(This post was written in the March of 2014)
A couple of days ago, I was randomly chatting with our help. We were discussing her daughter’s tenth boards. She had been doing great. Except in Maths. I told her I’d be happy to help if she needed any. I wasn’t just being nice here. When it comes to board exams (esp. the torture that is the Tamil Nadu State board), I had become something of an expert, having gone through it twice with my brother and cousin.
Of course, I forgot all about it later.
Mom woke me up early this morning saying our maid was bringing her daughter to get some help in maths as she has the board exam the next day. My half-asleep brain was telling me something about it being in Tamil-medium. But then I was having a light week and tutoring a little girl in maths felt like a good reason as any to take the day off.
For the record, despite having grown up in Tamil Nadu, I can read only basic Tamil (not something I’m proud of).
When the little girl stumbled into my room with a scared smile, I didn’t expect the surprises that were in store. We started with problems in Standard Deviation. She was a bright child, she understood things fast. I made her read the problem questions, and then explained the solutions to her. It was a numerical subject, thankfully. I cannot start to imagine the catastrophe that would’ve been, had it been History. Things were going well. I picked up loads of Tamil words along the way. Standard Deviation was திட்ட விலக்கம். நுண் இயற்கணிதம was Algebra. An hour in, I started to wonder why she needed help at all, this was a top rate student.
Only when we started calculating, did I know.
She couldn’t do basic multiplication and division. She couldn’t understand why the minus sign disappears when you square a number. She knew the tables all right, even times 12. She’d recite it (in Tamil) at full speed. It took me a while to decipher what she was telling. But ask her to actually divide two numbers and it’s a mess. Quotients and reminders, all over the place. I was astounded. I taught her long division, alongside solving polynomial equations to the degree 5. Through a lot of confused looks, guessed answers and overwritten numbers, she understood how it’s divided. It was unbelievable. This was a smart kid with 12 years of formal schooling, 7 in an English-medium who’s never understood the fundamentals. In two hours, we had covered Algebra and SD all the while learning the basics. I was astonished that nobody made her understand it all these years. But the surprises weren’t over.
I glanced over and saw that a 5 multiplied into minus 2 was a 10 on her notebook, I casually put a negative sign before the product. She gave me a confused look. *deep breath* “You have got to be kidding me.”, I thought. I delved into explaining how two negatives, when multiplied is a positive but when added is still negative. It was a really long afternoon.
By the end of it, we had made good progress, which was surprising. Had it been me, I’d have given up halfway. But this was a helluva student. She sincerely wanted to learn.
I mean seriously, learn multiplication, division and wade through most of her fat maths book on the day preceding her board exam was no joke. It unnerved me. Here was someone who understood complex concepts perfectly but had scored badly all this long because she just couldn’t simplify. The irony is pitiful.
To me, she represented one of the biggest flaws in our education system.
Education can be the foundation of life when done right. Well-rounded education, for that matter. Comprising of maths, science, art, music, drama, critical thinking, healthy sportsmanship and teaching students to think. Instilling a curiosity to know and to grow.
Today was an eye opener. I knew our school system was bad but having seen it for real shook me. I think it’s partly because she was smart. Had it been a girl who genuinely had difficulty understanding, I’d have pitied her and tried to teach her ways to score maximum marks without getting into the details. Not a very ideal solution but considering the fact that the exam was less than 24 hours away, making her understand fundamentals would be low priority. The fact that this girl understood everything so brilliantly drove me nuts. She is capable of great things and yet her teachers didn’t teach her well. Not one in 12 years.
I don’t know about you but this scares me. To know that there are kids, like her, in every nook and corner of every small town, city and village who want to learn but have no means to. Who have no-one to teach them. Or worse still, have teachers who make them memorise mathematical problems. It scares me that a child who has the potential in him/her to become a good scientist doesn’t know what a computer is or does. It scares me that a young mind who doesn’t know how to channel his abundant creative energy might turn to things that might ruin his life.
I don’t know about you but it scares the hell out of me.
PS. She scored 57% in her Maths paper and was overjoyed that she passed. She took up the Pure Science stream in Std. XI so that she never had to deal with Maths again. I gave her a weak smile and wished her luck.
