Lessons in teaching

People Like Them

"Oh no!" said her mother Gayatri, "I'll have to wait for your father to come home to find out what she has to say to me!" Gayatri was illiterate, while her husband Arvind was tenth-pass.

But the couple wanted Munni to go to school so that she'd get a chance to move further in life than her parents. "Maybe she wants to tell us how good Munni is "" remember how well she read from her text book?" said Arvind fondly.

But the couple was in for a rude shock. "The teacher had written that our Munni was lagging way behind in class. She told us to begin teaching her at home "" or else, get her tuitions," recounted Gayatri.

The worried parents got their employer's teenage daughter Nidhi to coach Munni, but to no avail. They got another letter the following week saying that Munni had shown no improvement in studies, and recommending that she took tuitions from her school teacher.

"Should we send her for tuitions?" said Gayatri. "What nonsense!" snapped her mother-in-law, "she's too young. Anyway, you're already spending a hundred rupees a month in fees, when you could have sent the girl to a government school for free!" The old lady reminded Gayatri that their household income was only Rs 4,000, and they had two other children to support.

Instead, she told Gayatri to meet Munni's teacher. In the meantime, Gayatri and Arvind also asked Nidhi for feedback. "Don't worry," she assured them, "Munni is a bright girl. I've been teaching her for a week now and I don't think she'll have any difficulty catching up with her class."

Heartened, Gayatri went to Munni's school. Her teacher was sitting under the shade of a leafy neem, while her class was reciting maths tables at the top of their voices. She frowned when Gayatri nervously introduced herself.

"Your daughter is very weak in studies," she said bluntly, "if she doesn't improve in the next two months, we'll have to make her repeat class one!" Gayatri protested that Munni could read some words in Hindi, and could even write her name in English. "That's more than what I can do!" she said, defending her little daughter.

"And that," said the teacher curtly, "is where the problem lies. Munni should come to me in the evenings for coaching to compensate for her uneducated parents!" In tears, Gayatri left. She poured out her woes to her neighbour, whose child was also in the same school.

"These private teachers just want to badger parents into sending their children for tuitions to them!" said her neighbour. "This is their way of making some money on the side!" This sparked the already indignant Gayatri's temper, and she resolved not to send Munni to that rude teacher.

The letters kept coming, but Arvind and Gayatri didn't bother to read them. Munni laboured over her studies under Nidhi's able tutelage. "Perhaps her school teacher is not very good "" Munni's responding so well to me," she commented.

On the other hand, her teacher kept insisting that Munni wasn't progressing at all. So it came as no surprise when, at the end of the year, the school decided to detain Munni in class one. The couple transferred Munni to the government school, where she's rated amongst the brightest students in class.

And even though the sarkari teachers bunk more often than students do, the couple is satisfied with the change. As Gayatri puts it, "the school will give her the degree everyone wants, while Nidhi behenji will provide her the education that few children in Mirzapur get!"