The school where I teach stands on one of the busier streets of Mumbai. There's a vegetable vendor, a fruit seller, a famous chaat waala and various other hawkers nearby. The street connects two main roads. A construction site right opposite the school. In fact, the day when they brought down the old building, all of us- teachers and students stood in the school compound to watch how they're bringing it down.
The result of all this. Commotion. Total commotion at almost all times of the day. Be it 10 a.m. or 6 p.m.
My classroom- on the first floor. I realise that most of the times, I am shouting on top of the traffic noise. Rickshaw engines. Cars honking. Big cars. Rich educated people. Honking, picking fights on the road for their cars. Everyone removing their frustration. I wondered- did anyone realise what impact they were causing. Did anyone bother to look at the silence zone sign before honking. Did anyone bother to think what would happen to all those kids trying to concentrate on Greek Latin in school.
I realised I may not be able to do much about the current problem. But I wanted these values instilled in my kids. Values of respecting someone else's place. Their rights. I wanted my first graders to learn about noise pollution. So that when they grow up, when they have big cars, they know what they are supposed to do.
I decided to take up a project. We spoke about pollution. What is pollution. Particularly noise pollution. And this was not the geography book definition which we had been studying all the years in school. These were answers from the kids. In art class, the little artists created posters- children at work, please be quiet. Silence zone. Our ears hurt.
And a kid wrote- please don't honk. Children are painting. We went down on the street with these posters, the same day.
This was such a success with the kids at least. Maybe the state of the road is still the same. But I will be at peace, thinking that I have instilled such important values in at least one out of the thirty-five kids, if not more.
This is a small thing. Not honking. But it can make such a big difference to someone. Sometimes, we as adults, forget to empathise, to care. Kids can teach us so much!
