Experts & Views
Edification
The teacher had drawn a big apple on the black board and was busy colouring the apple red. As big as the apple was the alphabet ‘A’. This was the pre-nursery class. She heard a few students talking and snapped, “Don’t talk. I have eyes on the back of my head. I can see what every one of you is doing”.
I ran my fingers against my hair on the back of my head to feel that something which the 4 year old me still hadn’t figured was a part of his body. I found nothing. I thought these maybe some of the special powers given to teachers and parents.
Back home dad had brought a coconut. Me and my brother used to carefully observe the work which had to be done on the coconut: dad would take the coconut between his feet and peel off the brown, bark-like cover with a hammer’s claw.
Then a small, hard and ball-like shell would come out. The three dark engravings over the shell would then be punctured using a sharp object and from these coconut water would come out. This I thought required great effort. “My daddy strongest”; as every kid fantasizes. We of course loved the coconut water which was around 1/4th of a 250ml glass and had to be shared.
That day I hit upon something: I was sure that the teacher’s eyes were hidden by her brown matted hair just like the three engravings on the coconut were hidden by the outer bark like cover. This made for a fabulous, yet intelligent explanation.
Throughout school, I was an introvert kid. Sigmund Freud might owe the introverted-ness to the above incident. I would agree to some extent. Imagine if such a little incident can make such a huge impression, what impact would corporal punishment have on a child’s mind. Does anyone here support hitting children?
Education
I wrote a poem on the Indian education system in standard nine.
Fair, round faces,
Black, twinkling eyes.
Little, fragile bodies,
Bright, inquisitive minds.
Big heavy bags,
Big heavy books.
For tiny toddling kids
On their tenterhooks!
Wisdom is vanishing,
Creativity has no places.
Classics take a bow,
Guides show their face.
Big, mounting tomes
Memorised and crammed.
Young sprightly colts,
Whipped and Whammed.
A parrot-mule crossbreed,
Set to don the scenes.
The diabolic face of extinction,
Hovering on human beings.
The then teenage angst might have exaggerated things but sadly, five years later, things haven’t changed. Teachers continue to hit students, students continue to die or commit suicide and Kapil Sibals continue to believe that as little as a law will remedy the situation.
Entrance exams, nearly all of them, be it CLAT, IIT-JEE or CAT continue to toy with student’s future. CLAT has come in for special criticism. That it tests memory skills rather than reasoning abilities is the primary critique. I hope that this will change. Here is something good in the offing.
Enrichment
This is an entirely disjointed entry. The concern is teachers and their quality. To be a teacher in an NLU, the qualification is straight forward. AN LLB with good marks. An LLM with good marks, preferably from abroad. And a dozen good publications.
Knowledge is a prerequisite. Understandably so.
What about erudition? All right. Leave this for being vague. Well, what about testing communication skills of would-be teachers? We all know what a person with tons of knowledge does when he goes about in a drone tone. Soporific arm chair scholars. How do we challenge their competence? Poor us.
Secondly, who teaches our teachers on the art of teaching? I thought the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal did that; but it doesn’t.
Whether teachers are born or made, I don’t know. But I hope everybody will agree that skills can be improved upon. I would like to see someone offer courses to teachers on various skills. What do you suggest?
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Like that is a bad thing, he was a boy in class 8 , hes allowed to be sensitive. its sickening how low authorities can go to save themselves. truly disgusting ...
the issue is not the cause effect relationship between punishment and consequence.
the very face of the matter is that the principal feels no shame in asserting that there is absolutely nothing wrong in caning children.
And hence, children should be hardy to take this kind of punishment.
please tell me you dont agree. cause if you do , you my friend, need help.
The post was as usual insightful!
@1: I agree, and believe that the egg-shell-skull rule should apply in cases of corporal punishment!
@#3
do you justify caning school children..??
Does anyone think that a Standard 1-5 student has the patience or the capability to understand what is good or bad better than his teachers or parents? It is because they are scared of being hit they correct themselves. When they grow up they sure do realize what their teachers/parents did was for their best interest. (At least I do. Although I have not seen 'life' to its fullest yet)
There are various phases in life that one may feel like suiciding, but is that the solution? Now, if you insulate him/her from being corrected, what will they grow up to be?
In this case, we all know media reports half-baked facts. There must have been something that the student must have done for the matter to first of all go to the principal (As it is not that easy in a school like La Martina to go to the Principal. All matters are solved mostly at the supervisor stage). Secondly, lets also consider that the Principal might not be in the best of his moods and he might have hit the boy who would on other days might have just scolded him.
@Legal Poet - I am sorry, this is one matter that I completely do not agree with you.
