession. Their work follows them home. They attach emotion to being present for their students every day. They take personal responsibility for any student's failures, yet they are most often not appreciated or acknowledged for any success their students may enjoy. There are some individuals who are not like this, but they are not the reason why we have a failed system.

So teachers, do stand up and defend yourselves. You are doing all you can when the odds are stacked against your work. At the same time, make your voices be heard. Everyone thinks that they are qualified to hurl insults at the education system, no one knows how to improve it and solve its issues. If teachers spoke up about their personal experiences with teaching maybe some solutions can emerge. 

Isn't the present system good enough? Why should it be changed?

I have mentioned my arguments with people here before. Arguments, I think are a way of learning through questioning. It is not about who is better.It is about which is the better idea. Why is it that we tend to take arguments personally? Why is it that we are unable to take a point made on its face value and not dig into it to identify some personal comment?

Maybe it is my way of doing things that makes me enter into arguments and causes people to take offence from what I say. Or maybe I have not evolved enough to keep this in check. I am getting bogged down by the number of people who are really interested enough in responding to the writing here. I have 5 people reading this blog once-in-a-while and have 4 of them responding negatively! Some percentage! And some encouragement!!
I don't mind. I am entitled to expressing my ideas and opinions. And so I will continue to gab. You are still welcome to express your criticism - as negative as it may get! :)

Some good ideas that I received recently was to put my writing into bulleted points. I think this involves more work than usual, but if it is going to make it better for my friends who have low attention spans I would be happy. So here goes trial.

Question: Isn't the present system good enough? Why should it be changed?

Answer:

• The system is very good only for some, who live in cities and those who are lucky enough to have means of learning outside their classroom (that is, learning things that are not in their textbooks)
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• There is no provision to educate children in a broad sense. They are mostly required to answer questions from a very restrictive text.
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• A strong base in math, science and language contributes to a healthy understanding of higher level subjects. Because of large classrooms and shortage of teachers in primary schools, this strong base is not laid. So even if we have the best of teachers for higher classes, the purpose is lost as children do not understand what they study and resort to learning by rote.
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• In higher classes the large syllabus also does not allow the teacher to go deep into a subject. There is a lot of pressure on teachers to show results.
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• Schools often trigger a sort of unhealthy attitude by rewarding teachers whose students score high marks in 10th and 12th exams. This even makes teachers try to coach bright students separately, so that they get higher scores. The rest are encouraged to learn by rote.
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• Competition in 12th and 10th std board exam forces schools to skip essential concepts that is included in 9th std and 11th std in order to gain more time to finish the 10th and 12th portions. These concepts form a base for many fields of higher study. The system does nothing to ensure that there is a wholesome approach to these concepts.
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• In spite of several measures that have been taken to revise and make better textbooks, the pattern of the paper seems to endorse and support learning by rote. The students are never encouraged to do independent thinking.
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• We have little to offer to students with slow learning abilities (or learning disability). Except for a few schools that are into educating such children, the rest of the schools simply brand these children.

This is all I can think of at the present moment. I will continue to edit this.
Please feel free to comment. I do like being corrected!

The rant

I felt disappointed and broken yesterday as I reviewed my “students’” answer sheets. I saw how the work of two months of evening tuition has done nothing at all for them. I saw that 13 years of education has done nothing. I saw that the consolation that I was offering myself that it is not too late and that things can be made better for at least these few kids was terribly shallow. I gave them a free hand, talked to them like we were of the same age, shared bits of gossip, giggled, made fun of and got teased a little in return. Just like classmates and friends. Then again I played caring elder sister and teacher. I gave them pep talks every now and then, encouraged them to do better, never criticized them for their mistakes, just pointed them out to them and told them how to better themselves. Always gently guiding them. Always asking them more than once if they had understood the evening’s lesson completely. Trying to see through their eyes, judge the expression in them to see if they really had got what I had been talking about. I took each subject, split it into the very basic elements and fed them with it. Afraid that they might become dependent and never think for them selves, I asked them questions relentlessly, coerced them to go a little further and see if they could find the solution in their minds. I used traditional methods of reading out from textbooks and explaining each word, going into the background of every tiny concept that was involved. Every evening, when they left, I felt tired; my throat ached from talking without a stop for more than 3 hours. But I was filled with a sense of achievement, exhilaration.

Yet it all came to an end last evening. It was not so much the feeling that I had failed to make model students out of them, turn them overnight into super-intelligent scholars. It was the thought of how I weak I am to make them unlearn the methods that they have been made to learn all these years. How they just do not get my concept of studying as opposed to rote-learning and memorizing things. They spend hours and hours of cramming; they spend hours writing everything that they have learnt. Yet in the exam hall they absolutely fail the purpose of writing a test. All that they have crammed doesn’t help them at all because though they crammed the answers, they didn’t know the questions… they had not spent enough time memorizing the questions to the answers that they had spent all night on. Their papers showed me, how I had failed as a teacher. I can tell you it is the worst failure I have had so far. In spite of the fact that I know I have done my job up to my satisfaction – considering that I am an obsessed-with-perfection person. Well so whom do I blame for this failure? Myself largely, for believing that 2 months can undo the wrongs that have been done to them for 13 years, the wrongs that have been done by their teachers who never tried to really teach them something, the wrongs that have been done to these teachers all those years when they had been students. Like some horror movie running in slow motion I see the sickening chain reaction that has brought the situation to this low.

