Tags
childhood dilemmas, experiments with truth, gandhiji, Humor, M.K Gandhi, mindset, prejudice, school memories, teacher vs student, truth and dare
A school memory pops out of my amygdala.
Lil Sweety is in the 10th std. Unit test exam. Subject – English.
She receives a measly 0.5 marks for one particular 5 mark question. She anxiously goes through her whole answer and finds no fault with it. She approaches the teacher, proffers her answer sheet and politely enquires what went wrong with her answer.
The teacher peruses the answer once and jabs a triumphant thumb at the second sentence. “You wrote M.K Gandhi instead of Gandhiji.”
Sweety blinks in puzzlement and tries to establish her point. “Madam, M.K Gandhi is the same person as Gandhiji.”
“I know.” The teacher snaps. “But you cannot write M.K Gandhi. It’s insulting to the Father of the Nation.”
Sweety is even more perplexed. ”Why should he get insulted by his own name?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Don’t repeat the mistake next time.”
“Is there anything else wrong with my answer?”
“No.”
Finis. Sweety’s marks stay stubbornly steady at 0.5 out of 5.0
Needless to say, that is the end of her experiments with Truth. Since lil Sweety is not convinced by the teacher’s reasoning or reply, she decides that the best solution to this problem is to keep the entire M.K Gandhi chapter as optional. Not just for the Final exam, but Forever. 
P.S– It’s a true story from her childhood. Sweety is now grown up (relatively) but she remains as baffled as ever. What crime did she commit?
What would you do if you were lil Sweety? What would you do if you were the teacher?
It takes a while to realize that there are teachers who don’t know very much and who are not very good at what they do. Add to that the sick little ego trips that some of them take at the expense of their students, and you have the kind of thing that happened to you. I base this on my experience as both a student and a teacher. I liked this post.
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Thank you. Its nice to be at both ends of the knowledge trip – as student and teacher. It makes one extra cautious not to demoralize a student for not being good a t a particular skill.
I, too, have been at both ends. I try to be as encouraging as possible. However, mood swings and momentary lapses do occur and we end up lashing at those who cannot hit back.
Its best to treat the past as a learning treasure house for the future.
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We all dear speaking the truth, because we know they are more people who will resist it than who will believe it. Sad truth of life.
And that incident with you, I mean little sweety, haha.. I also find no mistake from your side.. I think the teacher was to more patriotic.
And haha.. And that quote by Gandhiji at the end made me smile.. (Because little sweety won’t be happy and will give .5/5 for the quote).. Haha..
Have a great day.. 🙂
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Truth is as we perceive it to be.. In this case it was your teachers perception that said it was an insult.. Your answer was in no way wrong.. Only in your teachers eyes
Such is truth.. What was our truth yesterday alters today as we learn and grow.. At one time it was thought the world was flat and we would fall off the end..
you got 5 out of 5 from Me Sweety.. xx
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haha, thank you so much!
It did hurt back then, but now I can afford to look back and laugh at the event. Back then, every mark counted since we had a tremendous race between school mates for topper position.
Its only now, as adults, we realize how little the marks mattered – and how much actual knowledge counts.
As you said, truth also matures as we mature.
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And yet after all of these years it still is held with such clarity within your mind, Showing us how as children we are wounded and take these things to heart. We carry much of these hidden hurts with us into our adult lives.. Love and blessings x
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Very true. Our memory stores images and boom! out of nowhere they ricochet out and show us that they touched a raw nerve somewhere.
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yes those raw nerves.. often spring forth.. ❤ Wishing you a peaceful weekend Sweety xxx Hugs
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These tiny matters make great impact on the child’s confidence and his/hers notion towards teachers a lot. I think everyone of us has gone through similar situations at some point of our time in school. Partiality and comparisons between children are still a grave worry. My nephew who is just 7 years, is a very good painter but since he is a naughty child, the drawing teacher never appreciates his paintings. Poor kid comes home very upset everytime he has his drawing classes. This kind of attitude from a teacher is really something to worry about.
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Yes, indeed. There are so many ways a teacher can mould a child’s thinking and behavior. Perhaps every teacher should have a supervisor to oversee her own behavior, since they are as susceptible to errors as children.
