Colours

Spring season is here, but there is no natural flower budding here in Bangalore. All that you can see is the flowers on pots. All these pots sprang from high storied buildings. There are hardly any colors on the ground. In Bhutan, this time of the year is the celebration of spring. It would be indescribably beautiful. Holi, the Indian festival of colours fever still lingers around. You can see so many nooses of flowers in many florist shops. And many raags/colours’ powder displayed.  And you can see many college students with some faint unwashed colours on their faces. Colours make our life. They add beauty to our life. We love colours. But, it seems one of the teachers in my previous school was damn dull with colours. The teacher simply didn’t care about it. I remember this:

In one of the final exams (2008) math, there was a question on coloring the different shapes; triangle, circle, square, etc in class one. Some students were provided with colours, not enough, many didn’t have. I didn’t know how poor was our education system in some remote schools like Tsirangtoe Lower School in Tsirang. The storekeeper sadly said before the exam that the store was out of stock of colours’ boxes.  “Government can’t buy everything now,” he said. And he was damn right, but where could some poor students have colours in their lives. That was another gripping story. But good things had a turn after a year; farm roads soon came to Tsirangtoe’s villages bringing in a good amount of cash; working, selling products, etc, that made even poor to sweep one hundred notes frequently from their hands. Government has a way, always. I knew from this instance.

Now coming back to that colour’s exam; a teacher also has a way, always, so the teacher slowly dictated to those who had no colour to write in word as, RED, GREEN, BLUE, etc in the blank shapes. Hellen Keller knew all the names of the colours, but she hardly knew what red was or blue was because she became blind before she could grasped all the perception of colours’ world.

Coming out from the exam hall, I pulled a student at the backside of the exam’s building and I gave him a test. I asked him if he could name all colours, which he did perfectly well; like a parrot. Then I picked up a blue rose from the nearby garden and asked him the colour of it. He gave a deep look to a blue rose flower, hesitated it for a moment, and then smiled and said, “…umm…red sir.” I smiled back and said, “Roses are not always red, there are blue, white roses too. This is blue.” The student directly cussed me when he said that he didn’t care about anything besides marks in the exam and he confidently announced that he wrote whatever the teacher dictated. He was true. Just marks would do.

And this was it. Our students, a few un-fed students,  if they were asked to name, they could name all twelve different colours, but if they were asked to identify among twelve different colours, they had no choice but to think hard and say blue for red, green for yellow, black for white. Because, because and because they have not seen practically, even if they have two big bulls eyes. Our teaching lacks practicability and applicability. We are made up of theories. There were many instances that computers degree holders couldn’t operate computers. What a shame! Jobs demand experiences, not so much of theories; not so much of dictating from the chairs. Some of the Lyonpos/Ministers are simply speaking good poetry from the chairs.

The purpose of learning is knowing something. Isn’t it knowing something? The colours. How can they develop cognitive and recognize things? Whose weakness was it? Concerned teacher? Storekeeper? Examination system? Or the education system in the country? We must think of it and avoid being blind despite having our two bulging eyes to identify all. A good shot here: Hellen Keller was blind and deaf too, but who had coloured her life.