The effect of school timing on students’ performance

Every year we celebrate teachers’ day on 5th September. Every school has their way of celebrating this day. In our school we, teachers, take a break and hand over the charge to the students. Except for some administrative staff and one/ two teachers, we go out for a picnic. This year too we would do the same. We take pride on this day for being a teacher. But the question is “how many of us really qualify to be teachers?”
Teachers are supposed to have some qualities – like knowledgeable, intelligent, dedicated etc. Most important quality for a teacher is being concerned (empathetic) about the students’ performance. While interviewing for recruiting a teacher we need to look for this quality in the candidate. All the other qualities can be acquired and nurtured. Or the management can use some HR techniques to bring out the required quality (skills). But being empathetic can not be achieved over one or two workshops. It is the nature of the individual, nurtured over a period of time from childhood. Being concerned is not the prerogative of teachers alone. The management is also expected to be equally concerned.
The managements employ a consultant paying huge amount. Either the consultant does not think in the right direction or the schools do not care about the views of consultant. Let me talk about one such problem - school time.
I recall the Madras High Court order on school timing. The judges advised the school authorities to make the school hours to start from 9:30 AM to facilitate the students coming from far off places. Generally the schools in India start at 8:00 AM and end at 1:30 PM. Some schools run up to 3:00 PM. Let me list out the problems faced by the students due to this timing.

1. Most of the students skip break fast. There are ‘n’ number of books advising about the importance of break fast. But we tend to ignore.

2. Most of the parents are working parents today. They come home late and spend little time with the children in the evening. Early morning they rush the children to school.

3. Generally the reason given for early school timing is fresh mind. Because of the above said reason (point 2) if the child went to bed late, it becomes difficult the next morning to get up early. They may not get time to prepare to go to school. They may not even go to toilet properly. Do you expect the students to have fresh mind?

4. Students go home in the afternoon at around 3 PM when they are exhausted and generally there is no one at home at that time.

5. After school, since the school ends early too, the students have to be engaged for some time, till the parents come home. This encourages private tuitions indirectly. Otherwise you would not see many KG students going for tuition. Mostly tuition for primary class students is a “Day care center”.

6. Enough thought is given by the boards while deciding the exam time. But this is not applied for regular school working hours. Is learning more important or testing?

7. In big cities early school timing makes sense. It may streamline the traffic. In small cities this is not required.

8. School timing should match the target group. For example many schools are built by companies as an employee welfare scheme. The school timing must be convenient to the company and the employees. If the office starts at 9:30 AM, the school can start at 9 to 9:20 AM so that the parents can drop the child at the school and go to the office. The school need not start at 8 AM.

9. The school time must encourage less use of non renewable energy sources. The students must be given enough time to reach the school in their own bicycles. They should not be in position to rush to school in a motorized vehicle.

10. A longer lunch time is preferred one. The lunch time must be at least 50 minutes. Many a students especially young children eat slowly. They should be allowed to have enough food.
Since many do not take break fast, they bring some snacks to school to eat in short recess of ten to fifteen minutes given. Instead of having a good breakfast they eat all junk food to kill the hunger.

11. The energy required to work in the modern day schools is much more than what was needed some two decades ago. The schools have so many activities during and after the school hours that the students become easily exhausted.

12. Teachers when they join the profession young, have more energy and they can cope with the odd timing and longer working hours easily. But as they grow older they would find it very difficult. Longer working hours is the need of the day, not odd working hours.

13. The teacher works with the young minds. He/she is not working with machines. A healthy fresh mind of the teacher is must for the growth of the school. A fatigued teacher will produce only dull students.
The mind will get enough time to get refreshed if the schools start little late i.e. around 9:30 AM. The schools may think that the total working hours is still the same. The teachers leaving the school at 3:00 PM will reach home at around four. He/she has to take care of his/her home (remember most of the teachers are women). And then, it is the next day morning. Where is the time for preparing for the next day class? The two three hours they get is not utilized properly. We can say this two three hours are “not valuable”. So the managements have to devise a way to maximize the human valuable time.

I have listed here what I perceived as problems. The problems can be many. The academic community must take note of these points when they decide the school timings. Let the learning process be happy enjoyable experience. Let the students feel comfortable while coming to school.

Radha Krishna

I was lost in my thoughts after I came home from office. The day was as hectic as ever. I needed a break. Ever since my girl friend Xhuxhu left me looking for a stable peaceful life I am not allowing myself to be left alone. I find some work to keep myself busy. The absence of Xhuxhu makes me feel so lonely. So to divert my mind I took a book and started reading. It was about Krishna, the avatar of God in human form.

I just remembered the joke about Krishna. If Krishna does, it is leela and if I do, I am deela. The Hindu God is described in mythology as he lived a life that any man would hate to throw away. Reading the book slowly I was drawn into the picture of Krishna and Radha in my mind.

