Times...they're changin!

Happened to interact with a few kids and teachers at a nearby school....what came out was a fascinating description of how life for the tweens has changed - and radically so...

Out goes beating in the class...I was even hesitant to ask if the practice of class beating (entire class getting pasted) exists... Students were smart enough to bring cut outs of court orders against beating up kids and put them on bulletin boards or tell teachers about it....

Poor school teachers...given that most students have classes as a backup and very little fun time, they begin to see school as entertainment....the school on the other hand does not have enough time to finish the portion - it needs to rush through creating a tuff-to-understand situation for schools...

Its hard to tell what exists becuase of what - but somewhere our education quality at schools got derailed and that gave birth to the coaching classes industry - today the sheer size of the coaching classes industry is a witness to this quality drain in schools...and if only schools would have time enough to teach all thats needed, students are prepared to say no to classes...

Teaching quality is not an issue since the same teachers teach at class as well as school...so it just boils down to the fact that in order to run more batches, schools run SSC in lesser time, and as a result have students going to classes which then again means that schools can get away with bad teaching...

The other interesting aspect was the cross gender pairing - something that might have happened in 9th or 10th at our times now happens as early as 4th or 5th...call it hyper progress or innocence lost - the sheer exposure that this generation of kids has makes it almost impossible to  manage them, forget control altogether....

Kids are also far more pressurized - by parents and peers alike...and yet many of them are clear about what career they want and how studying well fits into the picture - almost half the group of 15 odd kids I was talking to knew what they wanted to get into...

Orkut is another aspect - a supervisor of the cambridge part of the school actually was on orkut and monitored activities of her students on the network...

Its a new generation and they only get faster, smarter and better :) 

Its time to find new ways to manage this gang - rather than sit back passively and watch it go outta bounds...