This post has been selected as the Featured post for the Quoted Stories Linky Party #8
One such Back to School flyer caught my attention. Image of the cherubic toddler, adorned with many items from the advertised list, was the center of my attraction. The toddler sure was a cutie pie! But I was alarmed at the thought of a kid, who is still in nascent stages of exploring the world around him with his fumbling feet, getting enrolled to the school...formal education??? Was that child really ready to take on to the confined walls of learning?
Count your blessing, they say. I thanked God that I belonged to the different era. My era, though it may sound that I am aging, was a golden era lined with silvers of the gradual and natural upbringing! Till the age of five or six, I was enrolled in an "Open University". Most of us in those days used to be like this....
Our open universities had our Grandparents as the Deans! The faculties used to be mom and aunties. We even had the visiting faculties...Dad and uncles! The method of the education was fairly simple....Indulge and explore anything that caught our fancy on that particular day! The bruised knees and stained clothes were a regular sight. For awards and rewards, we did not have to wait for the year long... They were instantaneous!! Rewards were pretty attractive too...a sugar candy, handful of pea nuts and jaggery, climbing the tree to get the ripe guava under the able guidance of visiting faculty, offering fodder to the cows in the cow-shed...The list is long and equally curious! My favorite one was the lump of the salted tamarind that my mother would store in the earthen pot!! The tangy taste still lingers in my mind...
The munchkin minds, that we were, were reprimanded by the faculties from time to time. Many a times we were caught red handed, happily engrossed in our naughty acts! We learnt a lot of basic survival skills in our university courtesy fellow students... I learnt the art of using mortal weapons...read biting, kicking!!! Also learnt how to take the sweet revenge of the enemy by pouring the loose soil or the sand stealthily on his / her head!!! The punishment used to be...standing near the wall, facing it and no play time until such time that some other faculty member came to the rescue!!!
No wonder then, most of us used to cry and make a lot of fuss when finally the Deans and the faculties thought that we had now graduated and were eligible to join the formal education. All the freedom, comfort and the limitless learning was suddenly then replaced with discipline and syllabus bound education! How I wish the "Open University" still existed ...the old world charm and the wisdom that they had never fades, never ceases!!! "Old is definitely Gold"
What's your experience with your own esteemed Open University???....
-----By MocktailMommy Anagha
* All images courtesy Goolge search
Linking up the post to the "Quoted Stories #8"
Anagha very nicely written... I also miss my open university
ReplyDeleteThanks Pallavi for visiting!
DeleteShould we start our own Open university???
Very well written, it really was an open university. I have learnt so many life skills. It was the best time of my life. Thank you for all the lovely memories.
ReplyDeleteAgree you Gayatri...that was the best part of the life!
DeleteThanks for visiting!
Being Swiss I don't know Open Universities, but also around here they start to enrol kids earlier in school. Some can't sit still, some can't dress themselves independently, but here they are, in the system of expectations to perform.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to "let kids be kids?"
Hmm...really feel sorry that we have forgotten that let the kids be kids!
DeleteThanks for visiting and sharing the experience from your part of the world.
Nicely put in words...
ReplyDeleteOurs was really a happy and carefree life.
Small and simple rewards...
And the punishments....oh I remember standing near the wall touching the toes🙂
Yes dear...standing near the wall and touching the toes...in those days it made us so shameful when punished!
DeleteThanks for visiting the blog.
I don't have such memories of 'open university' but it really sounds rather fun. if I would there, I'm not sure I want to go to the real world until I at least learn to kick people. kidding. or not.
ReplyDeletethanks for dropping by my blog, have a lovely day.
Thanks Lissa for sharing your experience and also for visiting us.
DeleteOh, I just loved this post Anagha. It took me down the memory lane to my childhood days. I don't remember getting new stuff every year for school. In fact mom would open the hem for the skirt for it to be little longer. In fact my younger sister used my text books!
ReplyDeleteI loved your analogy of the open university. Indeed we were blessed to belong to an era of small joys and great learning :)
Same with me Radhika...uniform skirt once stitched would be used year after year!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting us and for adding to the story line!
You have covered it all!
ReplyDeleteThank you for dropping by and for the encouraging words!
DeleteI too feel bad for these tiny tots when someone says "We need to form a good base" and push them into formal education too early. I am very happy with my Kiddo's preschool where its not only Bookish knowledge but practical learning- they organize vegetable markets, nature walks and fruit chat making etc. Thanks for linking with #QuotedStories
ReplyDeleteThank you Upasana for visiting and sharing your views! So very glad that your kid is enjoying the world as he sees around and not as is taught in the books in the confines of the class!
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