The Day I Left my Job and Flew a Kite

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days. But mostly it was the best of days. I was twenty years old and I had just completely humiliated myself by leaving a job five days into it. And I couldn't have felt more free.

Fresh out of teacher's training college, I was young and idealistic. I wanted to teach in a school that valued learning and creativity more than uniformity and blind obedience. I applied at one school that met my high standards, but didn't get through. I wasn't sure what to do next, but at the urging of some family members who told me not to expect the perfect situation, I applied at another school. This one was Catholic and catered to children from lower-income families, so it appealed to my naïve desire to 'make a difference'. Little did I realize that just because a school worked with the poor didn't mean that the school authorities loved or served them like I assumed they would.

The school year had just begun, and one of their teachers had dropped out. I didn't know why, and didn't wonder then. The first day they put me in a first standard class with over seventy children. Yes, the strange hierarchy and systems of Indian schools put a brand-new inexperienced twenty-year-old teacher ALONE in a class of seventy six-year-olds, instead of an experienced teacher, because those teachers had paid their dues and didn't want to be stuck with the toughest class in the school.

No assistant teacher. Seventy little faces stared at me. They didn't speak English yet. They had never sat in a class for seven hours before. They were rowdy kids from tough backgrounds stuck in a situation in which it was impossible to give them individual attention. I tried to teach them, but there wasn't a moment where the entire class was listening. They were miserable, and so was I.

On the first day, some kids in my class got into a fist fight, and blood was drawn. Yes, by six year olds. I had no idea what to do. I tried to ask the other teachers for help, but they didn't know what to say. That's just the way it was. New teachers get the short end of the stick. They enlightened me about other rules.

"I saw you leaning against the table. Teachers aren't allowed to sit down in class."

"What? Why?"

"That's the rule. There are no chairs in the classrooms, because teachers aren't allowed to sit down while teaching."

"But.. But.. We don't have any off periods. That doesn't sound fair."

"That's the rule."

During the recess, I walked out of the class and saw the principal make little six-year-olds kneel in the corridor as a punishment. The school authorities seemed harsh. I went home every day and cried. I cried in the staff room. I cried while trying to talk to the other teachers. I cried more in those five days than I had cried in my life. I felt trapped, but I could see no way out.

Until my parents suggested that I didn't HAVE to work in that hell-hole. I suddenly realized I hadn't signed any papers yet. I didn't NEED the job. They were paying me peanuts anyway. I didn't need to stay in a horrible job out of a misplaced sense of duty. The day I made the decision was one of the happiest days of my life.

"Want to come? We're going to fly a kite!"

There was a strong wind, and my siblings and some friends were heading to a neighbouring open field. I left the cage and my heart went flying with the kite. I will never forget the feeling of freedom I tasted that day, as the kite danced in the breeze.

It's so embarrassing to admit I left a job within five days. In every inspiring story about a teacher who faced terrible odds, that's just the first part of the story. They usually persevere and then they have breakthroughs and then their students become brilliant achievers. Not me though.

Did I leave too soon? I'll never know. What I do know is that after working in an corporate e-learning company for two years, I returned to mainstream teaching in a village for a year. It was one of the best years of my life. I had thirteen eight-year-olds, and a school whose vision was teaching kids to love learning. I was still a brand new teacher, but I had a free hand to work with those thirteen students. I was happy, my students thrived and we all learned together. I have worked successfully with many children since then, and I am happy that my ideals and my desires were not squashed or dimmed by a harsh, oppressive teaching environment. So I guess, no, I'm not sorry I left my job and flew a kite that day thirteen years ago.

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I Don't Miss School

Competition – Good, Bad or Ugly?

I come from a very competitive family. I don’t need to convince you of this, just join us for a game night. But when we were kids, it was not ‘a little friendly competition’ as they say. It was fight-to-the-death, painful, bitter, teary competition, which might be why we stopped playing games altogether. As a result, my mum and many others are very skeptical about the need or usefulness or healthiness of competition.

When we were in school, there was always a first, second and third place in each class, kids who got the highest overall scores. This was the thing though- they were always the same kids. Well, maybe it slightly changed, but it was the same 10% of the class who battled it out. The rest of us just accepted that we were mediocre or even ‘poor in studies’. So what difference did it make to laud those three who bagged the three highest ranks?

In school it seemed as if all competition was set up just to make the majority of us feel bad. It was the same at birthday parties. There were the three lucky winners at every game, and everyone else was just a loser. And I was always a loser. Somehow or the other I ALWAYS lost at Housie aka Tambola aka Bingo.

