Vidyarambham Karishyami…….
A sloka I’ve chanted ever since I was perhaps 3 or 4 years old. I never ever asked my parents or anyone — why do we need to chant this sloka every year especially on the day of Vijaydashmi, I never asked why should we not “study” on the day of Saraswati Puja. In fact I used to be so happy with the fact that on this day I do not have to touch my books. This day was the best as no one would come and tell me “ Poi padi” literally translated as “Go study”. I never bothered to find out about why this custom was followed, it was just such a welcome custom for almost all children and young adults in those days and perhaps even today. Many of us silently wished this custom could be followed more often.
As I grew up, I started questioning a lot. I hail from a open minded but yet traditional Palakkad Iyer family where anyone who questions, especially the traditions and customs, is considered a black sheep. So I was indeed a black sheep along with one or two of my cousins. My parents were open to questions but they had no answers. But one thing I appreciate about them is that they never stopped me from asking or finding out.
Very soon, probably when I was in the 8th grade or so I knew I would not be able to succumb to the demands of our education system. We had some really good teachers, very passionate, committed who went out of the way to help students like me. When I say like me, I mean students who could get the concepts but could not follow the norms of writing from the text or learning by rot. Students like me who never understood why they had to be introduced topics they were not interested in or wondered about. All we needed was a reasoning behind why we do what we do. These students who could not “do well” in spite of being “bright” were considered “creative and unconventional” or more often “average”.
We never had report meetings in school unless we failed — so our parents could understand us only through numbers with their limited knowledge and exposure perhaps. So if I did well in English or History, I was told that I should take up Humanities or else, being a girl, the other best option would be Home Science. But I was determined — with very average marks in Mathematics and half baked knowledge, I wanted to take up Commerce. No one actually thought about the problem — we all escaped from it — taking up a discipline that did not need Math was the solution for anyone who scored less in Math. So what if Math is there everywhere in our daily lives, so what if the student does like Math but finds it difficult to understand the way it is taught. We go by marks and if they are not “good” then just get rid of the problem.
At every step of my life, I encountered this attitude. no one was getting to the root of the problem. So all the chanting of the Saraswathi sloka did not help me with Math. Saraswathi decided that she would help me only with subjects related to Humanities and Life Science. I have no clue on what basis she decides who should be helped with what. I rediscovered my interest in Math when on one instance I decided to teach Math momentarily as there was a teacher who left suddenly and the school I worked for was not able to find another one in the middle of the year. The wonder was that my lesson plans and activities were more relatable to students and helped them learn concepts much better. I myself found it hard to believe. A realization occurred when all of this happened. I was probably able to relate to the problems children faced in understanding certain concepts primarily because I myself went through the same ordeal.
Today is Vijaydashmi or Vidyarambam or whatever one might call it. It is supposed to be an auspicious day when anything new can be started be it schooling, classes in music, dance and so on. Why not consider this an appropriate day to also begin a new mind set. Let us try to look at learning and knowledge in a new light instead of “subjectifying” it, instead of making “good marks” as the symbol of success and “bad marks” as the symbol of failure, make failure as important as success and consider failure to be a beginning to understand and not a mean to end anything! Let us allow our children to blossom and experience joy in learning and I am sure Saraswathi would definitely support this, considering she is the Goddess of knowledge and learning and not of subjects and marks or success and failure.
