Social media and school - share best and not the worst practice on these platforms
Social media could be used for sharing good school practices on the one hand and simultaneously there is a misuse of media for defaming and shaming schools and stakeholders. Recently, a video was made viral on social media where a teacher was trying to teach the child a Kannada word "Pakkelubu". This was a scene from a government school in Karnataka and the child appeared to be about 7 to 8 years of age. A closer look at the video indicated that the school had a pathetic condition, where children were sitting on the floor in a developed era so-called nation attempting to be a developed nation. The video indicated that the teacher made an attempt for about three minutes to teach the word “Pakkelubu '' by pronouncing it completely as well as breaking it into 2-3 parts. Finally, the text message accompanying the video asked what type of problem was that wherein the child was unable to pronounce properly and the response was also shared in the following message in WhatsApp as ‘Dysarthria’. I was interested to know the meaning of this term and immediately looked at the Collins dictionary online, which describes this term as an imperfect articulation of speech caused by damage to the nervous system. However, such branding of children appeared to be improper.
Further, my question is neither what the word is? nor how difficult is the pronunciation, and not even what we call such a situation? In my perception a look at the video indicated that the teacher was harsh in approach, beating the child which is not encouraged in the present scenario. Gone are the days when we used to say "spare the rod, spoil the child". The child in the video was fearful in the given circumstances and also his peer group children were laughing at him. In such a disheartened, distressed and tensed environment how could you expect the child to pronounce the word or for that matter any word, be it simple or a difficult word properly. The entire episode has to be looked at in a broader perspective in the context of practices in school education. It may be possible that the child may be coming from a background wherein, his mother tongue may be different from the language being taught at school i.e. Kannada in this case. How can a teacher make a mockery of the situation and simultaneously record the video and share it on social media platforms to the entire world as a laughing stock? This is quite disgusting!
A good sign in the entire process of this episode was that at this instance a prompt reaction was shown by Shree S. Suresh Kumar, Primary and Secondary Education Minister, GoK, immediately on the following day. In a note issued by him, he said that the students were likely to make mistakes in pronunciation, but with continuous practice, they learn proper pronunciation. He also said that if such follies were video recorded then the child would lose self-confidence, get demotivated, and remain behind in studies. He further informed teachers to teach proper articulation instead of recording follies and releasing in social media, which otherwise according to him was a crime. He asked the concerned Secretary to identify the guilty teacher, his school headmaster, and take immediate action by registering a criminal case.
The prompt response of the minister concerned is appreciable and at the same time, it would be advisable for teachers to share best practices of schools rather than criticizing innocent children. It is good that the school teacher was identified and suspended by the department. However, it is a lesson to be learned that the teachers use Social media for good cause, at least in the future.
Link to the video: https://youtu.be/FpZtexyU_s0
Note: This writeup was created on 04th March 2020 and sent for publication to a reputed newspaper, but remained unpublished. This is a version for readers who can take this as the personal opinion of the author.