Teachers only teach, real education is at home.

CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, Anurag Behari, is a regular writer on education in India. In an article, he highlights 3 false beliefs commonly held by teachers. Presumably, he is talking about teachers of government schools because he talks about students from poor families. School fees have risen so high that poor people cannot afford private schools. So what are the 3 false beliefs held by a vast majority of teachers? The most serious is corporal punishment which was described as 'empathetic hitting' by the teachers. "They talked about their principles of empathetic hitting, for example, no injury must be caused, make an example of a few and don't hit everyone, don't use a stick," he writes. Hitting children is absolutely unacceptable. But what if they are being hit by parents at home and have become disruptive for the whole class? Activists will cause an uproar if poor students are expelled. If the expelled student is from Dalit or Minority community the teacher and the principal of the school will lose their jobs. Go to any construction site and you will see little children, including toddlers, playing in the dirt, unsupervised, while their mothers work. You see older children bullying little ones, kicking each other and using abusive language. If things tend to get out of hand they get a few juicy slaps, cry for a while and then get back to what they were doing. In the UK teachers are forbidden from punishing children in any form so many schools have banned children from playing, in case they get hurt. The other false beliefs are that some children are 'stupid' and that children from 'poor' families are incapable of learning. The 'bad seed' theory, which says that some children are born bad, is no longer accepted but scientists have found 2 genes linked to an excess of violent and criminal behavior. There is no doubt that a significant part of intelligence is inherited but any research into that is considered politically incorrect. However, genes can perhaps predict those who will have learning difficulties. Given the same intelligence environmental factors become extremely important. It has been known for many years that a low folate level in a pregnant woman's diet leads to neural tube defects, such as spina bifida. It is therefore entirely plausible that poor nutrition of the mother can permanently affect a child's brain. If poor children in the US have brains 6% smaller than their affluent peers then the effect in India will be much more, because poverty in India is abject. Finally, spending time on weaker students is not possible because teachers in government schools spend a lot of their time cooking midday meals. If there are fewer children classes will be smaller, teachers will have more time to teach and the education budget will be more productive. Perhaps Mr Behari would be better employed teaching the value of not having children.