Schooling in a smile-deficit society

Concerned as I was about his level of anxiety at such a young age,a call interrupted my worried thoughts. On the other side was a much panicked mother complaining that my son had borrowed exercise books from her son and had not turned up in class that day. “How will my son study for the test?” she bellowed. She seemed least concerned when I informed her that high fever was the reason for my son’s absence in class. She finally relaxed when I promised that I would personally return the notebooks the next day.

As I was driving to school the next morning to keep my promise,she called up again. That set me thinking — Am I less responsible a parent? Is it that my reading of Ivan Illich’s de-schooling affected my style of parenting to my little one’s disadvantage? Is this ‘helicopter mother’,as one child psychologist termed such over monitoring and hyper parents,actually representing the ‘Normal’?

The class co-coordinator was the first one I met when I entered the school. She responded to my warm greetings with a stern frown. Apparently the mother had already complained to her about the non-return of the note-books. She,like the helicopter-mother,did not even bother to ask about my child’s health. The only person in the school who actually passed me a smile that day was the gatekeeper — a short man with a big heart and abundant smile.

Back home I read Kapil Sibal’s poetry echoing Illichian sentiments in a daily and the news of doing away with board exams to unburden school kids. I wondered what the minister and the system will do to make the teachers and the coordinators smile; make them realize that one smile or an affectionate pat or a gentle touch could make a huge difference to a child’s life. How about a counselling session for the ‘educated’,mentored by the ‘enlightened’ gatekeeper of the school to begin with?