bad teacher

Now that I've got my computer back, I'm back to blogging again. Hopefully more frequently. I was going to post some pictures from Luke's and my travels around South India. Unfortunately every single one of those pictures is gone now, since my computer crashed and hit the tile floor. It's like some kind of karmic punishment that these pictures are the one thing they weren't able to salvage.

On Sunday I got back from my second trip to Chennai in less than a week. On Saturday I left Madurai at 6am by train, arriving to Chennai at 3pm. Immediately retrieving the computer. Getting back on the night train at 9pm and arriving in Madurai the next morning at 6am. 24 hours of near constant travel punctuated in the middle by several hours of roaming the city in the worst, loudest, most insane traffic on planet Earth with the meanest, most cheating auto drivers in India. The good news is that my computer is back and in working order. Wireless connection is not working. I haven't determined if this is a computer problem (hope to God not) or a modem problem. One main problem seems to be that the "g" key is malfunctioninggg. Hyperfunctioningg, more like. But if this is the only problem I am left with aftger this computer disaster, I'm happy.

Last week, before I left for Chennai, I went with a friend of mine to try and get her 16 year old son in school. You see, they won't let him in the school and they won't let him in the classroom. Why, you might ask? Good question. Did he do anything wrong? Touch the teacher's hand? Act wild in the class? Harass a girl outside the school? Cuss? Nope. It seems to me that the reason they won't let him in is because he is either the wrong color, the wrong class, the wrong caste, or all of the above. My friend was basically at the end of her rope, and was even calling reporters at local newspapers tryingg to figure out what to do. The papers have been reporting a lot on the Collector's schemes to keep kids in school, talking about how the Collector is having posters hung up all over Madurai saying, "Send your kids to school! Don't send them to work!" ETC ETC. Well, that's all fine and good, but when the teachers in your government schools are nothing but thugs and criminals, all the posters in the world aren't going to changge a thingg.

I went with my friend to the school. Because a white girl accompanied her, my friend and I were seen immediately and the headmaster said he would put her son in the classroom the next day, no problem. Keep in mind that when my friend went alone with her son, they were made to sit in the sun for hours and were never attended to. The teacher is a fat rowdy thug of the sort that probably has people's knees broken in half for pissing her off. She talked down to my friend and called a liar and all number of things in Tamil, thinkingg I didn't understand. I came back at her in Tamil which surprised her.

After the headmaster gave the go ahead we left happy. The next say she sent her son to school. Well, it didn't turn out so great. They beat him and humiliated him, made him go out and buy tea and a bun for the math teacher (man) who then threw the tea down and said he didn't want it. Then he started to beat the boy screaming, "What work does your father do? Is he a coolie (laborer)? You're just as worthless as him and there is no point in educating the son of a coolie!" and "Your mother came here with a white girl! You think I'm scared of that white girl? You can call the police if you want, and the Collector too, it's no use because I'm not scared of anyone!" Meanwhile, over at another government school, the 8 year old daughter of my other friend was being beaten by her teacher for playing with a necklace in class. She comes home with her hand swelled up three times its size and cannot sleep, much less do her homework. Further, at another government school, my friend's 10 year old son is beaten and made to sit outside the classroom every day because his mother cannot afford his school fees.

We take it for granted in the US that school is free for kids. Just like some folks in Europe, Canada, Brazil, etc., probably take it for granted that medicine there is socialized. In India your parents need to come up with about 10,000 rupees a year AT LEAST to keep two kids in a good school, and that doesn't even include uniforms, books, school supplies. And if you are poor there is NO WAY you are going to afford this. Furthermore, if your kid is the wrong caste, class, and/or color, how is he or she going to be properly educated and come up in life when they are being beaten and humiliated by a thug masquerading as a teacher?

I'm happy that we have socialized education
in the United States of America.