Before someone else points it out, I’d like to clarify that I’m indeed a privileged Indian adult who went to an English medium school and yes, my daily conversations with my friends are in English. And no, that won’t stop me from voicing my opinion on this.
For as long as I remember, going to an English medium school was a big deal during my school days. I believe it might have been so because my parents couldn’t go to one. Nevertheless, it doesn’t change the fact that it gave me an upper hand in this world. It would be outright delusional on my part to say that English doesn’t amount to anything, because God knows it does!
But where does it stand in the mind of a young child who’s about to explore the adverse realities of the world? Most of the English medium schools emphasise the fact that students should conversate in English at all times while they are inside the school premises, which is fair because our parents were made to believe a particular notion which consequently led to our enrollment in the supposedly ‘superior’ schools.
While there’s no harm in using English as your first language, it’s interesting to note a pattern of the lack of humility in most of the schools that believe in the age-old beliefs associated with classicism and elitism. These schools, in fact, inflict a sense of inferiority among students who are slower to adapt to this change.
Belonging to a family where everyone talks in Hindi, it was somewhat more of a task than a privilege to be able to go to school every day and speak in English. I felt a certain amount of alienation every time I’d force myself into speaking English with my friends. I don’t know if it was because of the lack of emotional value or the simple fact that I didn’t really want to speak in a language that was enforced on me. But that changed as I grew up and I no longer feel any imposition. Unfortunately, I feel isolated from my mother tongue now. It just feels different…
Most schools have specific set of rules and regulations – which imply that the school is accountable to charge a particular amount of money as ‘fine’ for violating the English speaking code. It is almost baffling how schools and teachers think that they are grooming the students by making compulsions and setting targets that they’d achieve out of the fear they create in the minds of students.
Furthermore, kids don’t just grow used to the alterations but also develop a feeling of supremacy or precedence. This leads to them looking down upon other people as less important or trivial in the business. Sometimes it even gets to the family. And all of this eventually leads to a dark, dangerous trap of discrimination and partisanship.
To quote a real-life incident, I was playing with my brother, and we have an age gap of seven years. He was telling me about his school, his friends and then he mentioned a staff member of the school, who is well versed in English. It didn’t seem inappropriate at first, but then he pointed out that the guy works as a peon in his school. The startled expression on his face made me a little worried. His tone sounded condescending, and the conversation shifted to a different zone altogether.
He was surprised at how a peon could speak so well in English and when I asked him what caught him so off guard, he just said, “I don’t know. I mean he is a peon na!” I don’t blame him at all for something that he doesn’t even understand, but I did feel sad for the mindless conditioning of right and wrong these kids have been taught.
It is important for schools to realise that English can be an essential factor to influence the future of a child, but it certainly shouldn’t be a compulsive one. It is more convenient to evoke that feeling of melioration than to make them do stuff just for the sake of doing it. Schools should teach students that the language will assist them in their future. They should educate them about the importance of English as a universal language, without making them feel inferior for speaking or prioritising their mother tongue.
Oh, by the way, I know I might meet the ‘you wrote this in English’ argument, but hey that’s the point! English is a universal medium to communicate, and I’m happy that I had the privilege to learn it, but I would have been happier if it didn’t feel like an imposition as a child.