Visit a school and interact with a teacher or head
teacher, they will have a story to tell, longing to be heard. Many will claim
their uniqueness in their functioning and contribution, their skill and style
of doing things, many will be authentic, and many will be unauthentic. Hype and
unauthentic proclamation will be proved wrong there and there itself if you
further probe a little deeper. The locked dusty sciences library, dusty chart
paper folded, computerized school bell not functioning anymore, trees planted
in the school compound, Medals and souvenirs hung all around the Head Teachers’
offices etc. They will claim excellence and contest you to the extent that
nowhere in any school you will find their unique practice followed. Their
confidence is so comforting that if you don’t find contradictory in their claim
and ought to be acknowledged and appreciated. But, if found contradictory it is
disturbing where they need to be confronted critically yet sensibly. Of the
many story I heard a very interesting practice in a school caught my mind that’s
where I exclaimed Bingo!. The Head master of a school shared me about it and I
pondered about its implications and would like to share how I interpreted it.
In this dry land of Rajasthan, civilization had
flourished, glorious epic wane only to emerge more magnificent the ever before.
In this unfavorable climatic and geographical region, people had lived their
lives in rich custom. Here, more cattle are reared (in numbers and species)
than in the green vegetation of Northeast India. From this dry dust they trod
and sustained life cultivating since generations. Looking at all these aspects,
I am lately induced to believe that there is in them the fighting spirit,
“Never say die Jews spirit in them”. Well, how do this imply to my domain
(education) of interest?
School drop-out, retention problem, sessional drop-out,
children inability to learn and uneducated parents are some of the issues
frequently highlighted as problems by teachers. People in interior of Sirohi
district are mostly cultivators, illiterate or semi-literate. On the other
hand, Education is a process with long term goals and abstract gains. Thus, as
a farmer whose labor is reaped seasonally (half yearly or annually) in
measureable terms (qualitative and quantitative) may find it difficult to
reconcile his understanding to the long term goals and abstract gain through
education. Educated citizens are in majority feed to secondary sector in our
society which is another area where these cultivators are less exposed to.
Thus, possible reason behind the problem as stated above. So, how do we fill
this gap?
The Head teachers as I mentioned before informed me that
all the medals and souvenirs hanged around in his office were won by his school
children from block level, district level, state level and even some were
nominated for national events. Further, exploring at the strength of student,
retention rate since past 2 years the numbers were quite promising. Now, I
co-relate the above scenario and the strength and retention rate in that very school.
A farmer like his task expects periodically concrete achievement or cultivation
from their children going to school. Learning from books can be quite ambiguity
to their understanding. Therefore something observable, concrete short term
achievement from their ward is called for. So, news that their wards are going
out to represent their school in block, regional and state level is for sure
one characteristic achievement a farmer can understand and comprehend. Keeping
at bay their daily hard life they will never encourage their children to leave
schools if these sense of short and long term goals achievement is inculcated
by them. Their never die spirit will sprout for their children’s education
against all odds. All we need is to put education at the right and
understandable perspective for the parents and make education achieve
comprehensive development (Philosophical, Sociological, Psychological and
Physiological) of the children.
Thus, Physical Education is core of education as also
mention in NCF-2005
“Health and Physical Education - Health
and physical education are necessary for the overall development of learners.
Through Health and physical education programs
(including yoga), it may be possible to handle successfully the issues of
enrolment, retention and completion of school”.