As regards your nephew, that’s a real pity. She may end up crippling his fascination in the subject totally. Children often idolize school teachers, so their word of appreciation/criticism may mean the world to them. A la ‘tare zameen par’, they may end up rejecting their own talents.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
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You are technically correct and I would have given you 4 marks out of 5. But mind you only 4 and not the full 5 marks. The reduction of one mark is attributable to lack of propriety on your part. In your place I would have referred to father of the nation as Mahatma Gandhi. Nonetheless bear in mind Sweety that you got 4 marks from me…):)…):)
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haha, I wish you were the teacher. But yes, she did teach me an invaluable lesson. I decided to be careful for the board exam and omitted the chapter altogether. Otherwise I would have a similar examiner deleting my SSC marks.
Every event is a learning experience. Its good to observe events from memory, to ruminate over them. Distance – both temporal and geographical- does give a differing perspective from when we were actually experiencing the event.
So in that matter, past is a rich ground of experiences.
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I had a similar incident in class 11. Don’t remember the exact word.. but it was some verb which the English teacher said wrong .. and I stood up in class and objected to it( Unfortunately in my area, at that time .. there was only one convent till 10th .. so I had to shift from a high end convent to a desi type school with classroom on floor .. to add on I had topped 10th.. so I carried a nasty arrogant reputation in the new school) .
The teacher did not like it and showed me way out.
But few days later, she came to me and told me sorry. And till the time I left that school in 12th, I was her favourite student. But
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All’s well that ends well! You are lucky she had the courage to admit her mistake later on. But yes, it is tough to accept it in front of an audience.
And yes, toppers do carry an added weight . They have to not only maintain their rank, but be extra careful that they don’t slight a non topper or feel pride in themselves.
I don’t know if its a quintessential Indian thing or is universal. But somewhere we don’t teach children to be aware and proud of their achievements. I mean, humility is fine too and pride should be within the limits of arrogance- but they should have an inner glow and satisfaction that they do (s0me) things better than others.
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I don´t see why the teacher says that the complete name was insulting… Truth can be a nasty thing at times, I am guessing… thanks for sharing your experience dear Sweety. Love. Aquileana 😉
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Hi Aquileana. In India, the suffix -Ji’ denotes respect. Hence Gandhi-ji is supposedly a more respectful term than M.K Gandhi, as per the teacher’s mindset.
I didn’t mean it in the derogatory sense, but she took it otherwise. However, as an English teacher she ought to have focused on my grammar rather than judging my marks on my (supposed) cultural outlook.
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I very well understand your situation and sympathize. Somewhat similar situation happened when I was in high school. In the exam, I had to write a page on Aurangzeb. I wrote he was very unlucky because even though he was a king, he lived like a beggar and did not enjoy life. The teacher did not appreciate my “out of the box” thinking and gave me “zero” out of 10 marks for that answer.
History is not just to present the facts, but subject to interpretations.
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Exactly. This is why children end up hating History subject. Our exams should focus on lessons learnt from History, character sketches and alternate interpretations of events. Instead, they make children mug up dates and more irrelevant dates
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In Tamilnadu politics, it is a biggest sin if you address a leader by his/her name, even with a ji at the end. They should always be addressed by their self given nick names, e.g. Amma (mother), Thalaivar (leader), Thalapathi (General), Captain (because he acted as a captain in a movie).
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Oh, is it? Local customs are so scary. One foot wrong and you’ll end up hacked to death.
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Beautiful story
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Thank you!
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😊😊
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There are notions like this with the ‘great men’. In Bengali, we have to write, ‘kobiguru’ (guru of all poets) before the name of Tagore. Or ‘Netaji’ for Subhash Chandra Bose. I find it utterly ridiculous to put these things in the mandatory realm. I would have given you 5/5… 😀
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🙂 I looked up the book itself and guess what? The cover image states the author as M.K Gandhi. So I feel vindicated. ANYWAYS , respect is all in the mind. There are people who say Ji & Madam and snigger behind the back. Whereas with people like Bhagat Singh, the respect stays immense even if we don’t say Bhagatji
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Well said… 🙂
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