false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

MaHATEmatics

A visit to my little big younger sister’s school on the occasion of a parents’ teachers’ meet brought in a rush of mixed emotions. The main topic of discussion was to discuss and decide the Education Board’s decision to initiate a lower level of Mathematics into the students’ curriculum intended at slashing the rate of failure of students in Math, because they are not “cope-upping” with the current level of the subject called regular Mathematics.

The PT meeting was to begin at 7.30 in the morning, about the time when joggers hit the road on Marine Drive passing by people from the suburbs, who are on their way to their offices in South Mumbai. But thirty minutes past seven is still an ominous hour to wake up on a Saturday. But many parents did and brought themselves to the school at around 8 only to be standing at the door, wide-eyed, peeping into the classroom to find familiar faces and empty seta to go and sit when they would be allowed to.

Much to their chagrin, the principal even announced that it’s no wonder that they kids come late to school. Students attending extra classes for the drawing intermediate exam were instructed to usher extra benches to accommodate the latecomers, now to be seated three on a bench pushing as if aboard a train!

After their students’ parents were uncomfortably seated, the much-awaited debate began with a teacher talking about what Math was and now what Math is, while the other teacher in the classroom passed on an attendance sheet for parents to sign. It will be, but my folly, to tell you that the double sheet of paper was getting more attention than what the teacher was saying “something” about “Yuck Maths” and their kids’ future.

The teacher talked about the Board’s idea of introducing the a lower level of the subject which would be called General Mathematics I & II instead of Regular Mathematics – Algebra and Geometry.

Feeding myself from the circular that the Board sent the school, I understand that students who now opt for the lower level of Mathematics would not be able to take up Math for higher education in the technical field which would require the base provided in 9^th and 10^th classes, which means they will stand to forfeit a career in engineering and just about anything that includes math, because their study combination of PCM (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics) would not be complete. The teacher, however, told the confused, bickering lot of parents told the parents that a kid who takes up the lower level of Math would not be able to appear for opt for Science or Commerce because even CA requires Math.

Coming back to the genres of parents that had accumulated in the tiny cowshed, oh classroom, there was a boisterous loud-mouth who thought aloud that the school should reject the Board’s idea because if the kids take up the lower level of Math, their future will be of no use. A ring tone rings somewhere and the parents, teachers and principal look around to spot the melody. I had half a mind to stand up and act Aamir Khan in TZP and say “Ajeeb aadmi hain aap.”

Teachers cry hoarse in the classroom telling the children to shut up and not make noise and “stop talking” and “Put fingers on their lips” (which my father used to parody as Fingers in your mouth.) It is only during these parent teacher meetings that they understand the rule of heredity. The kids talk so much because their parents talk so much!

The meeting ended unofficially as parents began to leave the classroom without being requested to even as the teacher was telling parents how students should be wearing proper uniforms and how girl students should not wear huge ear-rings and should plait their hair. The few who waited back formed a hive around the teacher, much like the way the teacher’s favourite students do right after class.

We waited till the very end, to tell the teacher that we would like to see what the new syllabus is like, since my sister seems to have made up her mind not to take up engineering or any other technical field. So we tell the teacher that the sister finds it really tough to understand Mathematics. And she goes, “Oh, is it? No problem, what are we teachers for? We’ll make Maths easy for her. Plus she has to work very hard…”

If that is what teachers are for, then where is the need for a lower level, me asks.