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Sunday, November 28, 2010

"To Sir with Shove" - Are Our Classrooms Breeding Hooligans

Sitting on my son's computer I attempt to play Max Payne, the computer game. I have nothing against games as far as it is intellectually stimulating. But what I saw was chilling. Max Payne is a detective and as he enters the hospital, he meets a nurse and without much ado he gathers her in his arms, lifts her up so her thighs are against his waist and kisses her. Duh! Without so much as a preamble, a pick-up line or a "Pleased to meet you Miss." Then while he is doing this a masked figure enters and shoots him. End of game. I lost. Damb!

I used to read Perry Mason, James Hadley Chase, and in those detective stories it was never like this. There were endless flirting and mating before the kiss actually happened. Are our children too smart for us. Or, are they being misled? Today's Crest has a several-page feature on how students are turning the table against teachers in class rooms. Go read. The opening feature is titled, "To Sir with Shove" parodying the sixties movie starring Sidney Poitier, "To Sir with Love". Who's Sidney Poitier, well, dear, never mind. With the abolition if corporeal punishment in schools we might be (pardon to be using the cliche, please!) sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Don't you think? 

Now according to new rules, missus who is a teacher informs me, no child fails in any standard up to Eighth in Maharashtra. That means no exams and you can do badly and go to the next standard. What kind of meritorious system are we breeding? It also means that the terror of exams that makes a student cram - and which will make him/her show a bit of self restraint - will no longer be applicable. Are we raising a legion of winners or a rank of stupid duds and hooligans? I would like to ask the education minister of Maharashtra.

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