So I have genuine sympathy for the ‘We can all be winners!’ line of thought. Why not set things up for kids to succeed? Give them a taste of success so they don’t feel like they’re always failing?

But the danger of that philosophy is that we may be undervaluing perseverance, hard work, ambition and resourcefulness. Why would anyone try to be better if they are rewarded for not trying at all? How do we get kids (or people) excited about a task if there is no reward at the end?

Then again, even when competition does motivate people to work harder, it usually also makes people think that someone has to lose in order for them to win. It encourages selfishness, and pushing others down to get ahead. And even when someone does their very, very, best, they can still think of themselves as losers, just because someone got an extra point.

This is a balance I think that works-

For little kids at birthday parties or parties in general, the aim is to have fun. So forget about ‘preparing them for the real world’, and find a way for everyone to want to participate and HAVE FUN. That means everyone gets to be a winner, just for participating, and that’s okay! Lots of prizes! Treasure hunts with treasures for everyone! No humiliating forfeits! Whose idea of fun is that anyway?

Encourage self-competition. Get kids to try to do better than they did before, to better their own scores, instead of someone else’s. I did that one year when I was teaching a third standard class in a village school. I had just 13 students, but as usual there were two kids always at the top of the class, and two kids always at the bottom. So towards the end of the year, after some exams, instead of writing the first three ranks on the blackboard as all the other teachers did, I sat down with each student (and their parents for those who showed up), showed them their report cards, and compared their scores in that exam with their scores in the first half of the year. Even the little girl who was at the bottom of the class had improved tremendously, so she got as much congratulations as the kids who got the highest scores because he had basically breezed through without much effort.

Give people achievable goals and celebrate them when they do achieve them. Don’t give prizes just for participation unless participation itself is the challenge. Everyone can’t win the race, but everyone can finish it, and we should cheer them on when they do! if someone regularly loses at all academic competitions, find them something they can excel at. Everyone needs to be good at something, and see hard work pay off in some area of their life. But that may mean that their parents or teachers or even friends need to help them find that thing.

In classrooms, use team competition instead of individual competition. Competition does motivate people, so just make sure you use it in the right way. Even then, make it possible for both teams to win, so they are not trying to beat each other, but to reach a goal in a certain amount of time. “You get five points for discipline, five points for participation, five points for everyone on the team completing assignments, and five points for correct answers. The first team to reach 50 points gets an extra half an hour on the playground or in the library.” That way they help each other, keep each other accountable, and give them a reason to try.

Build an environment where collaboration is encouraged. We keep saying that they need to be competitive to survive in the real world. But have we thought about the fact that these are the kids who can build a new world? A world where we CAN all win, there IS enough for everybody if we help each other, and there ARE creative solutions that don’t involve pushing others down? But the building blocks of that new world are people willing to try something new.

Give people challenging and fun projects to work on together. The task or the game itself is enough reason to work hard and put in an effort. Whether or not they win, they enjoyed the game, or created something new, and that high of that achievement will give them the motivation to push themselves or try something new. Unlike games which depend solely on the pleasure of winning, which leave most people with a lack of interest in even trying again.

Teach people to be good winners and good losers. Teach them to be fair, that winning really isn’t everything, that it is not honourable or funny to hiss, “Cheater!” when they are losing, to shake the hand of the opposing team after the game, and to be willing to acknowledge and even applaud others’ success. Teach them that it is better to lose honestly than win dishonestly. Teach winners to be gracious, to find an encouraging word to say to their depressed antagonists, and not to crow over them. These are life-skills worth having!

Competition can be good, if used wisely and prudently, and in the right context. If not, it can be pretty bad and things can get quite ugly. Also remember that different methods work for different people. You just need to judge whether it is healthy or unhealthy competition, and if it's working as it is meant to, and you can usually sense that by the fruit- bitterness, resentment and passivity, or motivation, excitement and determination.

How Do You Feel When You Make a Mistake?

If your answer is, “Guilty, ashamed, furious with myself, embarrassed, like I want to sink into the ground,” you may be one of the many people trained into an unhealthy fear of mistakes by perfectionist parents and teachers from the time you were little.

I started teaching reading in a school last week. Kids who struggle with reading are sent to me and my team mate, and we work with some as a group and some one on one. One of the things I’ve noticed again and again is that students in the Indian system have been trained to fear failure and to mock those who fail. They’re not bad kids. But the instant someone mispronounces a word or makes a mistake, the whole group explodes into giggles. They’re not trying to be mean. It’s a habit that is hard to break, because they’ve seen it, heard it and done it since they were tiny.

