After all these years some things never change. The stress
of education is always there on the child and add to that – the greatest stress
ever – the stress of homework not done or homework incomplete.
Yesterday was Jispa’s last day of the vacation. Till the
fourth standard – every year in the vacation they have to write a scrap book of
the stuff they did in the vacation. This for us is the most painful thing. You have
to think of stuff we did, print pictures and decorate the scrap book. The most
tiresome of them all – get Jispa to write in the scrap book. Get behind here. It’s
like getting her to write 20 essays. Arrgghh. We have to be real mean parents
if are to get her to finish on time. Things don’t help when the highlight of
your holidays which is the vacation we took is towards the end of the holidays.
We even took the dam bloody scrap book to Udaipur and made her write in her
vacations. Whenever we had free time, we would goad her into writing. She would
curse us, curse the dam book but she had no option but to write. After she writes,
we can choose the pictures and print them accordingly. Jasmine had been telling
her to write a few pages of Hindi as well. Jispa maintained that it was
optional. Yesterday, on the last day, Jasmine read the circular that explained
quite clearly that a few notes in Hindi are expected. But since getting Jispa
to do the scrap is so bloody stressful, we let it be. Don’t bother.
At around 8 pm, when we are all ready to sleep and Jasmine
is so tired that she even falls asleep, Jispa suddenly sees something that
every school going kid sees. The consequences of not doing what you have been
told to. Till now the school and the home work seemed far away. Hindi pages –
sure – it’s optional. Its not required. But now, she was suddenly convinced it
is not optional. It is required. She
comes to me with an upset face. What am I to do? Nothing, chill I tell her. We will
figure. Now have your bath. After her bath also, she comes to me. Now really upset
and almost in tears “what will happen tomorrow?”. “arey” I tell her “you enjoyed
your summer vacation, nah? Why regret? Don’t worry. You said it was optional
and what can your teacher do? She will only scold nah? Don’t worry”. “no” Jispa
cried, “she can mess with my grades”. I wanted to tell her, chill man. Shit happens.
It’s not the end of the world. In school, shit always happens.
When I was her age, shit happened all the time. We were
three kids. Of course my mom couldn’t completely focus on all our studies. And then
my dad had a heart attack when I was in fifth standard. So shit just hit the
roof many times. Homework not done, answers not learnt, talking in class, all
sorts of shit. Even rubbish like – paints not got for art class. And we used to
sometimes get slaps, punishments, kneeling and what not. That stuff is at least
banned in school these days. We used to get the dreaded remark in the diary. This
had to be signed by the parent, which was a really BAD thing. So the biggest
worry was not the shit hitting you. That was manageable. It was the shit
hitting you once you get home. Who wanted that? School was enough. You plead
with the teacher for mercy – she refuses takes your diary and then you go home
and explain the shit all over again. The pain was getting home and facing crap.
At least in this – I wanted to tell Jispa – you can’t get any
crap at home. I am saying ok. Shit happens. Not writing a few pages of Hindi is
not exactly a bad thing that I am going to scold you about. But then how do I tell
her that its ok for teachers to be angry at you, it’s a pathetic thing you shouldn’t
be bothered about. I couldn’t do that. So I looked at her and said, ok let’s do
something about it. I wake Jasmine up and explain the situation. We press code
red. We get the papers, the ruled papers, the blank papers, the colored papers.
Then we think about how to write stuff that will fill at least two sides in
Hindi. Then we think of something. Tomorrow is Monday. Monday is no Hindi.
Hindi subject is on Tuesday. Cool Jispa. Write the stuff now, we will decorate
it tomorrow and you can tell your teacher that the Hindi pages of the scrap
book are coming separate and you will get it for Hindi class. So I dictated a
lot of stuff on the Hindi essay to Jispa. That itself was a crazy situation, I shouldn’t
be dictating stuff. She should be writing it herself, but when you are about to
sleep on a Sunday night in anticipation of a whole week ahead then you really
want to get all the stuff done fast and easy. Thinking anything in Hindi is a
big task for me. It ok to speak in ‘Mumbai’ Hindi but it’s another task
altogether in writing decent fourth grade Hindi. Getting all the grammar right
is very very stressful.
So we finished by 9 to sleep on time and Jispa was happy. “Thank
you mom, thank you dad”. “ya sure” Jasmine said and the asked her “so do you
enjoy working at the last moment? Would you do this again? Will you do so when I
tell you?”. “yes mamma, sorry mamma.”
Sigh. All’s well that ends well. I try not to give too much
stress about the education bit. I try and take all that stress on my head. If you
have to learn tables, fine, let me do it along with you. If you have to do
homework, ok, let me help you. It’s pretty boring getting to do all the work
alone. Also being the only child, you can’t force the old “all of you sit down
and do your homework together” bit. So I try and be extra sensitive. As it is,
there is enough grief in a child’s life. I don’t want to contribute to it. There
are many benefits of having siblings, but there are many cons as well. We took
a call and had only one child. That was so that we could focus our time and
energies on her. Completely. So we must focus on her. That’s the way I see it. I
have no other excuses. Hence also no complains.
In the morning over breakfast she was telling me how the
scrap book completely spoils her vacation and she hates it. I explained to her
about a research I read. Kids who leave for the vacation end up not studying at
all or reading at all. This largish break makes the child regress in his
learning. So while a vacation is good for a child to play freely, it also means
that the child must do small little work that keeps him up to speed with what
he has already learnt. Two months a long time in child years I guess. That settled
it for now. Luckily next year onwards she does do the scrap book, but I am told
they have book reviews to be submitted. Hahahha. Have fun. Jasmine and I are
happy that theoretically we are off the hook on those kinds of assignments. Hehehe.
