Dear Tony Sir,
FYI, I retired eight years ago and do not have any students in my charge; else,
I would have certainly set your post for a correction exercise. English medium
students are generally incapable of meaningful thoughts and hence resort to
vacuous inanities couched in bombastic verbiage which they themselves do not
comprehend. Your "intransigent 'loyalty?' " and "misplaced emotion" are fine
examples.
Yes, my students had a hard time, but they were not incorrigible. You see, the
longer a habit is cultivated, the harder it is to eradicate. And, unlike
headmasters, they were still pliable. With the proper approach and guidance,
they can work wonders. Impress upon them the importance of comprehension and
self-expression and they come out with flying colours. I had one student who
failed in his first year of undergraduate course but went on to earn a gold
medal at his post-graduation, by which time he had completely done away with
end-course "mugging." With regular study throughout the year, his preparation
would end the night before the examination which he would face after a good
eight hours of sleep and no last-minute "brushing-up." The learn-by-rote system
engendered by the English medium discourages regular study because there is no
guarantee that whatever was memorized in June will be retained till exam time
in October; so why waste your time? The
comprehension-and-expression method does away with exam tension because one is
confident about what one KNOWS.
You ask: And why have you sprung to the defence of Freddy? This is exactly the
type of question that a school bully asks. In spite of your age, you do not
seem to have grown up! What makes you say that I have "sprung to the defence of
Freddy"? And must I always have a reason for defending someone? Who needs to be
defended? In my opinion, there are only two types of persons who need this: (a)
someone who is perceived to have done some wrong, and (b) a weakling innocent
who is being harassed by a powerful rogue. Neither of these conditions applies
in the present situation. Freddy has done you no wrong. Being aggrieved with
your heaping of opprobrium on Konkani medium students, as he is one of them, he
politely asked you to kindly desist from doing so. But you went on to justify
your wrong-doing by citing your imagined experiences at the SSC Board
examination. (Your experiences are just impossible to corroborate since,
forget the medium of Primary
instruction, even the names of the candidate and of his school were not
available on the scripts that you assessed!) And Freddy is no weakling. He has
himself said (and I believe him) that he, like his Konkani medium mates, can
stand to the best in the world; I do not think you would figure among these by
any stretch of imagination.
I am least bothered about the mental age or make-up of the likes of Churchill,
Mickky, Mauvin, Francis,
Agnelo and the list of MLAs. Neither do I pretend to educate (much less dictate
to) the thousands of parents who assembled at Azad Maidan. All that I have done
is to relate my experiences which, I think, are relevant to the issue. If they
feel like doing so, they might evaluate them and arrive at their own decision.
Anyway, it will not be my funeral but that of their children though they will
also drag some innocent poor children along to their grave. They might mitigate
the burden of their own children by utilizing on tuitions some of the money
saved from the fees that they would have otherwise paid to private schools
(which, obviously, will close shop), but the poor parent will not be able to
afford this. In this manner, the wealthy will ensure that the intelligent poor
child offers no fair competition to their own offspring. I have no personal
stake in this, as I do not give private tuitions.
The Diocesan Society and Archdiocesan Board have their own reasons. In the last
two decades, there has been a steady exodus of the wealthy faithful to
non-Church private schools. Consequently, these children remain outside their
purview during their formative years. Their parents are also not as amenable
for raising funds towards the building up of infrastructure in the school. Both
these problems, they hope, would be solved by reverting their schools to
English medium. They are not bothered about the careers of the children as long
as, hopefully, their souls are saved! Their attitude is akin to that of
tiatrists who justify the risque humour by claiming that the audience wants it.
Isn't this exactly the reason that the Diocesan Society is citing!
It is good that you have mentioned "thousands of Migrant parents." Today these
"vote banks" contribute immensely to our crowded rallies and sammelans. A
friend of mine has come down from Mumbai to repair and paint his house. The
work is, not surprisingly, being carried out by Bihari workforce. On 21 March
they took a break because they were "called to Panjim." And the buses
(refreshments, wages etc.) were paid for by their "saibs" who were present
prominently in the audience, though not on the dais. This is nothing new.
Recently we had a "Konkani sammelan" for which busloads were brought by the
politician organizers; they came, they ate, they disappeared! The youth were
not even Goans; when asked to occupy the empty front seats, no one responded
but when the same request was made in English, it was complied with; one of
them came to the dais, but could not speak in Konkani even when coaxed to do
so! And I shall not be surprised if someone tells me that
the 6 April rally too had a large proportion of Biharis; after all, MLAs were
present for this one as well!
What have BJP, MGP and the Fundamentalists got to do with the issue at hand? By
the way, this last word ("fundamentalist") has become a convenient stick today
much akin to "communist" of pre-liberation days.
And, finally, please learn to write Konkani correctly at least in the Roman
script. Your sentence contains exactly four words of which two are wrongly
spelt! The Konkani for sit is "bos" with a single S not two. When you say
"tujim" you are using a pronominal adjective in the plural; therefore the
qualified noun must also be in the plural. Just as the plural of "iskol"
(school) is "iskolam", of "xet" (field) is "xetam" and of "ran" (forest) is
"ranam", so the plural of "xannponn" too is "xannponnam". Hope I have made my
point.
Sebastian Borges
On Mon, 11 Apr 2011, Tony de Sa <[email protected]> wrote:
<< Dear Prof. Borges,
Don't waste your time and talents worrying about the "likes of me". FYI we
are incorrigible. Better you devote your time and energies to your students.
Retired persons - Specially Headmasters (ignorant though they might be)
have time to waste galore and in addition have time to waste. From your
attitude of intransigent 'loyalty?' or misplaced emotion your poor students
must be having a rather hard time.
So Churchill will never learn, Mickky will never learn, Mauvin, Francis,
Agnelo and the list of MLAs goes on. So they are all idiots, right?
And also thousands of parents who assembled at Azad Maidan, and the Diocesan
Society and its Allied Arch Diocesan Board of Education, and thousands of
Migrant parents.....? And you can add a poor insignificant headmaster to
your list.
Gheun boss tujim xannponna.
In the end Peoples Power will triumph. So join the BJP and the MGP and the
Fundamentalists to try and sway the majority.
And why have you sprung to the defence of Freddy?
--
Tony de Sa. tonydesa at gmail dot com
Sebastian Borges
