Gurugalaagi Taayi Tande
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By K.T. Gatti
Nava Karnataka Publications, Rs. 110
EDUCATION SHOULD teach an individual to measure his own potential, live up to it and be happy about it. But is that happening? Children in all their innocence are pitted against parents and teachers who carry a baggage of wrong notions, prejudices and ambitions.
The result: confusion for the former and anger and disappointment for the latter. What's the way out?
Gurugalaagi Taayi Tande (Parents as educators) by K.T. Gatti, a teacher, handles the subject sensitively. For long, the students' brain has been considered a container into which the stuff of books is loaded in the classroom and downloaded in the exam. Every curious question from a little one must elicit the correct answer, without irritation. All all curricula must be equal in the sense that they provide equal opportunity for all. The syllabi should make urban children gain the knowledge that rural children have (on plants, animals, weather, crops, pottery etc.) and rural children should know what they miss being village-born.
The author has incorporated a number of quotes and statements from experts in the field and from the tender hearts of students. A Yale psychiatrist's says: "We are clipping away at our children's right to be kids. All children need time in which they are not expected to perform, produce, behave and learn." If only all adults could understand this, teaching would become child's play!
The child is not an industrial concern or investment capital and is not an indicator of the status of its parents in society. Parents who realise this early can have a relaxed life.
Written in both English and Kannada, the book is a delight. The author has listed 56 titles in English and 21 in Kannada under "Suggested Reading."
(Leafing Through is a monthly Kannada books column. You can send in books and responses to Friday Review,
The Hindu, 19&21, Bhagwan Mahaveer Road, Bangalore 560001)
S. VENKATESH BHAT
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