17.When something is wrong somewhere how will we refine our Curriculum ?

A couple of months ago, I was invited to  a  discussion on   a  topic attempting to review  the Kerala State  Course Books prescribed for study in schools  to identify  the  focus/weightage given to National   leaders, national integration and value-based personality development. The  discussants  comprised  mostly retired  Professors   and others who held high positions in public offices. The discussion was supposed to be a  forerunner to  a Workshop aimed at content analysis  of the course books. The programme  was organized jointly by the   Kerala Gandhi Smarak Nidhi, Dr. Sivadasan Pillai Foundation, Council for Teacher Education and Indian Association for Educational Reforms.

Given  below are notes  jotted down related to some  striking points  made by the discussants:

* Children  of the lower middle class, the middle class and the upper middle class attend Government,  Aided and Unaided schools. In the case of each,  values, aspirations and  ambition vary.  The urge to become affluent  runs through many families. Television, Film and the Internet   rouse  a desire for an affluent life style.  Naturally, the  use of cunning or unethical means to acquire job, wealth, status and fame  becomes the norm.   In fact,  one hardly comes across  teachers who   hold  three important  abilities/ qualities that mark them out:

-A mind free from desire

- An ability to control ones senses and breath

- Simple living and high thinking.

* Recently,  the Principal of a college in Trivandrum,  contacted  a girl’s parent in New Delhi to inform that the girl had not attended college on two consecutive   working days- Friday and Monday. The following day, the father a senior civil servant rushed to the state capital from the nation’s capital to meet the Principal: This is what the  girl had to say to her father in the Principal’s presence:  “ Daddy.., I had gone to Kodaicanal with my boy friend to spend the weekend and this Principal is making a big fuss about it ”.  On hearing this, the  father is  supposed to have  reprimanded the Principal  as follows : “ Madam,  have you any idea what the cost of airfare is from New Delhi to Trivandrum...? . Did you call me for this?  Do you know anything about college students in  New Delhi ?”  The  Principal  it is learned is now in utter confusion regarding the kind of values she is  expected to instil in college students.

Recently, following the unfortunate incidents in New Delhi, the Film Director & Producer, Mahesh Bhatt  expressed an opinion which must have crossed the minds of  hundreds of teachers across the country   [P2 Times Life : Supplement of Sunday Times of India-Jan 13, 2013]:

“We have been haranguing about love and compassion from the pulpit, in books, at homes and  classrooms. And yet, society keeps on creating murderers and rapists on an assembly line. Something is very wrong somewhere. Is man  doomed to remain a beast  at heart?...”