This morning I traveled 22km from M.G. Road to visit a school in Laggere (near Peenya) by autorickshaw. Now, those of you who know Bangalore know that this in itself is no mean feat. One generally cannot get autorickshaw drivers to go from one desirable area of town to another, let alone to a part of the Greater Bangalore Metropolitan Area of such disrepute. We lucked out, however, because someone in the office has a regular auto-man, Ramesh, who was willing to pick us up at 7:40am this morning, drive us to Peenya, arrange his day so he only drove people around Peenya and then pick us up six hours later. Twenty two km in an auto is no joke though, and Ramesh, the auto-man, was 20 mins late to start with, so by the time I reached said school I was not in a particularly live and let slide mood.
Usually, the schools I visit have no classroom space, corridors that can barely fit my hips and a central courtyard the size of an average bedroom. This particular school was rich in space but beyond that, the students were as badly off as any of my "low-end" private schools in the city. The explanation of multiplication made it sound like division, first grade children were taught enough in a 40 minute lesson to make my head spin, never mind theirs and fifth grade children were made to go into The Fly by Walta aka Walter de la Mare in excruciating detail.
However, the unkindest cut, after my ridiculous auto-ride, was the misuse of the English language. Literal translation from one language to any other generally results in some entertaining turns of speech. However, when the people doing the literal translation are English teachers at a reasonably reputable (or indeed, any) English medium school, it is no longer funny in the least. In the past few weeks I have already been told to, "Say me," "Explain me," and, "Tell to me." While these still strike me as odd, I am beginning to expect to hear them in classrooms. Today, however, I heard a brand new oddity in this already weird family. Are you ready for it? It was, "GUESS ME!" And I heard it not once, but twice, in two classes taught by two different teachers in two different classrooms to two different grades. As the teachers used this expression, I waited for the telltale sniggers and nudges from the students, proving to me that all was not lost; that they'd heard the misguided combination of words and were going to demand retribution (as we certainly would have in any of my classes at school), but no such luck. The students remained passive and docile, absorbing and reusing these and many other choice phrases.
To be honest, the actual phrase "guess me" is probably the least of our worries. What worries me more is that in the quest for upward social mobility, people choose to send their children to these schools where neither they nor the teachers can truly monitor the process because none of the adults have an adequate grasp of the medium of instruction. Worse still, the children are sometimes so busy decoding this new and garbled language that the time spent on real instruction is far less than time spent on the mechanics of the lesson.
Usually, the schools I visit have no classroom space, corridors that can barely fit my hips and a central courtyard the size of an average bedroom. This particular school was rich in space but beyond that, the students were as badly off as any of my "low-end" private schools in the city. The explanation of multiplication made it sound like division, first grade children were taught enough in a 40 minute lesson to make my head spin, never mind theirs and fifth grade children were made to go into The Fly by Walta aka Walter de la Mare in excruciating detail.
However, the unkindest cut, after my ridiculous auto-ride, was the misuse of the English language. Literal translation from one language to any other generally results in some entertaining turns of speech. However, when the people doing the literal translation are English teachers at a reasonably reputable (or indeed, any) English medium school, it is no longer funny in the least. In the past few weeks I have already been told to, "Say me," "Explain me," and, "Tell to me." While these still strike me as odd, I am beginning to expect to hear them in classrooms. Today, however, I heard a brand new oddity in this already weird family. Are you ready for it? It was, "GUESS ME!" And I heard it not once, but twice, in two classes taught by two different teachers in two different classrooms to two different grades. As the teachers used this expression, I waited for the telltale sniggers and nudges from the students, proving to me that all was not lost; that they'd heard the misguided combination of words and were going to demand retribution (as we certainly would have in any of my classes at school), but no such luck. The students remained passive and docile, absorbing and reusing these and many other choice phrases.
To be honest, the actual phrase "guess me" is probably the least of our worries. What worries me more is that in the quest for upward social mobility, people choose to send their children to these schools where neither they nor the teachers can truly monitor the process because none of the adults have an adequate grasp of the medium of instruction. Worse still, the children are sometimes so busy decoding this new and garbled language that the time spent on real instruction is far less than time spent on the mechanics of the lesson.
Another Indian favourite, premise pronounced pre-mise instead of pre-miss
ReplyDeleteI'm going to add this to my collection of precious phrases.
ReplyDelete"Take bath" is another popular one.