KOCHI: Yesterday my children were constantly chanting their usual mantra, ‘I am bored, what to do’. Since I was busy in the kitchen, I told both of them to play among themselves. After a lot of arguing and stern intervention from my side, they decided to play the pretend school game. Once the game was finally agreed upon, my daughter studying in kindergarten, became the teacher and my son who is in Class III hesitatingly assumed the role of the student.
She dressed up as a teacher with my shawl becoming her saree and my husband’s glasses balancing on her nose. With a few textbooks and a ruler in her left hand, the teacher entered the classroom. The obedient student (my son) got up and began singing ‘Good morning teacher’. The teacher smiled and replied, ‘Good morning students, sit down. Attendance please’. She began calling out names in order from her class and for each name called out, my son stood up and said, ‘present teacher’.
When he didn’t get up, the teacher called out the name little loudly a second time and if that didn’t work, she caned the table with her ruler. This went on for some time. I could see my son was already getting bored. Without giving any regard to the student’s mood, the teacher said ‘take out your books students. Today we will learn about animals and their kids’. She started explaining about different animal species and their offsprings. The student was required to repeat after the teacher.
After a while, the student wanted a role reversal. Sweet-talking my daughter into handing over the specs, the ‘sir’ came in smiling and declared it was maths period next. I was a little amazed because mathematics is a subject he wants to study the least. I was intrigued.“We are going to study division,” announced Sir. “Let me give you an example. Amma gets six Milky bars from the shop and asks us to share equally, how many will you take?” Flabbergasted, my daughter started fussing. “It’s easy,” my son said. “You will get two and I will get the remaining two Milky bars.” Hearing this made my daughter ecstatic. She broke into a run chasing my son to give her the two bars.
I screamed out from the kitchen, “What is two plus two? You don’t know this simple division? Can’t you get this also right?” I charged into the classroom angrily and quizzed him. Screaming I said, “Six equally divided between two is four? Where did you learn this? Who taught you division? No more TV or cartoons. Go and bring your sister’s math textbook. Study that before teaching others.”
He looked at me, surprised at my anger and said, “Rest two Amma will keep in the fridge for tomorrow. This is corona time, everyday Amma cannot go for shopping.”I felt so humbled by his innocent love and regretted my burst of anger. Sorry dear son.Dr Amita R is an assistant professor at Department of Transfusion Medicine, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram. (Views expressed are her own)