Well-known educationist, Kuriakose J. Vari has written “My Romance with Education” with passion and involvement. Not just dos and don’ts to education and all those policies and patterns to it, but inter-webbed and interwoven are details from his day-to-day experiences dealing with students and their parents and also the school staff. A book review by Humra Quraishi
Critics could get somewhat critical, pointing out that I should have written about this book last fortnight, around Teacher’s Day. I do understand but I feel such books are significant every single day as they revolve around our children …our future generation.
Today’s children are living in rather tough times. Too many distractions and high technology gadgets and frightfully fierce competition. In the background lurks the communal climate and the corruption riddled atmosphere.
This book authored by the well-known educationist, Kuriakose J. Vari, is definitely significant. He is the former principal of the Modern School, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi, and also a former member of the Expert Advisory Committee, HRD Ministry (GOI). Above all, he has helped set-up schools where the basic aim is to make the child feel confident and secure.
He starts this volume by focusing on the school he himself went to in the initial years, the Salesian School at Sonada, close to Darjeeling. The formative years were of great significance for him, as he travelled there, to Darjeeling, all the way from Kerala. “I am grateful to the Salesian school-cum-college for the wonderful education I received there through Don Bosco’s educational paradigm – ‘The preventive system.’ He also mentions the names and details to the academics and teachers and his fellow classmates who made a lasting impact.
With that take-off, he focuses on the bigger picture! After all, education goes beyond books and classrooms. To quote him, “No serious efforts have been made to impart ‘education for life’. Without life skills, you cannot navigate day-to-day life smoothly. Every activity, both academic and non-academic, must be deftly interwoven with life-skills education…Even the greatest of technological communication tools cannot bypass the fundamental and extremely complex human element involved in true education, which defies being caged in absolute constructs.”
Vari has written this volume with passion and involvement. Not just dos and don’ts to education and all those policies and patterns to it, but inter-webbed and interwoven are details from his day-to-day experiences dealing with students and their parents and also the school staff. It makes an interesting read, with the varying human characteristics or factors which you and I can well relate to.
After having helped shape the lives and careers of hundreds of his students, he decided to settle down in Bangalore, with his wife Alice, to whom he has dedicated this book. As he told me, “I’m in my mid-80s and decided it’s time to retire …but I’m always there for whoever seeks my advice or suggestions on education.” (This book carries his contact mail id – kjvari@gmail.com )
After reading this volume, one basic aspect stood out, loud and clear. Vari’s earnest and sincere efforts to help the child. The basic aim is to make each child’s individuality taken into account and respected, and with that the child is made to feel confident and secure and comfortable.
Such a significant book in today’s India, where one incident after another comes up where teachers are seen humiliating and even verbally hitting young Muslim students on the basis of religion! Two recent such incidents captured in videos/ shots, are from the schools of Uttar Pradesh. Shocked us yet didn’t perhaps shock the right-wing political rulers of the day.
BOOK REVIEW
Title of the book – MY Romance WITH EDUCATION – An Effective Teacher has to be a Jack of All Subjects and Master of One
Publisher – Milap Publications
Author – Kuriakose J. Vari
Price – Rs 699
Pages – 178
