Friday, June 29, 2007

Memories...

Friday, June 29, 2007

I was cleaning my room and found my old answer scripts. I always made it a point to preserve them, especially the English ones. After the initial splash of nostalgia came the agony. Going through those answer scripts I realized how the teachers meticulously took advantage of our naivety and our gullibility became our vice.

Can you imagine the amount of B.S they fed us while at school? And some of us were indoctrinated so effectively that we continue to believe some of that crap till date.

Remember those essays on the merits and demerits of the Television. I’m sure all of you wrote those essays, and more often than not wrote the same points albeit in a different style. Allow me to butcher them one by one.

TV lets us know what’s happening around the globe. The news and the Discovery channel along with other informative channels like the history channel and NatGeo increase our knowledge base.

Honestly, in the sixth standard most of us weren’t even attracted to the opposite sex, leave alone consider the use of knowledge as a probable weapon in wooing them. At this age, for the majority of us the daily happenings of the political scenario of Palestine didn’t interest us much (I’m not sure how many of us are even interested today). Nor did we really care about the extent to which the Alps beautified Switzerland. And the only reason we might watch the Animal Planet would’ve been because we found the sounds they made funny. We were too busy playing with our friends or joining some classes which would enhance our inborn traits.

We should watch TV with caution because we may get hooked on to it. It also causes harm to our eyes.

Okay, now who the hell started this one? It’s the BIGGEST hoax of our time. Watching too much TV from up close will make you myopic or astigmatic or something like that. Let me clear you of your dilemma, IT DOESN’T HAPPEN! It’s been scientifically proven that kids who are subjected to strain work (to the eyes) such as reading, TV, Computers are at a much higher risk of getting spectacles. However this effect takes place only when their eyes are developing, a process that ceases after 6-7 years of age. So this means that at 11 years of age, you can stay up all night with a packet of chip(s) and commit sins.

Leave the habit, don’t be ignorant!

TV makes us couch potatoes.

So does sitting on a chair from 9 AM to 3 PM with minimum break time and staring at a black rectangle (which might have become green and made of fiber at some places). But we can’t reduce the time at school now, can we? Oh now don’t give me crap saying that there are “games” periods, those are like twice in a week. Are you kidding me?

Somehow using TV for entertainment purposes was considered as a sin according to higher authorities. As if watching Friends was like taking a mural of a deity and smashing it to pieces and two movies back to back was a feat achieved only by the spoilt and delinquent.

Conclusion: The emphasis on writing an idealistic (idealistic according to the society by large) answer scripts (faultily termed as flawless) supercedes the thinking power. Though the teachers at the beginning of any writing activity say that try to be original and creative, they seldom mean it. This is because many of them truly believe in all those aforementioned points. Also students seldom feel rebellious when it comes to writing an essay and would much rather go with the general perceptions of things. So let me go ahead and blame the system, for its always easier to lay the blame on something else, right?

11 comments:

Shruti

wow!!!
YOur post remind me of my school days..writing essays sometimes really irritates me...
But then its cool..
Nice to read it..

Take care

Rishabh Kaul

Hey
I still love to write essays, especially on debatable topics.
Pity we didn't have much of that in school
Thanks for visiting my blog. Keep coming back!

α Lyrae

yes, this all is so true. I have written 'several essays' on the same topic when I was in school..watching TV is not considered as a good habit only cuz it makes us waste our time which we could use in other important works..and so the wrong things are fed into our minds. I liked writing essays, but I often made them sound like some RJ's script, so the teachers never liked what I wrote.

Rishabh Kaul

I know its so hard for the teachers to accept that we could for once watch TV just 'for the heck of it'. Everything we do just HAS to be constructive!

divya

hey.. i also have all my ans scrpits kept till date.. esp my math papers!
i hated writing those essays.. and i was one of the few who made it sound like a debate..(i was a big couch potato and didnt understand how it was bad for me:P)..and since i had 2 write. so somehow my teachers got confused..didnt like it.. and i never got marks.. ans slowly i loathed english classes..
but i like reading them though!!
birng few of ur answerscripts ther.. it ll be fun!

R

First of all, it's always nice to read what a school student is writing about. Er, you're in college or school btw?

Man, I am a graduate now and I kinda miss school. The works, the restrictions (and breaking the rules), school policies and jazz. Not forgetting answer scripts. I can't recall preserving any, but English ones used to be a lot of fun! These essays, letters and all of that.. Damn it, growing up fucken takes away so much!

Rishabh Kaul

@divya: Shearrr!

@rohit: Me in college now. Thanks for dropping by. And yes, school days, good times!

Swat

lol....well said mate...well said...!!!! seriously...when i find my old answer sheets it's like hell did i even write such things?! lol..
and about writing rebellious-ly...lol i think i'm too lazy to write something rebellious in my answer sheet and stick to these stereotypes!!:) even in my french exam i wrote the same thing...we had to write a para on TV-for or against...lol!! why do they still give these topics!!!!!!!!!

Vineet Pandey

Nice Read..
Didn't like writing essays, cos always ended up with contradicting statements and No conclusions.
Poor marks obb..
Ya! The point of ppl playing safe is so true.. Noone felt that one was being asked for his views, every1 jus glanced at the right hand margin shwing the marks allocated for the essay and lo! TV causes harm to the eyes..

Rishabh Kaul

Swati: If this is French in IPE, then oh shit don't you dare write anything that isn't in the "material". It'd be like blasphemy.

Vineet: I know. It was sooooo pissing off. Thankfully in my 10th standard I had the best English teacher, who let us write from any perspective.

Nilanjana

television was a universal favorite. my teachers were actually the kinds to be impressed with original viewpoints, but i didn't discover that till the 9th so yes, i have carefully preserved "my favorite festival"( it's not allowed to be anything but diwali) with the politically correct statements.

 
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