Gone are the days when teachers could terrorize their students with nasty looks, well-oiled canes, and threats to suspend them without seeking any explanations. Now a days, it is the hapless teachers who are at the receiving end, having to justify taking any action against their pupils. Principles of natural justice apply. Pupils, and their doting parents, often demand a democratic style of education, where both the teacher and the taught get treated as equals.
One of the safest courses for the teachers to take these days is to write non-threatening and non-accusatory letters to the parents, conveying only their love for the misdemeanours of the pupils and pointing out the ways of reforming them. Being polite and ensuring a positive tone is of paramount importance.
Imagine rogue kids like Thos, Seabury, Bongo, Peggy, Edwin the Scout, Sebastian, and Clementina studying in any of the present-day schools. What would the harvest be?
Let us consider some of the e-mails and letters recently said to have been received by their blissfully ignorant guardians.
Dear Ms Gregson,
We are delighted to inform you that your child, Master Thomas Gregson, displays remarkable initiative. Not for him the simple-minded obedience to teachers. He believes in thinking out-of-the-box and shows early traits of growing into a business leader with a manipulative mindset.
We refer to his admirable refusal to do homework. We have, however, humbly requested him to stoop to our level and condescend to do his homework.
We also find his habit of leaving visiting dignitaries stranded on the small island in the lake at our premises by setting their boats adrift a trifle disturbing. One of them was recently attacked by an angry swan and vowed to put a hold on his annual contributions of a rather generous nature, thereby forcing us to shut the swimming pool funded by a charity in his wife’s name. This has led to widespread protests by other students. One of the governors was even wondering if we could request you to henceforth foot the bill. We have also counselled him to stay at home on the days when any dignitary visits us next.
Your support in the matter will be appreciated.
Yours anxiously,
Teacher
Dear Lady Chuffnell,
We are pleased to let you know that Master Seabury is doing as well in his studies as in bullying those who happen to annoy him. We support him in his belief that the art of bullying is what a kid needs these days, to survive and do well, especially when getting trolled for some inane stuff. Authority is something he does not care much about. He believes in equitable and fair treatment. He can look his Latin teacher and warden in the eye and demand protection money. In case it does not get coughed up within the due date, he takes appropriate steps.
He has developed a keen interest in an innovative use of all kinds of dairy products. The in charge of the school mess is never surprised when the slabs of butter stored in the cold store vanish overnight. If the protection money is not paid, he loses no time in creating a butter slide on the steps of the warden’s cottage. Since the latter is covered by the school’s group insurance policy, we merely counselled your child to avoid taking such steps in future and to ensure that at least some quantity of butter is left behind, so the children may not suffer at breakfast time the next morning.
We convey this only by way of information, not as a complaint. We are hopeful that he will one day become a famous dairy expert.
With best wishes,
Principal
Dear Ms Travers,
Reg: Master Bonzo Travers
We write this to inform that your child’s distaste for mundane subjects such as mathematics shows an imaginative mind which appears to be more appreciative of subjects in the realm of humanities and fine arts. Why, he wonders, does the square of the hypotenuse have to be equal to the square of the other two sides in a right-angled triangle? He also demands proof that (x + y)-squared translates into x-squared plus y-squared, plus 2 times x into y. It is no wonder that he has scored a splendid zero in his math exam. Unfortunately, even brilliant students must pass exams. Could you gently break that news to him?
We are of the view that given his inquisitive mind, he has a bright future ahead of him as a movie critic, provided he gives up his current infatuation with Emma Corrin.
Yours entreatingly,
Teacher
Dear Prof. Mainwaring,
Your child Ms Peggy Mainwaring and few of her close friends at school are good at making visiting lecturers nervous. They simply start giggling while the lecture if going on. They also keep staring at the hapless lecturer who is left shuddering from the top of his head to the base. We are of the opinion that she has a great future as a psychoanalyst.
