School - Then and Now

I have very many fond memories of school and childhood. My school made me everything I am today. I went to a complicated all girls school. It was co-ed till 5th grade. The boys then transferred to the boy's school across the street and then avoided all eye contact with us after that weird transition. People took all modes of transportation to school. People drawn rickshaws, motorized rickshaws, auto rickshaws, vans, public buses and so on. Parent drop off was a rarity, not because our mothers worked, but because parent drop off was not a thing and the traffic that people had to beat to drive miles to get their kids to school that early in the morning was just not worth it. I was one of those kids that lived far away and had my grandpa drop me off  on the way to work every morning. My mom then arranged for a nanny of sorts to pick me up in the afternoon and bring home by public transport. So… school drop off line… Psssh… There is a yellow bus that transports my kids from home to school for free? You can imagine the shock and gratitude!

Getting to school on time was a big deal. The sprawling piece of land in the middle of the city had large iron gates that shut right on time. Once they shut, they remained shut. There was no getting past them, one way or another. Imagine my emotions when I realized that my kids could escape from the school playground if they were crafty.

There isn't a child that grew up in India in the 90's that wouldn't relate to the morning assembly. Rows and columns of kids forming an orderly line based on their height and arguing over who had sprouted an inch overnight. The neatly plaited, ribbon tied hair was always a curly girl's nightmare. You could never look presentable, no matter how hard you tried. The singing of some version of a song praising God followed by the National Anthem and then the dreaded hygiene check - were your shoes polished, were you wearing canvas shoes and the right uniform on PE days, were your nails cut, your uniform pressed and any other random check in between by the prefects - as though we were prisoners off to our cells. The highlight of the assembly was the number of fainting girls, based on how long the person responsible for delivering the news and uplifting speech for the day took!

Another thing that would never fly anywhere today was getting smacked with a steel ruler for being noisy, not finishing your homework, for talking in class, the misdeeds plenty, the solution always the same. While I loved my teachers and am grateful for the discipline and life lessons they instilled in us, I am also grateful for the love and patience my kids' teachers give them.

As I wonder at how well the schools rallied around a pandemic and education was uniquely business as usual, I remember the first time we ever touched a computer at 10 years old. I am a computer professional and did not own a computer till I was 19, not because my parents couldn't afford it, but merely because they didn't want to "spoil" me! In this age of plenty, where my kids order stuff on Alexa, I am eternally grateful for my dad's late night runs right after work for art supplies before the store closed at 8. As a parent, I am grateful for Amazon and the Target that is always stocked and right by my home and the school supply list at the beginning of the year and the PTA that buys those supplies for you at a nominal cost.

Do our kids have it easier than us? Most definitely. Do we as parents have it easier than ours? Absolutely!