Teaching the really underprivileged
By
Sakuntala Narasimhan
28th March 2013 07:31 AM
Right?” I say, to the ten-year-old Veda, and wait for her answer.
“Left!” she says, beaming proudly. “No, the opposite of right is
wrong,” I say, because that is the word in the list given in her work
book. Her face falls as she pouts with indignation. “You only taught me
‘right’ and ‘left’ yesterday!” she argues. She is right, I did.
“There are two meanings to right,” I explain, even as I mull over the inconsistencies of the English language. Veda is the daughter of the watchman in our high-rise building, and comes to me for help with her school lessons, especially English, as both her parents are illiterate, and she wants to do well in studies and “travel in a rocket like Kalpana Chawla”. She is intelligent and learns fast, but there are times when I wonder whether I am also not learning much in the process of teaching her.
“OK, but this word in the lesson I doesn’t understand,” she says. “You should say ‘I don’t understand,” I correct her, but quick comes the retort, “You said when there are many people I should use ‘don’t’, they don’t, we don’t, but I am only one person, no ? So it should be doesn’t ? I doesn’t, you doesn’t, they don’t.”
Touche. How come no one has thought of rationalising spellings and archaic grammar, despite so much technological sophistication in recent decades?
The word ‘so’ rhymes with ‘go’ and ‘no’, but ‘do’ and ‘to’ don’t. Logic apparently doesn’t rule everywhere, there are dimensions that fall outside the purview of reasoning. Which is something I had never given thought to, in all my post-graduate studies, but confronts and confuses someone like Veda.
One folk tale in her textbook says “God appeared before a devotee in the guise of a mendicant”. “Do you know what ‘guise’ means ?” I ask her, and quick comes the reply, “ Yes ! My friends in class all say, Hey guys, let’s go play basketball, so ‘guys’ means children.”
“That ‘guise’ is different from ‘guys’,” I explain. “Then why they say it the same way?” she wants to know. Good question.
For a craft project, I offer to teach her to make lace. “Yes? I love Lays, it is very tasty chips, it costs `10 for a packet in the store,” she says, leaving me giggling over the quick connections she makes.
Being an immigrant family from Andhra Pradesh, she speaks Telugu, the local language in Bangalore is Kannada, and my mother tongue is Tamil. That makes for hilarious linkages — I explain an English word, she looks it up in her English-Telugu dictionary, and I end up learning as many Telugu words as she learns English. Even as I admire her enthusiasm and lofty dreams, I wonder where youngsters like her from underprivileged backgrounds will end up, under the proposed UPSC guidelines and controversies, regarding the language issue for aspirants to the administrative cadre.
“There are two meanings to right,” I explain, even as I mull over the inconsistencies of the English language. Veda is the daughter of the watchman in our high-rise building, and comes to me for help with her school lessons, especially English, as both her parents are illiterate, and she wants to do well in studies and “travel in a rocket like Kalpana Chawla”. She is intelligent and learns fast, but there are times when I wonder whether I am also not learning much in the process of teaching her.
“OK, but this word in the lesson I doesn’t understand,” she says. “You should say ‘I don’t understand,” I correct her, but quick comes the retort, “You said when there are many people I should use ‘don’t’, they don’t, we don’t, but I am only one person, no ? So it should be doesn’t ? I doesn’t, you doesn’t, they don’t.”
Touche. How come no one has thought of rationalising spellings and archaic grammar, despite so much technological sophistication in recent decades?
The word ‘so’ rhymes with ‘go’ and ‘no’, but ‘do’ and ‘to’ don’t. Logic apparently doesn’t rule everywhere, there are dimensions that fall outside the purview of reasoning. Which is something I had never given thought to, in all my post-graduate studies, but confronts and confuses someone like Veda.
One folk tale in her textbook says “God appeared before a devotee in the guise of a mendicant”. “Do you know what ‘guise’ means ?” I ask her, and quick comes the reply, “ Yes ! My friends in class all say, Hey guys, let’s go play basketball, so ‘guys’ means children.”
“That ‘guise’ is different from ‘guys’,” I explain. “Then why they say it the same way?” she wants to know. Good question.
For a craft project, I offer to teach her to make lace. “Yes? I love Lays, it is very tasty chips, it costs `10 for a packet in the store,” she says, leaving me giggling over the quick connections she makes.
Being an immigrant family from Andhra Pradesh, she speaks Telugu, the local language in Bangalore is Kannada, and my mother tongue is Tamil. That makes for hilarious linkages — I explain an English word, she looks it up in her English-Telugu dictionary, and I end up learning as many Telugu words as she learns English. Even as I admire her enthusiasm and lofty dreams, I wonder where youngsters like her from underprivileged backgrounds will end up, under the proposed UPSC guidelines and controversies, regarding the language issue for aspirants to the administrative cadre.
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