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A very funny thing happened last week. The kids were searching images of their interest on the web. Some of them ran out names to search, so I asked them to search their holy gurus. Ramandeep and Ranjit , sitting on one computer asked me the spelling of Guru Nanak, Sikh religion’s first guru. She googled it and many images of him showed up on the screen. Not understanding what to do with so many of those pictures, she covered her head with her chunny (a piece of cloth women wear in Punjab, India) and bowed to the monitor. I had a hard time controlling my laughing tail. After that we had a nice discussion on it.

I also got to know why Ramandeep wants to be a police inspector. Her father had abused her mother and divorced her. Being poor and uneducated about her rights, her mother has, Ramadeep as the only hope of fight. She wants her to be in police so as to punish her father. I could feel the grudges she was holding about her father.

These kids are going through terrible things. The last thing they want to talk about is the Marks or score. Our schools don’t understand it. They want the kids to be present in the class and score as much as possible. Schools can’t be independent of society. We not only need to understand how they learn but also how they live.