But what we get unduly concerned about is that she slyly persuades the visitor to part with his cigarette case. Often, we have noticed her and her friends hiding away in the shrubbery and puffing contentedly, breathing in the deadly fumes which could do their tender lungs a great deal of damage. We have, of course, counselled her against this, pointing out that Covid is yet to melt away and it is a significant risk she is taking.
While we admire her social and leadership skills, on the academic front, we have recently found that she submitted a blank paper for last week’s science test, influenced by Albert Camus who said, ‘Whether the earth or the sun revolves around the other is a matter of profound indifference’. Your daughter shares that profound indifference, undoubtedly for philosophical reasons.
You may desire to have a word with her as to her developing a smoking habit. Could you kindly also inform her that to study psychology, she must pass class eight first?
Yours plaintively,
Ms Tomlinson
Hon’ble Lord of Worplesdon,
We have always been appreciative of the kind of scientific and engineering flair displayed by Master Edwin Craye. He deserves to be applauded not only for his innovative skills but also for the daily acts of kindness he keeps performing, bringing much succour to his teachers and fellow students.
He can be often found making earnest attempts to open and repair the smart phones of his teachers, after the same have been stolen and then thrown by him into the small fishpond on the school campus. After many of his failed attempts, tiny parts of the damaged phones are found spread all over the corner of the Physics laboratory where he works on some utopian projects.
Leaving lizards and frogs between the sheets of his hostel mates is his way of learning biology.
Whenever the canteen chimney gets clogged, he rushes in to clean it with gunpowder and paraffin. Just the other day, he inadvertently ended up starting a major fire on the premises. Luckily, the fire tenders came in promptly and brought the blaze under control. There was no loss of life or limb. However, a banjo and many other musical instruments used by the school orchestra for a practice session the previous evening were burnt to ashes.
He has a taste in literature, owing to the influence of Lady Florence Craye, his elder sister. It is unfortunate that he is yet to read Types of Ethical Theory. Instead, he appears to be under the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, which is perhaps why he was copying from the boy next to him during yesterday’s test. Like Nietzsche, he believes that Supermen like him have little use for conventional notions of morality. The teacher who caught him copying is a conventional type and promptly gave him a zero.
Yours desperately,
Teacher
Dear Ms Moon,
Regarding: Master Sebastian Moon
We are impressed by your child’s knowledge of martial arts. In the past month, he has broken two legs, four arms and three noses. He also shows prudence while fighting, taking care to pick on weaker boys. For some reason, however, the fathers of the boys who were beaten up are planning to come over to your home with hockey sticks.
He also happens to be besotted with Drew Barrymore, a Hollywood diva of yesteryears. If you can arrange for him to see more of her movies at home, especially those in the Charlie’s Angels series, he might mend his aggressive ways, try to rise to his higher self, and demonstrate that he is worthy of her affection.
Yours wretchedly,
Teacher
Dear Parent,
Your ward, Ms Clementina, is a very resourceful student. She is an expert at putting sherbet in the ink pots in her classroom. She has also learnt the art of going AWOL on her birthdays, persuading Ms Roberta Wickham, a cousin of hers, to organize a dinner-cum-movie outing to celebrate the occasion, with the active assistance of Bertie Wooster, her friend.
When Bertie came in to make a courtesy call on Ms Mapleton, our principal, he ended up helping St. Monica’s by chasing away some intruders, even though a guardian of the law happened to be present and only managed to distract him. In the ensuing melee, Clementina managed to sneak in unnoticed and was subsequently found sleeping peacefully in her bed. A letter praising Bertie’s exemplary conduct was promptly despatched to Aunt Agatha.
We are always concerned about the safety and wellbeing of our wards. We suggest such escapades of your daughter get attempted only against a letter of prior approval directly from yourself.
Worriedly yours,
Warden and Class Teacher
(Illustration concerning Thos had originally appeared in The Strand magazine; it has been sourced through https://www.madameulalie.org/index.html. Illustration concerning Peggy is courtesy Suvarna Sanyal)
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