On Paul Melvyn’s visit to a school in Sri Lanka

"These three observations do not refer to my views on teaching methods, curriculum and how the schools were run but the pointed examples convey what children can expect in various schools, what they have to undergo in different situations especially during the very key, vital and crucial years of growing up interacting with their peers as the future leaders of their respective communities and countries."

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by Victor Karunairajan consulting editor for Sri Lanka Guardian

(June 02, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) A spontaneous conscientious act of communication sharing his experiences after a visiting a school gave the readers of Sri Lanka Guardian an insight into the day to day happening of a school somewhere in Sri Lanka from 7 30 in the morning to 1 30 in the afternoon.

We have to be grateful to visitors like Paul Melvyn to have the good sense and the responsible nature that certainly emphasizes what every elder in a community should be doing contributing in such a manner and in various other ways to share, inform and if necessary to act positively especially in the area of children and education.

This is not the responsibility of parents alone; all elders are parents of all children no matter what their racial, religious, caste, class other backgrounds are and whatever such may impact on them.

There is no need to reproduce here chunks of the valuable comments and observations Paul Melvyn has made into this comment of mine because the feature was published this morning and is at hand by scrolling a little down on this page.

Compared to Canadian schools, except in the case of schools run by the Catholic Church, children attend school sloppily dressed and are a sight on the way to school and back home in the afternoon. There seems a fashion for the dress style of hooded monks and penguin walk with too many boys wearing their trousers at groin levels with the leg joints at the knees.

Thank God, there are uniforms in many countries and in this respect, Indian schools take the cake and Seychelles equally impressive too. How nice is to see children bright and neatly clad as children ought to be and smiling their way to school with comfortable and pleasant chat along the way.

During mid-morning breaks in Canadian High Schools, one gets the impression it is smoke time for children. One can see them standing outside pulling their hurried and shared puffs. What a miserable sight! It is also known drug sharing has virtually become second nature in urban schools. These are symptoms indicating that something is terribly wrong with families, and children are under great stress.

I can refer to a few experiences of visiting schools in some countries but three made big impressions on me. The first one was to the school where my children attended in north Sri Lanka, the second to a school in southern Sweden where the students hardly spoke English and the third, and most recently to a school of 1500 children in Kerala, India from Muslim, Hindu and Christian families studying together as if they were all from one homogenous community. The richness and joy of this educational fellowship and growing up together warmly stirred the kind of ideals that I have cherished.

This is something Sri Lanka enjoyed whether in urban or rural situations before racial and religious bigots began to call the tune. Until then there were provisions for Tamil-speaking and Sinhala-speaking students to learn each other’s language but since the coming into force of the Sinhala Only Act, the vicious divide was clamped down on the country and we know what has happened to us in consequence. In the process, English has also suffered immeasurably and here, this once upon a time colonial language is referred to as a universal lingua franca and not just the tongue of the English people.

If we take out all the words that have enriched the English language from many parts of the world, one may be left with only fish and chips for the English!

The school in Kerala is run by a trust which was founded principally to integrate orphan and needy children into the mainstream society and during the last two decades, it has served the community splendidly. During a time I spent there, I had the freedom to visit any class from Grade Two to Grade Twelve and even spend time with the tiny tots. I would have a full period of forty minutes with them during which they had the option to choose a topic on which we could all participate, invariably in lively exchange of information, many questions and quite fascinating answers.

It was any subject under the sun and we informed each other whole-heartedly from elephants in India to Dhoni smashing Aussie bowlers Down Under and the forthcoming Beijing Olympics. We talked of alternate sources of energy, herbal remedies, fast food, engineering marvels and great leaders of India and the world. We searched ocean depths, surveyed the great rivers of India and asked ourselves why they should be or should not be joined. We wondered why birds migrated and Sooty Terns gathered in their millions on the islands of Seychelles from their perpetual flights.

We marveled at the earth’s crust and how the tectonic plates would move from time to time often causing horrendous natural disasters, the recent tsunami being one. We talked about classical dances of India as well as music and the children were quite familiar with Mohini Attam, Kathakali, Bharata Natyam, Kuchchupidi, Kathak, Manipuri and Odissi all dances from various parts of India. Their knowledge of India is beyond belief. What is remarkable here was that we were communicating in English when our respective mother tongues were Malayalam and Tamil.

In Sweden too despite the language barrier, the exchanges among us, encouraged by the presence of the daughter of my Swedish godchild, made our discussions quite lively and pleasant. The students were fascinated by the music, dance and arts of India and after a slow start, questions began to take a rapid state. We ended reluctantly with a wonderful crescendo of questions and answers both ways. I learnt a great deal about how Sweden has integrated so much of non-formal and informal educational aspects into the country’s formal educational systems and the roles parents and the public play as partners in education. A large number of adults are often going to schools for special courses emphasizing that education is a life-long process.

The visit to my daughters’ school left me with much to be desired, so much so, I found it necessary to be fully involved with the parents which was much resisted by the school principal, and later be on the Board of Directors of the school elected as the alumni representative. On one visit, I found my daughter’s class was on without a teacher and at that very instant moment decided to take the class myself and helped the children to understand how beavers built dams in Norwegian fjords. There were occasions I found far too many teachers were on outside errands and business, and one particular morning a teacher was seeing the mother of his student off at the bus stop instead of being in the class. He missed two classes that morning. A few years later he became the principal of that school.

As I passed along the corridor of the classrooms with half walls, I saw a female student about twelve years old standing on her seat as a punishment in a mixed class of boys and girls. The teacher, a female too, felt that this was right and proper but as a parent I found that absolutely revolting. I was left with no option but to ask the child to step down and take her seat even if that meant interfering with the responsibilities of the teacher. I didn’t care, the feelings of the child was all that mattered to me.

These three observations do not refer to my views on teaching methods, curriculum and how the schools were run but the pointed examples convey what children can expect in various schools, what they have to undergo in different situations especially during the very key, vital and crucial years of growing up interacting with their peers as the future leaders of their respective communities and countries.

Given the option to choose, I would have preferred my children to attend the Kerala school especially for the spirit of community consciousness that was paramount there. The Swedish school made available so many different opportunities with its formal, informal and non-formal educational thrust and also the summer camps where children gathered as a peer community and in some I had the privilege to work as a volunteer.

I gathered from Paul Melvyn’s experience that our schools are caught in a terrible fix and private schools and tuition centres are another factor that may not be in the best interest of children having the need to grow up in a just and fair society as equal partners with equal opportunities with a dedication from all those responsible for education in Sri Lanka. Formal education is what is preferred in Sri Lanka but this is too limited and cannot certainly meet the development needs and demands of the country.

No doubt there are dedicated principals and teachers, school uniforms, order etc., but are there schools in Sri Lanka that have the visions of the future and meet the real needs of the country and above all, develop a citizenship that will recognize the value of universal brotherhood especially with people from four major religious and racial backgrounds?

The answer sadly beggars a just reaction. I would advise Sri Lanka’s educational planners to visit schools in Kerala, India and see how various communities are taking care of their future generations and the their total commitment to the country. In conclusion, I salute Paul Melvyn for his very valuable insights and opting to share it in public.

- Sri Lanka Guardian