Chirec Public School continually displays flagrant disregard for the mental, physical and emotional well being of its students. As a commercially oriented school, money comes first(ironic, considering it professors teaching’valuable life skills’ such as open-mindedness or kindness while treating its students as cash cows). Hypocrisy is its motto, deceit its golden rule, an establishment which depends on the subjugation of students and teachers alike to thrive. Having studied there for five years, it is easy to see how this idea is often suppressed, yet nonetheless ubiquitous among most who either study or work there(though that should maybe be left unsaid because the administration’s biggest trick is finding anyone to blame but themselves for their mistakes).
In biology class, the benefits of exercise, a balanced diet and sleep are expounded upon. To ensure this occurs, students are given time to play sports a whopping two times a week!(apparently the older you get, the less time you should be given for sports because age is inversely proportional to the time necessary for exercise? Incidentally, this is a mathematical they have invented, and will likely file a patent for, because well, money!) and these periods(30-40 min long by the way) are often snatched from them. It took years to implement a 5-minute snack break. Additionally, lunch is 20 minutes(including washing hands, walking for five minutes to the lunch hall and back, given the excellent physical fitness of the entire student body) where students are served food that regularly induces poisoning(and though teachers are wonderful, and often very understanding, due to pressure from the administration, you will likely be punished for taking voluntary time off.so what if it is because you were throwing up? You have a ridiculously inhuman number of assignments to submit, tests to take, and classes to attend at least in the prestigious IB program!). And sleep is wonderful - what with teachers who are assigned basic clerical tasks, because apparently the lakhs of rupees paid to school only go into a select few pockets(anyone care to venture a guess?!) and instead of hiring two more employees to do basic work and configure a FUNCTIONING SYSTEM, it makes more sense to force all work on teachers - because when academics are force-fed to students, even those whose priorities lie in sports or arts, so they can attract new customers.
Even when students do well, it is despite their roundabout system, which spends more time on sub-par photography of toppers for the next day’s newspaper than encouraging an environment of growth and creativity(though when have they let such things as facts deter them from advertising 24/7?).
Of course, subjects such as the arts may be given importance by the understanding teachers, but the administration has the nerve to say they support these subjects, with new facilities(such as two wobbly tables, a paintbrush and a set of watercolors housed in a tiny box that they call a’lab for artistic pursuits’, though no amount of extravagant language - riddled with grammatical errors, I might add - can make up for their cruel and uncaring attitude towards anything outside the realm of academics). Similarly, they claim to enable enriching excursions, which students have to pay for every single time because somewhere in their consumption of hundreds of students’ lakhs of rupees, there is too less to go around! Of course, this is only a superficial assessment of their flaws, because to go through everything would require a novel, or even several installments on the various aspects of their failures, at the very least.
Sure, society may be at fault, and perhaps other schools in the area are similar. But I cannot provide any justification for using these or other absurd rationalizations as a basis for "cutting the school some slack", particularly when they - on top of all of this - declare themselves one of the nth ranked best schools in Hyderabad, in India, in the World, in the Universe, in the entire galaxy! etc. If there is a cyclical system of hate, from ignorant adults upholding the system to grave administrative pitfalls, to students’ detached mindset, or society’s outdated norms, change has to start somewhere; for the chain to break, one link must first be ready to move out of the cycle. And I cannot understand why this change cannot start from an institution which claims to educate. After all, (as they tend to incessantly quote), isn’t education the most powerful weapon that can be used to change the world?
Interestingly enough, the most watched TED Talk today is one which harps on the necessity of organic, humanistic education today. If Chirec truly is the futuristic education it claims to be, if the staff truly believe in creating a legacy beyond pockets stuffed with cash or students unable to cope with the real world beyond entrances into the Ivy Leagues, they might ruminate on this a bit, rather than turning away the students who do approach them with suggestions(though, of course, they’re always happy to help and eager to listen to your solutions!).
Hopefully, Chirec can begin to learn to put values and happiness above money and material gain, to put their children’s health above their own wealth, and begin to bring positive people, educated in an uplifting, creative environment. Teachers must be satisfied and encouraged rather than used as puppets or scapegoats, given room to teach the way they are best able, and to create ripples of kindness that last far more than a couple of whitewashed, peeling walls, and crores of rupees that somehow remains absent in mediocre infrastructure and an absolutely dehumanizing system. Now that’s a school I’d hold in my heart forever, regardless of its rank.