Values and the young
Syed Badrul Ahsan is recommends a work to teachers, and others
Five Minutes with Mrs. Robinson
Angela M.V. Robinson
Beacon Books
All teaching is a matter of involvement. Ask anyone who has been a teacher, especially in a school. There is the likelihood of your coming by a recapitulation of a sense of values, those which in these more uncertain times seem to be falling by the wayside. It just so happens that Angela Robinson is one individual who has held fast to those values even as they constantly appear to be slipping from our grasp. And she does so through informing the young she has been teaching in Bangladesh for a good number of years now that the classroom is but a window to the world beyond it. And that world is of course an appreciation of the truths and the beliefs we have always held dear, for the simple reason that they have underpinned our hold on politics, on history, indeed on the diversity of culture that has kept society in a state of stability for generations on end.
Five Minutes with Mrs. Robinson is a work that ought to be a springboard to how teachers in Bangladesh's schools, and not just in the urban ambience, can instill a sense of heritage and history in their pupils. There is an appreciable collection of notes, or you could call them mini-essays (the author might want to look on them as a series of talks she produced for students of The British School, Dhaka, in a seven-month period between January and July 2003), which give you a sense of how not to let the minds of the young stray from the broader objectives of education. The subtitle of the book makes matters pretty clear: A Principal Talks to Her Bangladeshi School in Daily Assembly. Each talk is a five-minute peroration (or is that too emphatic a term?) on various aspects of life, encompassing as it does an entirety of knowledge. Robinson's aim is a whole lot more substantive than sermonising. She does not talk down to the children gathered before her in the pre-class minutes. What she fundamentally does is to set the minds in these young thinking as they get down to the daily routine of instruction.
Observe her neat choice of subjects. She sets off with 'The Story of the Christmas Tree', and you will likely wonder if it is not any run-of-the-mill tale so often told and retold earlier. Well, you do not need to worry, for what Robinson does her is go on a journey to understand the history behind the tradition of the Christmas Tree and how it has, in our times, come to be symbolic of the spirit that once flowed from Jesus. You could go on and as you do so you might observe an expanding world of knowledge the writer offers. It is not that you were not aware of such a world, assuming of course you went to school between the 1940s and 1960s. But what does appear to be reassuring is that it is those very values you learnt of, and adopted, in school that Robinson now holds forth before your children or your grandchildren. She stresses the meaning of sharing and then expands the meaning, to let the young know that the world belongs to all and therefore every individual has a responsibility towards another, or many others, around him or her. Old-fashioned attitudes? Perhaps, but note that they happen to be attitudes in need of being restored or reasserted in our schools.
It is pleasantly surprising how Angela Robinson plays with ideas, turns them around and then builds the themes she feels should be assimilated by the young. In such pieces as 'Learning to be One of a Group' and 'Learning to be Part of a Group', she brings the children before her in quick, simple contact with thoughts that generally should be grown and nurtured at home. Of course, as you proceed deeper into the essays, you might be tempted to think that some of these pieces fall in the category of the offbeat. On deeper reflection, though, there is a good chance that you will find that such ideas as are brought up in 'Racism in Bangladesh Fair and Lovely' have long been in need of a debate. Robinson presents an unambiguous argument in defence of those with dark complexion, by debunking the thought, as propagated by advertisements, that being fair and lovely is all that matters. She goes into more debunking of myths, as a turning of the pages in the book reveals. It is the moral questions of our times that Robinson dwells on, in that simplicity of language which remains a strong point about the work.
And yet Robinson moves on from morality to a plain dissemination of some of the more impressive lessons of history. Two notes, 'The Liberation of South Africa', are proof of her strong feeling that a sense of history should serve as an accompaniment to education in school. Not many teachers would feel the need for a talk with their pupils on such issues as human rights. Robinson certainly does not fall in that group. Her thoughts on fair trade, child labour, raising money for charities in her native United Kingdom, safety helmets, et al, present a composite image of the world as it happens to be in our times. Her reflections on pets and zoos, on rejecting 'bad culture' and on bullies ought to make the reader sit back and think.
And do not miss Angela Robinson's thoughts on coaching centres. Chances are you will end up agreeing with her.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star .
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