Monday, September 04, 2006

Was That A Grammer Lesson Or Something Else - Still Confused...!!!

I would like to share a grammar school lesson I got in the sixth standard of my school.. I was in Culcutta (now known as Kolkata).. My English teacher was a Bengali lady.. She was pretty blunt and always use to take a pretty strong position on anything, especially about social equality.. We called her 'Mother Taresa', certainly not because of her nature, but because of sumthing, you will soon come to know.. She wrote 'all men are created equal'.. To these battle-hardened vets, there was nothing 'wrong' about this assertion.. Quizzically, she said, 'All men ARE created equal. But, all men are NOT born equal'..

She made a BIG deal out of that. You had to approach every person with an open mind.. With charity for all the people who weren't born with the advantages we had.. Report cards had things like 'respects the rights of others,' 'works well with others,' and my personal favorite: 'helps others reach their potential'..

There were a lot of funny lessons all designed to help us learn what she was trying to teach.. There was one activity that had envelopes with rewards and punishments in them at random - with random rewards and punishments written on the outside.. Lesson: Don't judge a book by its cover.. Tests where all the students' grades were equal to the lowest grade in the class.. Lesson: teamwork.. Classes were split into sections - smart, average, stupid, and dumb - with tests graded on improvement.. Lesson: Just because you're smart doesn't guarantee you'll win.. Halfway through a test, the rules were changed, no sympathy.. Lesson: Life throws curves..

And we had to adapt, live with it, and grow up..

So, there is a theoretical 'created,' like the theory of poker.. And then there is the 'born,' like playing the hand you're dealt..

"Hope this ramble makes some sense, and explains what I think she was trying to say.. Seems obvious to me, but then I was taught by some Marines about life.."