When I was in school, every year there were a few students who were held back and made to repeat the year because they had failed their exams. You know what we called them? I cringe as I recall what seemed like a normal label then: ‘Failures.’ I don’t mean that the students made up that name. No, the teachers referred to them as ‘failures’. They were treated with contempt and disdain. It seemed like the most humiliating thing that could happen to one was to repeat the year. Those kids stuck to themselves, and accepted the treatment because we all thought that was normal.

When I was 23 I started teaching eight year olds in a village school (yes, third school story in a row). I thought I was a pretty good teacher. But to my shock, I found that I was doing the same thing- having unrealistically high expectations, and then getting annoyed with the kids when they couldn’t meet them. One day I decided to do some painting with them for the first time. I prepared well. But of course they were EIGHT YEAR OLDS PAINTING FOR THE FIRST TIME. Messes and imperfection was bound to happen. And yet I found myself annoyed! That was one of my wake-up calls.

The other was the surprise I felt when I saw parents of young children who had dropped or broken something. Not a word of rebuke did I hear. Instead they were reassuring and quickly said, “It’s okay. Let me get something to clean it up.” The fact is, I had rarely ever seen mistakes treated with such calmness and kindness.

How do we usually treat people when they make mistakes?

1. Blame them: The first response is that it is always someone’s fault. It is such an automatic response.

2. Rub it in: Point it out, remind people that they need to be more careful, and that they should have listened to us.

3. Dramatize it: Make it a bigger deal than it actually is, like it points to some character flaw or is a prophetic sign of the person’s future.

4. Bring up the past: Remind them of all the times they made mistakes in the past.

5. Wash our hands off them: They made their bed, now they must lie in it.

6. Judge them: Disapprovingly analyze the person and their actions, while smugly feeling like WE would never do such a thing.

Can we please stop? So what if that’s what your parents did to you? It is NOT helpful, holy or kind. Mistakes are NOT sins. Mistakes are not the end of the world. In fact, being willing to make mistakes and fail is a healthy and good thing. Accepting someone’s mistakes doesn’t mean giving them permission to be sloppy or careless or thoughtless. It’s just saying, “Okay, this happened. Now what?” You know what happens when we are afraid to make mistakes, or when we train the people around us to be afraid of mistakes?

You get people suffering from anxiety and depression as they hold themselves up to unrealistic expectation of themselves and constantly feel like they are never good enough. You get students committing suicide when they fail their exams. You get people who never try anything new because anything new requires a risk and a risk implies potential failure. You get people more focussed on not failing than on growing. Or you get people who just give up on trying and hoping. And you get harsh, judgmental and impatient people who impose the same standards on their children and spouses and coworkers.

If we want something different, we have to do something different. If we want to get over our unhealthy fear of mistakes, we need to train ourselves to respond differently.

1. Practise saying, “It’s okay to make mistakes.” Find that hard, don’t you? That’s exactly why you need to practise it.

2. The next time someone makes a mistake or fails, hold your tongue. Bite back the words of blame or correction or even advice. Most times when someone makes a mistake, they ALREADY KNOW. They’re already embarrassed and upset.

3. Instead ask “Are you okay? How can I help?” Whether it’s a broken cup or a broken heart, people need help picking up the pieces. They need to know there are people who are on their side as they try again.

4. Tell them “It’s not that bad.” No matter how bad a mistake is, there is always hope.

5. If you are in a position of authority over them, and you do need to correct them, do it gently and help them find a way to move forward. Show them you haven’t given up on them. Yup, that does need a great deal of patience. Anger almost never helps people change.

6. If you are the one who has made the mistake, follow all the steps above. Every time I make a mistake, I tell myself, “Well, at least I learned something.” If it involves money, I tell myself, "Well, I just paid for a lesson." :-)

How should you feel when you make a mistake? Hopefully, after the first moment of frustration, just acceptance, humility, and a desire and willingness to try again.

Fluency in English is the White Privilege of India

English privilege. We grew up with it. With a much-coveted Convent education, jokes mocking those who spoke ‘broken’ English were too common. ‘On the light’ Ha ha! That’s ‘PUT on the light, or SWITCH on the light!’ ‘I’ll tell to Miss that you are teasing me!” “That’s ‘I’ll TELL Miss’, not ‘tell TO’! Gosh!” But practically everyone in school spoke ‘broken’ English at the beginning, because it was their second language. They came as little four year olds from homes where Marathi or Hindi was spoken, and were whipped (not literally) into English fluency through twelve years at an English medium school.

But I grew up in a home where English WAS our first language, and we prided ourselves on speaking English as well as (or better than) the British. It was a very desired skill. In a culture of humiliation, there was always something for fellow students to put others (and teachers too) down for, accents, ignorance, body size and shape, but mockery for imperfect English was pretty common. I don’t remember any incidents very clearly, but I know I subconsciously felt I was better than other people because I spoke better English, because that was the message I received from the world.