The student might have been in Standard 8. But, as far as my own personal experiences in schools like La Martina go, these students are not normal students, they do things not expected of a student (whatever age he may be), with full support of the parents.
@Kian, the allegation of abnormality is raised against a definite class of students. As the class is a definite one, the statement amounts to defamation. Moreover, it is unfair to criticise anyone, especially minors, on a forum where they have no notice and opportunity to respond. Please remove the comment.
I wonder why Kian has not removed the defamatory comment yet. On the defamatory nature of an allegation against a well defined class of individuals (a class whose members can be identified) please see Knupffer v London Express Newspaper [1944] AC 116. There are Indian cases on the point too, one involved the Nair Service Society. I am a bit too busy to get hold of those cases.
Kian, for god's sake have some regard to the dignity of some kids aged 16 or below. Dont you think the sentence "But, as far as my own personal experiences in schools like La Martina go, these students are not normal students, they do things not expected of a student (whatever age he may be), with full support of the parents" which names children of a particular school and makes a character allegation on them without any facts to back it, certainly lowers the reputation of the minors concerned in the eyes of reasonable persons? A boy has died. It is unfortunate. Even assuming he was the most mischievous of all kids that ever walked the face of earth, should you not have some regard for the feelings of his near and dear one who might chance upon this comment?
Legal Poet, I believe you have the power of moderation too. Please look into the matter.
NB: I have never been a student of the school concerned, nor was I brought up in a place where the school had any kind of presence. I have never been associated with the school in any manner. I think some of the alumni of the school I know are extremely snobbish. But I still think it is just not acceptable to take the cover of anonymity and attack some kids probably half your age
I agree that comment #8 may be in somewhat bad taste but it is not defamatory and is merely expressing a personal opinion apparently based on personal experience.
The class of people if any, is not identifiable. The author only says "schools like La Martina (sic)" and "these students", which on a natural reading appears to be referring to unnamed individuals rather than all of the students.
Also, since the comment was posted with a username it did not require our approval in order to go live.
If you find it in very bad taste, please moderate the comment down with the voting buttons and it will be hidden.
I believe LegalPoet is on holiday at the moment and can not do any extensive moderation on comments.
Anyway, please let's not get into an extensive legal discussion on defamation and let's try to get back to the topical debate.
Best regards,
Kian
First of, are you aware of the recruitment procedure in your college? Just because an LLM is a minimum qualification, doesn't mean everybody with an LLM gets through. LLM and publications are merely filters before professors are chosen.
Some colleges have a test-lecture in a classroom, others have a test-lecture with other professors from the university and still others prefer interviews. I'm not saying this automatically ensures good professors or that other irrelevant considerations WONT be involved, but your blog suggests that a person with a foreign LLM will definitely get a teaching job, which isn't factually substantiated.
Finally, there is an an entire industry dedicated to teaching teachers skills. Look it up. It isn't a blindingly new idea. If your college hasn't utilised them already, pick an Oliver Twist to suggest it to your VC.
And I would like to knkow the name of those organisations in that entire industry who provide training to law teachers.
Lots of colleges conduct teacher-training symposiums for their faculty, others send them to other Universities, etc.
It is true that this happens on an ad hoc basis and requires the University and the teachers to admit that they need training, so maybe you could petition your Uni?
Do speak to your university, or friends from other universities--maybe they will be able to help you out.
I am sorry to say that you have not mentioned even one training institution in India which teaches Law teachers. I am searching for something big and doing good work in this field. Please do suggest.
I am not talking about symposiums, seminars etc. I am also not talking about study leaves teachers take to get a higher degree from abroad.
I am talking of an organisation, govt. or privat which offers courses to law teachers to up their skills.
There are many law universities in India. Speaking to my university alone will not help.
So legalpoet did what he can. He blogged.
ps- so the comment by 14 is factually incorrect. (?)
However, there is no reason why this cant be extended to law colleges. Teacher training programmes mainly focus giving teachers better communication skills, they don't focus on building their knowledge base on the subject.
When I mentioned symposiums I don't mean the BS legal conferences, but I mean forums where professors and such-like meet to discuss teaching techniques and such-like-- some colleges conduct these during college vacations, so your professors have probably been to one of these!
#14 is right to the extent that, there are lots and lots of smaller organisations and individuals which target teaching teachers. Most of these are targetted towards engineering colleges (and rightly so!), but as I said before, they don't teach them "Internal Combustion Engine 101", so why can't these be extended to law colleges?
Speak to some friends from engineering colleges, maybe they will be able to help you out with contact numbers, etc. If your college successfully conducts a programme, maybe other universities will take a hint?
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