Teaching at primary school level
One day, about two years ago, I was sitting inside my living room though it was April and the sun was already up. It was about 9’o clock. I heard someone running into the veranda of my house and crash opened the door. He was the second son of my nephew. He was gasping and horrified. He grabbed a Sandali and sat taking huge breaths. At his entrance I had the current in my brain that some dog may have chased the boy of less than five years and that has made him to run into the house.
When he took a few breaths in the calm of the house I asked him as what had happened to him? The idea uppermost in my mind was that the kid has either been chased by a dog or some one has frightened him such as a joker or a mad man or woman or so. I asked him about his real problem. The nostrils of the kid were still wide opened. In reply to my question he said ‘ ustad doyan’ i.e. the teacher is beating. This two word sentence made me laugh at first but brought other thoughts to my mind. In fact the boy had gone to the primary school after his elder brother but he was not formally enrolled so he stood outside the school and had not dared to enter the classroom but in the meanwhile the teacher had come out of one class room and had beaten one of the students in the sight of the boy mentioned above. Either the cry from the boy being beaten or the noise of beating frightened the boy so badly that he ran from the scene as quick as his legs could carry him . He did not look back even once and ran for over a km distance and finding my door open rushed into the house. The palpitation of his heart was still unbelievable. It made me think over the teaching and punishment system in schools and the new approach not to use stick for teaching but use other useful methods to remove the fright from the hearts of the innocent young boys and girls to whom we have to be very kind.
In primary schools the young boys and girls are raw stuff. They can be managed in any way the teacher likes. If he / she likes to baton charge he/she can do it but it spreads in social media and scandals magnify a small case into a big Tsunami, according to Imran Khan, resulting in damage to the service of the teacher concerned. Using Maula Bux was very popular in the days when I was a primary and middle school student. Despite my good performance and ability I have also received baton charges on minor issues. The number of students in each class used to be not more than a dozen and after baton charges many left school for ever. The primary school teacher controls a host of very young boys and girls and they are very sensitive at that level of their age so they require kindness of the teacher. A jolly teacher with humour is a far better teacher than a serious and anger prone teacher. In order to get good result the teacher at this level should take my advise and should always show kindness to the young boys and girls. Spend full period in the class room and help each and every student to write. The words of the lesson each day be repeated serial wise by each student at least 5 times to ingratiate the pronunciation of the Urdu or English or Arabic word. Kind teachers are remembered by their students throughout their lives. Be kind to all especially to your student who is just like your real child.
Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig
