A Day in School

It has been 17 years since I left school. In all these years I have been to the school not more than four times. Of the three educational phases in my life - school, college and post graduation, I enjoyed school the most. Being a sincere, hard-working student, I never dreaded school. I enjoyed everything - smell of new books, starting with a fresh register, sharpening pencils, filling ink in pens, buying new pens, creative project work, drawing, cutting, pasting, fevicol on fingers, maths problems, writing on blackboard, making artwork for bulletin board, lunch time, chatting between periods, arguing with teachers, parent-teacher meetings, loitering in school park during lunch time, extensive preparations for the Annual Day, waiting for bus at early morning, sweating in class during summers, helping out friends (partially) during exams, expectation when the exam answer sheets are distributed, all the teachers…

Yet it sounds so brutal and strange that I severed the link with school easily and never turned back. During a music class in my early years (class fifth, sixth or seventh), the music teacher, who was liked by all the students a lot, started to reminisce. During the class, a senior student just ran across the corridor and the teacher saw him from the open door. On seeing him rush past the classroom without a word, the teacher said wistfully something to the effect ‘That boy who just ran past was my student till some years back. When they were attending their last music class, they proclaimed with excitement that we would come and meet you regularly Maam. But nobody ever does. I see him passing the corridor frequently and he never peeps in to say hello’. Hearing this, all we kids thought, and some even said, ‘Don’t worry Maam, we are different, we would definitely come to meet you even after you are no longer teaching us’. But I am sure the teacher, being mature, did not harbour much hopes. And we were too young to know any better.

This was when I was still in school but would rarely go and meet my old teachers. What to say of going back after leaving the school. I know that I paint a picture grimmer than reality for many people - there are many enthusiastic, vivacious people who go back to their alma mater and reconnect with the teachers. But it has been different in my own experience and what I have seen with most of my friends. Sadly for me this has been true not just for school but also for graduation and post graduation. I have never kept touch with the institutions after leaving them. So no place for any sentimentality, it was a purely a commercial transaction - I paid fees and I got education. Mind you, I am not talking about going to the institution in physical sense. I am talking about keeping a connection with people there - the teachers, who at one point were the most important part of my life.

For me, I can say that even when I had the feeling or longing to meet my teachers, I was diffident. Or I felt incapable of handling a situation wherein the teachers would not recognise me. This would have been definitely true with graduation and post-graduation teachers wherein I did not leave much of a mark to be remembered by them. But I am sure my school teachers would have recognised me had I followed up. But I did not. I got too busy making a career and nobody nudged me in that direction. I also thought that teachers may not be interested in keeping any contact and I would be impressing on them unnecessarily. Nevertheless, all these were my mental deterrents but I have seen most of my friends, who I think do not face similar impediments, behave similarly. Very few keep contact with old teachers. I wonder why. Mostly it is the passage of time erasing old memories to make space for new ones, the process of moving on. Also, I believe there is a degree of selfishness. Many people keep contact with the teachers of higher education because they have some relevance - giving referral for a job, mentoring for further education, opening doors to distinguished people in the field, giving opportunities for teaching in the institute, other career prospects etc. But a relatively humble school teacher does not offer any such benefit for future and thus not remembered. Such is the brutal reality of most things in life, most pertinently in the present times.

I have been holding these thoughts for many years. And I have fostered a feeling of incompleteness, of treachery, and of lacking. At the same time I never had any burning desire to correct this. It was not much weight on my conscience. I have attended two alumni meets of my MBA college in last 10 years and never talked to any of the ex-teachers. Even most of the batchmates I have barely acknowledged. I mostly spend time with people I was comfortable with during the student days, remember old acquaintances and show enthusiasm for where they are now, feel nostalgic for the campus and the time spent, and then come home. I always felt uneasy about this attitude but not much. The last alumni I attended with a best friend, and we had a great time, though along the similar lines as I have enumerated above. But he was very animated and kept saying as we were loitering around the campus remembering old days: ‘Gosh! This is so great. So many years gone by. It feels so wonderful. We should come here atleast once a year’. And I had that all-knowing, monk-like, half-smile on my face, saying to myself ‘We shall see’.

But I have had greater longing for my school. Over the last few years I have felt, swayed by the more experiential MBA education, that school education was so bookish. I had so few life-skills, such limited knowledge of career options when I left school. I felt that school children can benefit immensely from experiences of their alumni. I often desired to stand before a class and freely share my thoughts. Indeed I want to do something in the field of education as I feel that I can genuinely contribute. But as is usually the case with me, I have not done much about these desires. Recently, I got to know of an alumni meeting in school. This got me interested and I went for it. While not much, I had expected a reasonable number of ex-students to turn up, at least in double digits. As it happened, there were five of us, three  coming for the first time and out of nostalgic excitement like me. The other two were regular and I came to know that they hold this meeting every month. So we went to a new section of the school where I had not been before. As we were talking amongst ourselves, four teachers joined, two of whom I knew well and thought they also recalled me. But they did not betray any sign of recognition or even if they recognised, they did not show any inclination to talk personally. I felt a bit dejected but did not initiate conversation myself, out of some hesitation.