I broke my resolve not to give them any negative vibes, criticize and speak harshly to them yesterday. I spoke through gritted teeth about how they were so much in deep trouble. With so many people up to compete with, how difficult it was going to be for them to get higher paying jobs. Stressed on how ignorant they were keeping themselves by just comparing them with their classmates, how they had made their lives shallow by letting it revolve around the marks in their examinations. How people in cities in this country and around the world keep trying to push themselves forward, pounce on every opportunity, how they are ruthless when it comes to competition, how left out and helpless they would feel when they got out of college and tried to get a job, how they would repent of the times when they sat watching their TV set playing some sickening, corrupting serial.

I spoke on and on for a pretty long time. While they sat frozen and wide-eyed at this sudden outburst from me, they probably did not relate to what I was telling them, they probably did not care for anything else except their marks, they probably never bothered about learning in its true sense. They probably will never think of the things that I told them, they probably will never come back to study here. They probably will start maintaining a distance. Or worse, maybe they will think that I was paying more attention to their marks rather than who they are and what kind of people they are, when they had thought that I was their only teacher who saw them that way. They probably will remain unaffected by the outburst. I know and God knows that the rant was against the entire system that had made them some machines that went about memorizing textbooks. I know and God knows that I have put my most sincere efforts into trying to make things better for them. I only pray that they realize what I have been trying to tell them. I pray that they find themselves and get the chance to grow into better beings and use their abilities better. For their sake, nothing else. I only pray that I can find the strength to continue trying to do this well, more for myself than for anyone else.

Thinking aloud - I

I was thinking aloud to another person about why this country is unable to enforce compulsory education. It is obvious that it is not possible for people to go out and make sure that each child goes to school. And anything that comes out of force is useless. But what is it that stops parents from sending children to school in spite of the fact that schools provide meals to children. I was told that these children get jobs more easily than their parents. It is easier to boss over kids and make them do work that adults would not do. So parents are happy to send the child to work so that they can sit at home and eat on the child's earnings.
This adds a rather complicated angle to the problem. It is sad that these people want to deprive kids of the blessing of education, but how can anyone blame them when they know nothing better. They have not been taught anything different. They do not have a way of earning for themselves and their families. So the only thing that can be done is to find a way of providing jobs to parents if they sent their kids to school. We cannot make beggars of them giving them food or money for sending kids to school. It is a better thing to do to help them find jobs or provide them with jobs. It is also possible to train these parents so that they can find a way to earn money for their children and themselves. Teach them something so they can set up a cottage industry. This will need constant monitoring so that people don't slip into dirty habits like drinking and squander all that they have. I cannot suggest that alcohol, cigarettes and gambling be banned. We cannot expect the government to do anything. So the only way is to keep a check on people. Teaching kids is an easy job, but managing their parents will be a tough job. With that problem in check, the next issue is how to ensure that the child does really get educated and is free from the various ills that are bound to affect him like the bad influences that he is bound to have. This can be done by isolating the child from such influences. Tough process. The only thing we can do is to ensure that the teacher is a person who completely understands his role and makes sure that the child is not affected in any way by his own bad ways.

That brings us to the role of the teacher in the life of a child. The teacher must be a person who is capable of establishing control over the thoughts of the child so as not to allow the mind to learn undesirable habits and things from people around. But this control must not stymie the child from learning and growing in the true sense of the word. Stress on positive growth. The teacher must be a person with the following qualities:

1. Infinite patience
2. Kindness
3. Love for children and teaching them
4. Good knowledge and wisdom
5. Humility, modesty
6. Honesty

I will keep adding to that list. Whether the child learns and continues to attend school depends on the teacher. It is a very likely thing that the child quits school because of the teacher.
I think the factors that keep a child away from school is also in place here.

1. Hunger - schools provide only midday meals and only on 5 days a week. The parents are not benefited
2. People employ children more often than adults. Parents try to cash in on this.
3. No interest.
4. The syllabus - it does not stimulate learning. It is beyond the capacity of a child to understand something that is not clear or evident.
5. A child's attention span is not considered in present day education system.
6. The system of judging and branding children based on marks and tough exams is very stressful to the child. Leaving school seems like the best way for a child to get rid of all that stress.
7. Teachers - even if the teacher is unable to motivate a child to learn, he should not scare a child away from it. Personal remarks, harsh criticism and violence confuse and scare away the child away from school.