Tabby Interrupted- II. Review on Public School Vs Home School

Dedicated to Sitab, whom I have nicknamed Tabby, and who has inspired a third review from me without doing anything!

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This review deals purely with admission tests for the 1st standard of Primary School and why they are bad for the child. Excuse me for being “off topic”.

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What prompted me to write this article? My neighbor’s little twins took an admission test. One failed and the other cleared. Some psychiatrists have had to see patients aged 6 years recently. The three events are unconnected. Still, I was disturbed.

I am severely against the idea of such examinations for three main reasons. Let me explain each one by one.

~ Parents~

What is wrong if parents want their wards to be in top primary schools? Well, there is nothing wrong at all. The problem is not that! But the problem is that parents tend to push children on and on into preparing well for those tests. I am not saying that it was the case with my neighbor. But a seriously large chunk of parents falls into the trap. It is very bad for the child’s progress to pressurize him or her at such a tender age.

~Nature of the Test~

Most admission tests are designed such that they test the child’s following abilities. Can the child count? Can the child recognize objects? Can the child think logically? To be honest, barring the first two conditions, the other two conditions of testing are essential. What is wanted is basic thinking ability. The “test” aspect puts a time restriction. That may lead the school administration to wrongly categorize students as “he or she can’t think” and “he or she can think”. Actually, both can think. One thinks faster than the other. That’s all. I shall elaborate on this further, a little later.

~Teachers’ Attitude~

Now let us talk about children who have written the exam and got seats in the school. Take the case of two imaginary students- Tabby and Bumpy. If Bumpy scored 7 out of 10 and Tabby scored 5 out of 10, it is natural that the teacher will think Bumpy is smarter. May be he is. But that opinion of the teacher will get expressed in action. She will treat Tabby like a “back-bencher”. That will harm Tabby’s confidence and slow down his progress.

Let me elaborate on the “time factor problem” that I mentioned earlier. At that raw age, the time factor cannot be made a parameter for assessment. In the case of Tabby and Bumpy, it is likely that Tabby was slower than Bumpy. That doesn’t mean Bumpy “can” and Tabby “can’t”. But if the teacher thinks Bumpy is smarter, then she is going to think that way.

I said earlier that it is unfair to put pressure on the child. The child should be viewed as the bud of a flower. Primary school is the place where this bud will begin to bloom. If you look at just the bud in the garden, you can’t tell accurately how big it is going to bloom. May be the “big bud” will become a big flower. But we aren’t sure. If you devise a technique to start “stimulating” the flower’s bloom, then you are controlling the natural process. Naturally, the outcome of the process will also then depend on your technique.

Your technique might make the flower bloom to a certain specified extent. But are we sure that this was the maximum extent of the bud’s blooming? Are we sure that the bud wasn’t going to bloom to be a bigger flower? In our hurry to ensure that a flower blooms, we have probably stunted the even greater blooming of a more promising bud! Each bud is the same before it blooms. How could you ever decide which is which?

That is why it is best that we leave each bud to bloom by itself. We must water the plant and fertilize the soil with care. We must provide the essential raw materials. Similarly, it is unsure as to what form the child’s personality is going to take- is he an artist? Is he a scientist? Is he a visionary? Is he good for nothing? We can’t say. We can only provide proper values (sanskar) and opportunities for the child to discover his or her interests.

The child should be put through rigorously disciplined study when he or she has fully shown his or her potential (at the age of 15 or so). Till then, the flower must bloom by itself.

Let us come back those twins again. Among the twins, the one who entered Somalwar Primary School has had a very rough time passing his unit tests (his school is very particular about test scores). He cries every time he has to do his homework and is usually feverish during or after tests. The other child is doing a little better. His reluctance to study has expressed itself in a significant interest in playing the keyboard. He’s his schools hero and his friends call him Sonu Nigam. He doesn’t cry over his books but finishes his work eagerly so he can hit off on the instrument again. Tell me. Who’s happier? Who’s better off?

Did the school make any difference?