Life Beyond Grades
CNN-IBN | Sep 01, 2006
Anu Jogesh, New Delhi: Today we look at the outcasts of the classroom, students who don't know enough, to even make the grade.
It's an almost mechanical process for Arpit, like peddling to his tuition class everyday, the process of cramming for history, geography and civics.
Little wonder that high marks in these subjects elude him. In his VIII standard Arpit failed in social studies. Now with less than a year to go before his board exams, he seems no closer to making the grade
"My teacher doesn't make the subject interesting, explains only what's in the book and I can't seem to understand and whatever I remember, I forget in few days," says Arpit.
It's a basic problem of comprehension. Compounded by overcrowded classrooms and minimal individual attention.
"Children are being forced to learn things without understanding it, they are mugging it up. If you doing so, then you are setting up your children for failure," says the counselor of Prospect A&M, Kamini.
So what about the ones that don't just fail a subject but fail the entire grade. Are they academically doomed?
"I have rarely seen students who after having failed in one class, perform remarkable well in the next, until they get some special support and supervision," the vice principal of Cambridge school in Noida, A Bakshi says.
Fahad perhaps works harder with his pencil and paper today, than he never did when he was in school.
The 23-year-old NIFT pass out was once so weak in studies, that he failed and repeated the IX grade.
"I don't understand Chemistry and I don't want to do it. I'll not do it. I don't understand mathematics, and won't do it," says the now successful fashion designer, Fahad.
Fahad can be frivolous about his academic ineptitude today, after all he managed to turn his fortunes around by taking to fashion designing.
But many other students who don't make the grade, are often written off by the system, stigmatised by their own failures, not knowing whether they possess the potential or not.
So are marks truly a mark of a child's intelligence or aptitude?
It's a question perhaps schools and teachers, whose lessons often escape the comprehension of scores of students, need to answer.
It's an almost mechanical process for Arpit, like peddling to his tuition class everyday, the process of cramming for history, geography and civics.Little wonder that high marks in these subjects elude him. In his VIII standard Arpit failed in social studies. Now with less than a year to go before his board exams, he seems no closer to making the grade
"My teacher doesn't make the subject interesting, explains only what's in the book and I can't seem to understand and whatever I remember, I forget in few days," says Arpit.
It's a basic problem of comprehension. Compounded by overcrowded classrooms and minimal individual attention.
"Children are being forced to learn things without understanding it, they are mugging it up. If you doing so, then you are setting up your children for failure," says the counselor of Prospect A&M, Kamini.
So what about the ones that don't just fail a subject but fail the entire grade. Are they academically doomed?
"I have rarely seen students who after having failed in one class, perform remarkable well in the next, until they get some special support and supervision," the vice principal of Cambridge school in Noida, A Bakshi says.
Fahad perhaps works harder with his pencil and paper today, than he never did when he was in school.
The 23-year-old NIFT pass out was once so weak in studies, that he failed and repeated the IX grade.
"I don't understand Chemistry and I don't want to do it. I'll not do it. I don't understand mathematics, and won't do it," says the now successful fashion designer, Fahad.
Fahad can be frivolous about his academic ineptitude today, after all he managed to turn his fortunes around by taking to fashion designing.
But many other students who don't make the grade, are often written off by the system, stigmatised by their own failures, not knowing whether they possess the potential or not.
So are marks truly a mark of a child's intelligence or aptitude?
It's a question perhaps schools and teachers, whose lessons often escape the comprehension of scores of students, need to answer.
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