‘Who’s this mummee who’s taken over from aai ?’
RESHMA PATIL

PUNE, MARCH 2: Mummy and Daddy live in an adivasi wasti in Khed, Maharashtra where power, water supply, All India Radio and Doordarshan have yet to reach. They are dongri landless labourers, puzzled by their children’s use of a strange new language made compulsory in schools since last June.

‘‘Who is this Mummee who has taken over from aai? Who is Good-morning Daddee? Why does five-year-old Dnyaneshwar break into a thank you please for every drink of water?’’

A full academic year after Maharashtra thrust compulsory English on 67,000 primary schools and 1.5 lakh students, the first bold new generation of rural six-year-olds with kheti in their blood and English on their lips has emerged. From single-teacher tin-roof shacks on barren hilltops where tribal hamlets live on daily wages, to brick structures scattered across the districts, this is the beginning of a social transformation.

Perhaps a fitting reply to critics who bickered over the logistics of unleashing a foreign language on six-year-old minds, this generation rushes home to open the My English textbook for their moms working by the chulla and point out Meera’s cat and naughty Johnny.

The change is rapid: alarmed rural teachers are discovering that a Class I student is now more at ease using English than an older bunch in, say, Class 7. It’s a generation where the slowest lad is stuck with a zero in Marathi but top scores in English.

‘‘Why does my son call me Mummee? I don’t like it. For generations our children have addressed mothers as aai,’’ grumbles mom Sanjeevani Ghate in Ambethan. Ditto, Savita Shevkari, who’s now been crowned Mummy by daughter Megha.At Chakan’s only Marathi-medium primary school, jowar farmer Sanjay Naikwade confesses he never went to school. ‘‘But my daughter Vrushali is teaching me English. I can say donkey, apple, papa sit down, thank you and welcome.’’

The change tests the resilience of the academic staff, too. Teacher Javed Pathan says he once trudged miles to the closest town of Chakan to shop for cake. ‘‘My 20 adivasi students of class I and II, with no access to TV, radio and power supply, refused to memorise Pat-a-cake since they had never bitten into or marvelled at a cake. I had to even explain the meaning of bakery,’’ he says.

Today, Javed’s students belt out 20 desi nursery rhymes, rattle off the numbers one to ten, identify all parts of the body in English, obey English commands, even thunder a “bye-bye” and “see ya!”

Single-teacher Nanda Shinde who tackles a class of 32 students who come from the poorest of the poor daily wage labourers’ families of Ambethan, says the the response to English is ‘‘super.’’

‘‘The students’ language skills are far ahead of Marathi, where the teaching technique is more bookish. Some of my students score zero in Marathi but are excellent in English,’’ she admits. ‘‘Today, they go home and teach English to their uneducated parents and grandparents who have never stepped into a school before.’’

At Chakan, headmaster M Tarte compels the more clever kids to take three slow students under their wing for after-school tuition in English. At Jhitraimala, Khed, teacher Rohini Hare quickly points to the trophy her girls won at a taluka-level nursery rhymes contest.

‘‘The children, of their own accord, are replacing Devanagiri numbers with English, calling gotya marbles, and phala blackboard. They try to copywrite English words though the syllabus only covers listening and conversational skills.’’

And as the year progressed, Jhitraimala’s headmistress Sindhu Pandhe says she gleefully recorded 11 extra admissions. ‘‘Only because of English, class I has shot from 20 to 31 students this year.’’

District extension officer from Chakan, Ashok Kadlakh, voices the sentiment on every teacher’s lips. ‘‘With compulsory English for Marathi-medium schools, our children have got justice, though the problem is that standard one is now far ahead of standard seven. The Indianised textbook and kavita with illustrations of typical village life, makes learning so easy.’’

With the obvious success of the experiment, the State will release the MY English textbook for standard second, this June. ‘‘The revised syllabus is approved by the Governor. We see no reason to change the pattern or curriculum, because rural children are now including familiar English words in vernacular conversations at home.’’

‘‘The nursery rhymes have proven the simplest learning experience,’’ says D V Hardikar, special officer for English, describing the easy to grasp message of rain rain come again for kids in a drought-stricken State. In nine months, Meera’s little cat has come a full circle in Maharashtra.

Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.