Krishna is working as a science teacher, teaching the young children the basic principle of the world he created. Wearing a formal dress he approached the children with a smile, a smile which no one could resist, and a smile which has the power to bring life in everybody’s face. All his students loved him. The girls brought him flowers every day. Boys brought him their doubts. They were awestruck by his knowledge and his power to wade through their doubts. He carried him among the children very gently.

I started thinking that if this is the real Krishna. What happened to his romance? Krishna is supposed to be surrounded by girls. But here is Krishna, surrounded by children!!! This must be kaliyug. Otherwise how come Krishna changed his popular image of being the eternal romantic hero to a humble school teacher?

When I was thinking like that I noticed a gentle breeze carrying jasmine fragrance passing by. I went blind with the fragrance. It took sometime for me to come to consciousness. I was wondering - what is that new found smile in Krishna’s face. This is not the same smile that he throws at his children.

That time, Krishna was sitting on a couch near the reception. The school had a well decorated descent reception with a receptionist whose smile was far from real. Krishna was alone even though there were many around him. It was time to go home. All were waiting for the last bell of the school to ring. I could sense the loneliness of Krishna. He was waiting for someone. There she was. Again the air was filled with jasmine. She went straight to Krishna and asked him, “I want to see a movie. Take me to a movie”

Oh my God! Now I could recall that face. She is Radha. I should have understood much earlier. Why this Krishna came here to work as a teacher? He might have come to know that his eternal love is working here as a KG teacher. I was looking at Radha. There is no doubt why Krishna loves her for so many yugas. Radha is such a beauty. Her lips were small and it looked like a piece of orange in red color. Her eyes were dark and were trying to swallow Krishna.

Krishna obliged to take her to a movie. It was this moment that he waited for four years after joining this school. He was more than happy to be with his love and it did not matter what movie they were going to watch. From that day on Krishna and Radha were together for over ten years. Their love for each other is a folk lore now. They longed to meet each other. They spent many days walking in the park (Brindavan? I am not able to see any cows here; No men; nor any river). I had seen many times Krishna and Radha going for a bike ride with Krishna holding Radha’s hand. Nowadays I do not see them around. Some thing has happened to them. They might have realized their true nature as Krishna and Radha as God and the little cow girl who was in deep love with the Lord.

By this time I woke up from my sleep. Oh that was a dream. I feel still the love of Radha from the bottom of heart. She must be loving Krishna irrespective of Krishna’s state. Krishna must be loving Radha as much as she does.

(PS: I did not tell you about the movie they went to see. It was a Govinda’s movie in Tulsi theatre)

I Learnt Cycling

That time I was thirteen. I still do not know how to ride a bicycle. That was a period when bicycle was a luxury. Only rich kids used to own cycles. I used to watch with jealousy when rich kids come in small cycles. Some kid would take the cycle of his parent and try to ride in the streets of my village. Since pedaling the cycle sitting on the seat is not possible they used to put one leg through the triangular bars and ride “half pedal”. We called it “monkey pedal”.

Let me tell you how I learnt to cycle. There was one tall guy in my school. We were studying eighth standard that year. His name was Annamalai. Annamalai was tall and tough guy. He used to bully others. All the class mates were afraid of him. They never disobeyed Annamalai. Who would ready to break their hand or get a knock on the head disobeying Annamalai? Certainly not me.

It was during one Diwali vacation, I suppose. We were playing in the streets in front of my house. We were playing cards. The game is not what elders play. In this game we use empty cigarette packets. The packets would be placed in a square drawn on the cemented street. Everyone should place their packets in the square. The packets would be valued differently depending on the rarity of seeing them. "Passing show" was not valued much. "Scissors" carried more value.

The players would throw a flat stone or broken pieces of cement slabs from the square. Who ever places his stone farthest will get the first chance. Then the farthest person would slide his stone first and try to take away the packets out of the square. What ever packets come out of the square is for him, then next farthest and so on. Annamalai came there with his cycle. He wanted to play with cycle chain instead of stone. Who will oppose? The cycle chain took all the packets encircling them like a snake. Within no time we all lost our possessions to the intruder Annamalai. He came he saw and he conquered.

We were waiting for Annamalai to take leave of us. But Annamalai did not have the slightest intension of leaving us to enjoy our game. So we stopped playing and started discussing about the cycle he brought. Then he started boasting about his cycling skills and started showing his skills, maneuvering some stunts like cycling with one hand free, sitting on the handle bar when the cycle is on the move etc. Then he was asking everyone,” Can any one do any stunt?” We were keeping quiet. We never even got a chance to drive a cycle, forget about stunts. He shook me and asked me if I could do. I said in meek voice that I did not know to drive. He laughed loudly and gave an expression as though I was an amoeba. Then he pulled my collar and asked me to drive the cycle. He threatened with severe consequences if I refuse.