As I grew up I realized it wasn’t just school. Being fluent in English changed everything, opened doors that would have otherwise remained closed, gave us opportunities that most people didn’t have. Fluent English speakers have an edge on the job market, can grasp study material easily, present themselves better, and sound more intelligent and educated. Even socially, fluent English-speakers often band together, and often exclude people who didn't fit in that narrow social class. I've often heard young people talk about 'the wrong kind of crowd', and they're not talking about their morals, but their social class, their culture, and yes, their English. I've seen the divide even in our church community.

I realized as I worked with the underprivileged that the things that came so easily to me didn’t come as easily to everyone else. I could walk into a church or school office, approach someone in authority, and quickly win trust or at least lessen suspicion, and often get the help I needed by fluently and convincingly explaining myself. Even if I wore clothes that were not expensive or ‘upper class’, (in fact I more often look like a college student, with jeans and backpack), my English would convince people that I was someone of importance, someone they probably shouldn’t ignore. Basically, English has snob value.

Of course now there are a lot of people in India who have felt the sting for too long, and are turning the tables, with anger against anyone who is not fluent with the local language. English is simultaneously connected with snob value and an inferiority complex, not surprisingly since it came with the British and their class system and superior attitude towards the ‘natives’.

Still, 70 years later, fluency in English in India is usually equated with intelligence, education, ability, position, trustworthiness, status and often value. I only re-examined these assumptions as an adult, and realized that they were faulty. Slowly over the years I have tried to root out these lies and re-align my mind and behaviour with the truth. What is the truth?

1. English is just a language, a skill. It does not reflect character, intelligence or value.

2. As a language, it is for communication, not a status symbol. If someone with ‘broken’ English can communicate a thought, instruction or idea, then they have successfully used the language as a means to an end.

3. Someone who speaks several languages imperfectly is far more skilled and laudable than someone who speaks ONLY English perfectly (for example, I).

4. But a person’s skills in language or lack thereof can never detract or add to his or her value. Everyone deserves to be treated with the same respect and consideration.

5. Because society at large gives me a privilege and advantage that I don’t deserve, I am responsible for using that privilege for the sake of those who have been deprived of it. ‘From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required.’

6. English DOES open doors, especially in getting jobs, and a higher education, so whenever possible I should help people pick up that skill.

7. Reading books, articles and blogs, and watching movies and documentaries in English have given me a glimpse of a world outside of my small world, and that is a good thing. Once again, it is a good reason to help especially students with English.

8. The class (and caste) system is so ingrained in people’s minds, that I need to go out of my way to show and remind people that we are equal, that we are brothers and sisters, no matter our background, privilege or social status. Whenever possible, I need to choose the discomfort of speaking the language I am uncomfortable with in order to allow others to speak the language they are comfortable with.

This is one of the most beautiful and enlightening aspects of Christianity. Unfortunately too many Christians have ignored the truth and teachings of Christ and stuck to the status quo, because it protects their privilege. It’s time for us to make a change.

I Don't Miss School

I hear people fondly talking about school days all the time. "Remember when...""The good old days when we were carefree and life was simple..." "The fond memories of school and ha ha those strict but lovable teachers..."

Sometime I wonder if my school mates went to a different school than I did, because their memories seem very different from mine. I know, I know, people can have different experiences of the same thing.

But I have a theory. I think people didn't realize how bad school was because:

a. They had never experienced anything different, so they thought it was normal
b. Being fond of school was the only socially acceptable feeling to have
c. Most people don't analyze their experiences as much as I do
d. They have a misplaced sense of loyalty which states 'My school, wrong or right', like it's disloyal to point out the flaws in the system

So what was so wrong with school, Sue? (I think people are going to be upset, because a lot of people who went to the same school as I did read this blog) Were you beaten? Did your teachers not show up for classes? Did you not have a beautiful campus? Don't you know that many people are dying to get into a convent school like the one you went to?

From the outside, our school experience was great. We wore ironed matching uniforms, were neat and clean, and respectful, we had a nice (if small) campus, we had an organized, regular timetable, with some amount of extra curricular activities like Sports Days, annual school concerts, choir, competitions, stuff like that.

But on the inside...

