The education system is facing the challenges of transformation, with calculators coming to aid mathematics and computers as memory banks. For India, to graduate from a developing country to a developed country, our focus should be on total literacy. As Wipro chief Azim Premji has said, “if we want to transform our destiny, we have to begin by changing what we teach and how we teach”. True, but somewhere, along this line, our child has matured, yes matured beyond his natural innocent self; a sample is visible in many movies including the latest Tara Rum Pum, wherein a kid of eight talks like a man of 80.
The impact of the excessive exposure to television and the mores of the society is quite apparent and now our nat-khat, affectionate, always enquiring, and sometimes frivolous but always lovable child is losing his/her innocence. We want our 2-3 year olds to identify the cars, the brands, the stars and the players. In the process we wonder where the real childhood went?
The innocent child, a few years ago, would run out of the house on return from school, mingle with children in the neighbourhood. The present day child rarely mingles with children from other schools nor does he wants to play with other neighbourhood children. In fact, the present day child doesn’t want to leave the wolverine idiot box or his/her more sinister larger cousin the internet and the computer.
Children in their teens used to be “your own friendly neighbourhood child”, helping the aunties transport their groceries on cycles, collectively pick old newspapers from the neighbourhood and sell it to make money to be used for social causes; but the present day focus is totally different. They rarely come out of the house and if they do so it’s only to games parlours, alleys and malls to hang around, without any concrete purpose.
The child no more wants to hear the story of butterflies and bees or the angels and saints from his parents or grandparents; but find them for himself/ herself on the computer. One wonders, has the role as a parent become so redundant and have parents become so dispensable that they become mere providers of the proverbial roti, kapada aur makaan, with throw-ins of super bikes, super schools and super gadgets; children having no time for moral values, simple and basic etiquettes or interaction with kith and kin.