I started preparing the answer for the questions my mother would ask in case of an accident. I was thinking of ways to hide the bruises I was going to get. I took the cycle and put one leg inside the triangular bar and pushed the pedal, simultaneously moving up. I could feel the difference. I felt the movement very smooth. To my surprise the cycle did fall or hit Palayamkottai patti. I felt elated that I could drive the bike without any prior experience. “Oh my God, as soon as I get the job after completing my graduation I should buy a bike”. Then there I saw the wall of Thonder Nainar temple falling down. Not only was the wall, even the other houses around falling down. Thud! I realized I was on the road with the bike over my one leg. I wondered how I fell down. The only embarrassment was the laughter I heard when I fell down. But I was sure that day that I could ride any bike with much confidence.

Festivals and Poverty Alleviation

[We Indians believe the festivals bring prosperity. Let the government do their part to make it true. Let the festivals really be the reason for making the poor live happily.]

It was a windy morning in Gujarat. The festival mood was around. The Anand, the Milk City of India was painted with colorful kites. The small kids and big men are running after the falling kites unmindful of the traffic. Those who drive bikes had to do circus to avoid hurting the kids. It is another issue otherwise they may hurt themselves. Many temporary shops emerged in the street corners selling kites. I could see the expectation on the faces of those making kites.

This scene is a regular feature except for my eyes this year. I found a great economic activity. I saw the poor earning handsome money during this festival. Then I went on to think about the other festivals. The same time in Tamilnadu I had seen in my home town farmers selling their produce directly without any help of middle men. They earn the profit without losing it to the middlemen. Nor they cry for minimum support price. The economic activity buzzes on its own. I could see the same during Diwali time when crackers are sold.

Today when I had a discussion with my friends I was enlightened. All these years, I was at the impression that only rich do business. I was blind about the poor. I realized the poor too earn more during festivals. Then why can’t we promote these festivals as economic important ones. For example instead of raising flag (Like the Left parties and the right parties do for every imaginary cause) against each and every festival, we can promote them if it can provide a temporary job to the poor. The government can think about the festivals as “God sent” to guarantee 100 days work. The government can restrict certain products to only small scale industries and individual manufactures not exceeding rupees ten lacks turn over or less, so that the business does not land in the hands of biggies again. Since many of these poor do not pay tax or do not earn enough to pay tax (We know what percentage has the PAN card), the government need not think about giving any tax benefits. The only expectation from government would be to do something to promote like the annual kite flying festival in Ahmedabad.

We Indians believe the festivals bring prosperity. Let the government do their part to make it true. Let the festivals really be the reason for making the poor live happily.

Social Unrest

Psychologists and educationists must now think of a system where wanna be celebrities are given training to withstand the pressure they experience from instant fame and fortune. The government must regulate the working hours considering it as a human right.
"Eighty men molest two women in Mumbai during new year....." The headline of a news paper goes the next day morning. The same day I watched in TV, the discussion about the incident. People were airing their views against the incident. They are blaming the Mumbai crowd.Another news channel was talking about the drug abuse by Britney Spears, the pop singer. What is happening to this world? We hear about this type of news almost every day. Is the world becoming increasingly unsafe to lead a peaceful life?
People are restless. They are looking for an out- let for their emotions. I can just compare with my school experience. The year when our school started the so called naughty children used do mischievous like switching off the power and looking for a free period (class). The next year this switching off power is not enough for the next batch of students. They wanted to do something more. They threw chalk pieces at each other. It went on and on and now students are breaking windows when they are in anger. Are we not able to give them a good environment?
The society puts them under pressure - pressure to work like a machine. Academic excellence even if the child wants to become an artist. Academic excellence even if the child wants to become a sports person. Students are restless. They break windows. Now they are throwing chalk at teachers.Mumbaikars are not able to withstand the pressure they experience from the society. The work pressure and long working hours lead to less time to enjoy with their family. Most of the time is spent in Mumbai sub urban trains. The cost of living does not permit them to live together as family. The definition of family is not the same as it used to be 20 years before. Now a family includes just three. The longing for a peaceful happy family is the reason for the hit of movies like Hum apke hai kaun.
We need to think of solutions for this unrest. We need to look for an educational system which puts less pressure on students. Psychologists and educationists must now think of a system where wanna be celebrities are given training to withstand the pressure they experience from instant fame and fortune. The government must regulate the working hours considering it as a human right. Expectation from a company to produce more by pressuring the employees beyond their psychological limit should be considered as human rights violation. Compulsory two weekend holidays should be introduced especially in metros. Companies should be encouraged to device methods to keep the employees in good health and good mind. (The government should not think of imposing fringe benefit tax on such measures).
The society needs a change of approach from within. Lets not wait for an evolution but work for a change. A change that will make life easier. A change the will keep every one safe. Let the society not be the reason for one man's sufferings.