The Birds without the Wings

We know physically challenged & mentally challenged people.

But are we aware of the creativity/originality/values challenged children in  Tamilnadu?

The word ‘iyalpu’- இயல்பு-  in Tamil, referred in the ancient Tamil texts, is the basis for identifying and developing one’s unique individual personality with passions.Primary education in the mother tongue medium, will help cognitive senses related brain growth, essential for the ‘iyalpu’- related above process, as revealed in world wide researches, some of which are referred below.

1. www.ccsenet.org/ass - Asian Social Science Vol. 7, No. 12; December 2011- Primary School Pupils’ Perception of the Efficacy of Mother Tongue Education in Ibadan Metropolis by Dr. David O. Fakeye;

2. The findings of a comprehensive research review carried out for the World Bank: Dutcher, N. in collaboration with Tucker, G.R. (1997): The Use of First and Second Languages in Education: A Review of Educational Experience , Washington D.C., World Bank; 

3. Education for All: Policy Lessons From High-Achieving Countries: UNICEF Staff Working Papers , Mehrotra, S. (1998), New York, Unicef;

4. Expanding Educational Opportunity in Linguistically Diverse Societies- Dutcher, N:  Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington DC.(2001);

5.  Education in a multilingual world  - Published in 2003 by UNESCO- http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001556/155642E.pdf

Unfortunately ‘iyalpu’ is the first causality in the English Medium(EM) education in Tamilnadu.

Right from play school, the children are imprisoned in the invisible unique social cages, under the ‘strict’ supervision of the parents. 

Heritage based culture is closely related to the nature of the land and the society.

Sacrificing the scope for observing & interacting with nature in our native culture, to identify one’s natural skills, originality and creativity; we force our children into English education in the distorted western cultural environment, right from play school.  The children, in turn undergo the transformation into comparative & competitive programmed human robots, fuelled by the high end career dreams of the parents.

Also the children become socially spineless domesticated human animals or unruly disobedient thugs, after crossing the higher secondary stage. They naturally become the creativity/originality/values challenged people.

During the process from play school to the higher secondary stage, the parents unashamedly employ ‘terror’ tactics to coerce the children to achieve more marks in the examinations or in sports/arts interest areas of the parents. As a result, the parents, especially the mothers, become irritable, stressful ‘terror’ character, depending on the magnitude of dissatisfaction with the progress of their children. In others words, ‘terrorism’ originate as a socially implemented ‘tool’ for improving the academic/sports/arts performance of the children. No wonder most of the modern day terrorists, robbers, and thugs are all well educated, unlike the earlier times.

Success & career at any cost compromising the heritage based values and culture, and developing self serving social network sacrificing the same, had become the successful ‘manthra’ of life.  Mental strength and sacrifices, to fight for values and justice, take a back seat, resulting in destroying all the social functional checks to check the wrong doings, and the social support mechanisms to the mentally depressed persons. Poorly performing students as well as parents, in some cases, had committed suicide. No wonder anti-social elements along with suicide, murder, violence, & drugs, had witnessed abnormal growth during the last decade in Tamilnadu, in this socially negative environment.

Also right from play schools, the wings of the children, as they grow, are periodically removed so that in adult age, they will become the birds without the wings, not knowing what is flying in the sky of passions. Worse, they can walk only on the beaten tracks in career and life, and spineless to practice the values and fight for justice. The resulting vacuum for social action encourages ‘funded’ thugs camouflaged as the ‘fighters for justice’.

Even sincere and hardworking scientists, officers, professors, etc are spineless to question the wrong doings at the higher levels. Those refusing to compromise values for material benefits are looked down as unworthy people even by their families. Those who acquire large wealth in a short time compromising values are highly respected in the society.

The resulting society will obviously dominate in corruption, rape, adultery, rowdyism, terrorism etc.

All kinds of anti-terrorist and anti-thugs measures by corruption free governments, could only contain the evils, may be to bearable levels. 

Unless we focus on reviving and nourishing mother tongue medium with our native culture, we could not eradicate the strong breeding centers - in our primary education system in TN - of the above evils.