Anyway, the agenda of the meeting was to plan for an alumni sports day in a month’s time. Apparently, the idea had been under discussion for some time but the two alumni veterans had not been able to cover much ground. What I gathered from the discussion was that the idea was pretty grand and I felt that there was absolutely no preparation to pull it off. At the end of this meeting, the newbies amongst us shared our business cards with the teacher whom I had recognised. She had taught me till my last days in school. As I gave her my card I was expecting some signs of recognition and interest but none came. Again, even if there was recognition there was definitely no interest in knowing how has the life been since our paths diverged. She read my business card and kept it, without any inclination to know more about my organisation or industry. I was dejected.

But why? Had I shared an emotional connect with the teachers, I would have come much earlier. I have been busy, selfish. So why this disappointment? I think for students, school is an important phase of life, when they were impressionable, when most of their thoughts are formed, an age of innocence and unique experiences which make up vivid memories. Students get nostalgic about it and nostalgia is always beautiful. But for teachers, they have always been here only. Students come and go and some come back. The teachers do not share the same sentimentality. I feel the teachers get hardened after years of not being followed up on by their students. It is stupid of me to expect enthusiasm from them after 17 years, when I had not called upon them once. Still I think that I should have at least asked ‘Maam, do you recognise me?’

Moving on, we went to the principal’s room to discuss the event further. I kept thinking that during my 12 years in school I have been inside this room only once, or at most twice. The principal had changed from our times, and from what I had heard, for the worse. Almost unanimous opinion was that the principal at our time was much better and things have definitely gone downhill since he left, although the school still ranked amongst the best in the vicinity. Hearing this principal at close quarters reminded me of meeting with another school principal I had had a few years back as part of my job. There was a similarity about the passion with which they talked. They are so enthusiastic about their work, thinking about the children and how to make their school better. So we had a good half an hour discussion wherein the principal highlighted the need to have more active alumni involvement. This I agreed with wholeheartedly. My school lacks a structured alumni program with strong connections, regular events and contributions from the alumni. Indeed, this has been the case with all my educational institutions. Why me? Am I some sort of a jinx? Or I end up in places where all people have the traits of lethargy, inaction and hesitation just like me. Some kind of ‘Birds of a feather flock together’ working on institutional scale.

The date of the Sports Day was finalised in the meeting and we left the principal’s office. But not before I had given my suggestion of having sessions where alumni talks to the students and shares their experiences in life and careers. Outside the principal’s cabin we alumni huddled in the reception area while the teachers left in a jiffy. Herein I tried to probe from the two active members into the workings of the alumni committee. Skeletons fell out and pole-danced. The fact that the committee was in disjointed shape was apparent to me but I realised that in fact it is more of a concept. I was told that they do not have any representation from many past batches. They had busy lives and alumni activity tended to take to backseat. So nobody was fully committed to the cause. I thought it was obvious, most of them have personal and professional commitments and it is difficult to contribute to a social activity than an urgent requirement. Who was I to judge? I myself had never contributed to a social cause. I wanted to get into that - be part of some management task but was doubting my abilities.

Discussion with these people brought out more rot. They mentioned that school itself was not cooperative. I was aghast to know that the school did not have a comprehensive list of old students, which I thought would have been a good starting place to organise the alumni. I was keen on first having a solid database as foundation on which to build the alumni network. It was mentioned that there is a lot of political tension amongst the teachers and the principal and things are not what they seem on the surface. On the alumni side, there is a feeling that the school itself does not want to connect with them. And also the problem of dis-interest. Students come forward only when they have a benefit to derive - networking or getting admission of their kids.

Overall, this discussion left me bemused. My enthusiasm to contribute was deflated after hearing about these political shenanigans and selfishness behind the whole effort. To add to that, the coldness of the teachers who did not seem much eager to collaborate with the alumni dampened my spirits. The environment was of mutual cynicism. I realised I was naive to expect something totally different. Any group of people is bound to have political interplay which one is required to navigate. I had expected the field of education to be simpler than the corporate world but it was a stupid belief - education sector is also composed of people who have aspirations, biases, motives, and self-interests. Nevertheless, I was most disappointed to note that selfishness is so rampant - I am not able to find any place without it.

In the end, I spent more time with one of my batch mate who was an active alumni. She filled me with more developments and how the school has changed, more like how the thought process had changed. One example of change was that the girls now had to wear salwar-kameez instead of skirts. I asked her with abject displeasure as to why did we (the school that is) get so regressive. She said that it was necessitated because of changing times, hinting at the need to keep a tighter control on adolescent students. I said that romances were common even during our times. She said it has deteriorated significantly, and mentioned CCTV footages. This made me realise my naivety yet again. We reminisced about good old days - about batch mates, about teachers, about how we had simple upbringing, about how we were willing to sweat. Still, some things had changed for the better - students have so much more exposure, career alternatives have multiplied, there was focus on extracurricular activities, and personality development. It was a departure from the bookish, academic focus we had. She mentioned how the teachers have been told to converse in English only as it was felt that our students were inferior in English communication skills and came across as unrefined in comparison to students of other schools. All in all, I left with a queer, dissatisfied feeling. I questioned if I was cut out for all this, for this world! Still I was happy to interact with a new set of people in unfamiliar setting.