1. School was ALL about discipline. We heard that word a zillion times. But by discipline, they meant uniformity, control, being QUIET, the highest level of good behaviour. All noise was bad noise. It was only after I did my teacher's training course that I realized a busy hum of activity is FAR more desirable in a classroom than 'pin drop silence'. And discipline, uniformity and punishment went together. Every day we'd walk to our classrooms in lines (we walked in line everywhere) and get 'checked' by the prefects (British influence)  and punished for wearing the wrong uniform, (PT tunic on PT days, regular beige for other days), wearing the wrong coloured ribbons or hairband, having broken shoes, having fingernails that weren't very short, buttons faded, wearing our socks rolled down or too low. Even bloomers were checked!!! (If you don't know what bloomers are, don't ask.) Why was all that so important? If kids' shoes were broken, maybe their families needed financial help, not punishment.

Almost like this, but not quite

2. Verbal humiliation was normal. Sarcasm, putting people down, mocking, this was not unusual. And it usually came from the teachers. Not the good kids, they rarely faced that. I used to slip by and get away with not being noticed most of the time. But looking back I remember how the 'failures' were treated, the naughtier kids, the ones who wouldn't or couldn't fit into the expectations. We had one teacher who had a sweet, courteous voice when she spoke to the 'good kids', or the ones from a higher social standing, and a rough, abrasive voice the next moment for the poorer, academically behind kids.

3. We were never encouraged to have a voice. I had no idea that it was possible to ask for change, to have the power to demand accountability, to change an unfair system. We were just encouraged to keep our mouths shut and comply. Even in class, we almost never were encouraged to voice our opinions, to participate in discussions, to THINK! We had to listen, memorize and spout out answers in our exam papers. 'Thought provoking questions' that we heard about in teacher's training? I don't remember any.

Thought-provoking questions: "Why do you think...?" "What if...?"

4. School almost killed our creativity. You know what we did for art class? Our art teacher drew a picture on the blackboard, and we copied it onto our art sheets. Yes, that was art. The idea of playing with colours, getting messy with paints was unheard of. Likewise, the idea that there are many different ways you could visualize the same thing. You ask most Indian kids to draw a 'scenery' and you will see some version of this:

(Only missing the blue clouds!!)

This is not ART, it's a MESS!

5. We had no love for learning. Learning, school and education were bad words. I had NO idea for years that learning could be fun! That we had a fascinating beautiful world outside, that history could be alive, that learning a new language was possible, that questions were GOOD, that there was so much to know and learn and understand and that it was not really boring! 12 years in school and I had no idea. Our textbooks disguised the fact, our teachers didn't seem to know this secret either. (There were one or two exceptions.)

6. There was no room for individuality. Now, I do realize this is not totally our teachers' fault. With 60 kids per class, they were probably so overwhelmed that encouraging kids' uniqueness and individuality was not a priority or maybe even a possibility. But kids are different... and that's okay! We should be helping them figure out their strengths, not just forcing them into a box, or pronouncing them failures when they don't fit. Lots of smart kids probably didn't realize they were smart. I was one of them.

 7. We didn't feel loved. Love can cover a multitude of sins. Even with a not great education system if only our teachers had loved us, we would have gotten something out of our school life. (I don't count primary school- I'm pretty sure most of our primary school teachers loved us.) Kids learn how to love by having love modeled for them. Kids need to be loved, respected, made to feel special. I never experienced that. If we didn't experience a sharp tongue lashing from our teachers, we were mostly invisible. I stayed invisible for most of high school. (Except when I unwittingly broke the school rules and got my nose pierced, but that's another story.) My favourite teacher was not one who loved me, but one who was fair and impartial to all the kids. That was the most we could hope for.

8. Fear and a desire to escape was normal. I spent every weekend dreading the approaching Monday. I spent every Hindi and Marathi class squirming to avoid the humiliation if the teacher realized I didn't understand Hindi or Marathi. I escaped from school (which locked its gates once we were in) by reading books. Contraband books mostly because we weren't allowed to bring non-library fiction books to school. I started counting down the days and months until I was out from the time I was in the eight standard.Years later whenever I was going through a hard time or feeling trapped or scared, I would dream I was back at school. Yeah.

The problems I faced in school were not unusual. They are common in many Indian schools. I think what is surprising is that this is considered a 'good' school, or that people think they had a good education. I think we were cheated of a education and 12 years of our lives. I think the only reason my school experience didn't destroy my childhood intelligence and ability to think was because I had an interesting family life, where we lived in a world of books, imagination and creativity. I think almost everything I learned about the world I learned from storybooks. But I know most people may not have had that experience or exposure.

More and more people are realizing the school system in India needs to change. But it is a slow and uphill process, where so far it's only the rich kids who are benefiting from a better education. But I still hope.

(I know, this was a depressing post. But I promise a sequel: The Many Good Things that Came from my Bad Experiences at School.)