Facilitators not monarchsBrendon MacCarthaighAt the moment of writingI am seething. A counselling client of mine has recently been suffering severe, indeed life-threatening, pressure on the home front, physical abuse included. It was hard for her to work up enough interest to enroll for her M.Com, but she drew on inner reserves and set off for Paper One this week.One of her responses to stress is to hum. So, when the papers were distributed and she saw that she knew precious little of what it was about, she began to hum. Hardly noticeable in a hall full of murmuring students helping one another sotto voce. The supervisor asked her to stop? No. The supervisor ordered her, loudly, to leave the hall ‚ no warning whatever. She was about the only one not consulting anyone else at the time. Now having battled so hard just to face this ordeal, the girl almost caved in but with a mighty effort pleaded for mitigation of sentence. Lord High Supervisor graciously granted her a mere half-hour rustication ‚ but took time off to upbraid her for being without culture, uncouth, having actually, horror of horrors, crossed her saree-clad knees while reading the question paper. Finally, with ten minutes still to go, he pestered her again and again, to tie up her papers and check them in. She held her nerve, and her paper, and forced herself to keep writing. She phoned me last night to report this dreadful experience, and we both agreed that in practical terms little can be done. This is a graphic illustration of a universally denied truth: teaching is a power game. And supervising exams is an extension of it.It doesn‚t take long for a teacher to learn that the students are totally dependent on her/ him. She has the knowledge, the knowledge they must have if they are to move up the academic ladder. And lest they think that they can acquire that knowledge via texts or tutors, the teacher is the corrector, and allots the marks/ grades. When parents visit a school, they treat the teacher like royalty, scared lest any word of theirs imperil their child. This is an irresistible and intoxicating situation. Monarch of all they survey indeed. I must admit that for several years I enjoyed the teacher-is-monarch experience. Until I began to notice the faces of my students around examinations time, then the stories of sickness, the feverish kids insisting on doing exams even in class II, the fierce tension of parents ‚ the whole mountain of health-threatening symptoms that accompanied every exam the children were writing. This recurring phenomenon prompted me to reappraise and seriously question my role as a teacher. I became aware of how intolerant I was when supervising exams. Yes, the youngsters would copy and cheat at the drop of an eraser, but it never struck me then how desperate they were to pass. Desperate to the point of ‚ well yes, suicide. In this contribution I don‚t intend to explain what through an NGO christened SERVE we are trying to do to alleviate ‚ if not eliminate ‚ the suffering of children in the nation‚s classrooms. Suffice it to say that our programme entitled Where the Child is Without Fear, has caught on hugely in Delhi and with several state councils for education research and training (SCERTs), thanks to UNICEF financing. I mention this initiative only to mute those who might say, ‚ËœIt‚s easy to criticise, but there is no alternative, so be quiet‚. A few years ago I attended a panel discussion on education where a venerable chairman and half a dozen heads of schools pontificated about school education. Not one of them had a note prepared, so most of it was sheer waffle. Let that pass. The panel included one high-school boy and one college girl. At one point in the rather vapid proceedings the chairman patronisingly asked the college student Miss Alam for her comments. She may not have been Aishwarya Rai, but she was a powerful mix of Joan of Arc and Margaret Thatcher.”My father is a successful businessman. Many of his business colleagues visit our house. Rich men, fat men, mostly successful men. It has often made my life troublesome, because I have so much study to do. My teachers, parents, even those businessmen, always told me continuous study is important for my career. So, I‚ve always stood first in all academic exams through school and college life. Some time back I asked a few of these rich men whether they had always stood first in their academic lives? All said no. Some laughed and said, ‚ËœNever‚. And some had not even graduated.”Her voice rose a few more decibels.”Twenty years of my life has been spent under the shadow of that lie that teachers and others told me. I have skipped all the things young girls like to do, to bring honour to my school and college and teachers and parents and of course myself, with a view to securing a good career. But now I realise I‚ve been lied to, right through! And you (she turned to the panel) cannot give me back those 20 years! But at least you can tell the truth to your students now, lest they too waste their best years buried in stupid books!” Miss Alam sat down, to intense silence. And, believe it or not, after a moment the chairperson gushingly thanked her. And that was that. I believe that we teachers need to overhaul our entire substructure, within ourselves and in our methodology, to do the best for the next generation of students. Who will, after all, be teaching our children‚s children in the not too distant future? As things stand, we have little to be proud of.(Brendan MacCarthaigh is a US and British trained Kolkata based educationist)