Hi, welcome to Cold Takes by Boju Bajai. In this newsletter, we bring a round-up of news and feminist views from Nepal and the Nepali internet.
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- Bhrikuti Rai
We are currently working on an episode exploring how students are taught civic studies and history in Nepali classrooms.
It is no surprise that the textbooks are in need of an urgent review, and it appears that teachers, in certain schools, who are responsible for introducing young kids to subjects that are key to them understanding concepts such as ethics, morality, political systems, or interpersonal relationships between an individual and institutions, are instead more concerned with numbers on marksheets.
Last week, I stumbled upon poet and director Upendra Subba’s Facebook status detailing an incident at his daughter’s school which perfectly illustrates how our classrooms and education system are in the business of breaking spirits, one child at a time. And it just broke my heart.
Subba’s daughter was humiliated by the school’s vice-principal and teachers for not being able to clear her recent exams. And instead of coming up with a plan to help the student, Subba alleged that the school teachers demeaned and mocked her in front of her mother saying, “We cannot teach this child, there is no magic potion for kids like her since she incapable of studying.” And this wasn’t the first time his ninth-grade daughter had to go through such a humiliating ordeal at the school. Another teacher had made an equally derogatory remark suggesting that she has no future studying and the parents should instead consider getting her a scooty so she can “make a living” as a Pathao rider. (This comment also reflects the teacher’s classist attitudes towards young workers in the gig economy, but that’s for another day).
Subba pointed out that his daughter was an avid reader and was interested in films and acting. Have her teachers everacknowleded her creativity or done anything to nurture it? Or are we still stuck in the same old mindset where a child’s potential and future rests on how well they do in science and maths?
Imagine how distraught and helpless the parents must have felt in front of their kid. There is nothing worse than teachers, who have such an important role in shaping young minds, telling kids that they are worthless.
As a 90s kids, I grew up in schools, where marks and ranks were the sole markers of a “good student” and students who lagged behind were routinely berated and mocked. Reading about the Subba family’s ordeal brought back painful memories from my own school days.
These traumatic memories of deep embarrassment, humiliation and anger we carry towards our schools and teachers, who made us feel unworthy as little kids, were hidden away somewhere. And all of it came flooding back reading that post. What did my parents do when they were on the receiving end of such hurtful remarks in the principal's office?
It’s a shame that not much has changed in our education system in the last three decades. The focus in our classrooms continues to be academic excellence at any cost rather than creating a nurturing environment for kids where they can discover themselves.
And each year, as the new academic session begins, my heart breaks for those kids, who have perhaps been relegated to the back of the school lines because of their academic performance, or have been sent to a different section, separated and seggregated from their friends, or the shame they are forced to carry because they’ve been made to repeat a class.
How do kids process this and how does it affect their self worth as adults? And, as for parents like Upendra Subba, who are told to take their kids somewhere else, they can do nothing but pray that the world is a bit kinder to their young children, who have already been deemed a failure by our antiquated education system.