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I am not a huge fan of poems, but i can appreciate a simple one. And Im sure Ill not be writing one this life time. Till class 4 the poems were ok. I had enough knowledge to read them and understand atleast 50% of the whole stuff. But from 5th class onwards poems started to become nightmares.
All those so called big poets, with their sanskrit mixed ’superior’ language poems were too hard to digest. There were poems which I couldnt read completely on my own. Some, even though I can read, didnt even have a clue as to what the context of the poem is. I remember a poem by the famous “Ezhuthachan” in the 8th STD malayalam text book, it was so horrible that I used to call the writer bad names for having written it.
After 10 years of education and experiences with these horrible poems I still cant write 4 lines of poetry. Is it the failure of the education system. ?
When I used to talk about this to my friends, some used to say that its my problem that I cant write poetry. It may be my problem, but can 5% of the students write poems on their own even after 10 years of education. ? Whats the use of teaching something that is not useful for atleast 5% of the students.
I can enjoy folk songs, they are simple, and wont need a dictionary to read and understand. You need not be a scholar to write one. But the syllabus didnt contain those. All that I learned is complicated sanskrit poems, and the result is that I hate all the “Mahakavis”
I hope one day the syllabus will change to a much simpler one and everyone passing out schools will be able to write atleast 4 lines of simple poetry.
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12 comments ↓
Hi Kenney,
I also had this attitude problem for malayalam poems in school. To be exact, the one of the category who has got imposition to write the poems a 100 times just because i can’t memorise something that i can’t digest in the first place! Now you understand how much i hated “mahakavi’s” like you. Thou the feeeling is mutual, i am an empathetic person, who will stand in others shoes atleast just to know what made them do this!!! So, i feel these poems in schools are meant to improve your knowledge on malayalam literature thou there are other easier methods(which i feel…) to do this. Atleast, I prefer prose than poems!
Cheers to your work
Linju Jose aka LJ
In school we had a lot of class mates. Not everyone entered into the IT
field. Some ( only a very few ) took teaching profession . Some, other fields. Till STD 10 we ( majority)didn’t even know what would be our career. And we studied all the subjects which unfortunately includes Malayalam Poetry.I bet only thru poetry we learnt majority of the common Sanskrit words in malayalam ( exception is there pros of Sukumar Azhikode)
Now you will ask the Question “Whats the use ?”
My Ans: It was just an Awareness Program to tell that there existed something called “Malayalam Culture which has a history of few hundred years ..”
Well, If its an awareness program then include that in the history text book, not in the language text book.
A language is for communication, and communication happens best when its simple and easy to understand.
Hey guy’s
I am sure none of you guy’s were allowed to take a decision till you reached your 11th or 12th. This is basically part of our culture - where our Parents, Teachers, bureaucrats and sometimes the illiterate politicians take decisions on our behalf. They decide what is good for us what is not good for us. which to some extend is good. But the attitude in India is to push it down the child’s throat (How many of your parent’s/Teachers/others have told you that you have to become a doctor/Eng…) - which is not good.
Like I had to learn Hindi and English in the first and second year of my BSc Comp. Sc. (I think they thought I will change my mind about computers and go and become a poet………..
But on the flip side though we complain about this - India still has one of the world’s best education system’s (Don’t ask me how)
I dont know much about education systems in other countries. But I do onething, If Indian education system is the best, then other countries must be pathetic, and we can drastically increase the quality.
I am not satisfied with the education I had.
I don’t think teaching poems in school is not meant to create the talent of writing poems but might be to teach a student How to write poems and the usage of the language idioms, bla bla etc(I don’t know exactly for what it is:)) . But I am sure it is not necessary that every one after 10th or 12th should write a poem..
For eg:: We are learning about Panipat war in History , but do we participate in war or do we learn how to lead a war after 10th??(Kaduthu poyo??)
First of all I am not a poet …. But there are a couple of things that I want to point out that struck me on reading the above post
We had studied poems by Ezhuthachan in primary school; someone seems to be saying that it was not worth the effort. I think most of us enjoy film songs both the lyrics and music. Consider this song for example “Sandhyakku enthinu sindhooram” we can write it in this way too “Vaykunnerathinu enthinu pottu”. Which leaves a more profound feeling?
In those days we learnt lots of phrases and words which helped us take language to a totally different plane – a level that in my most simple way I could describe with just one word - “Beautiful”.
In all languages words have different synonyms – each one more appropriate than the other in different contexts.
Was it all for nothing??!!
Modern Malayalam is a mixture of “Moola Dravida Bhasha” and Sanskrit. We use thousands of Sanskrit words in our daily life. The alphabets we are using in Malayalam have originated from Sanskrit. And Ezhuthachan who taught the people to respect and worship the language and the alphabet, a level of culture which is difficult to find even in the modern era. He refined the Malayalam language style and wrote his works for ordinary people, incorporating whatever is good with a strong sense of righteousness and worship.
Poetry is a form of art and much like every form of art..not every individual can write poetry’s.And teaching poetry in schools is not intended to make every individual a poet!,Its lone purpose is to make people enjoy..poetry..enjoy human creativity..enjoy art..literature etc..
I was following the ICSE system of education and we had a book full of poems and none of them we had to memorize..we just had to understand each poem and answer questions based on paragraphs of poems
Its better that we teach a child to enjoy art ,literature,science etc for the preparatory education(maybe till +2) and then specialize in a subject
And of late our education system is just transforming into that..being in this critical generation what each and every one of us can do is..never put the next generation in pressure for marks and degress and allow them to persue what they like the best
Hi,
I peeped in once again!!!
Just to say that i agree with Sarath on the beauty of the literature must be enjoyed like every other art form point of view.. maybe because we both enjoy many artforms and share an aspiration as artists!!! (small time passsion thou..lols) Kenney, i cherish, i could also have had an ICSE education like Anoop [:D].
Cheers
The main issue is not with the complication, but with the study load. Reduce the contents of the text and give ample time for having free mind to nurture something creative.
[…] an earlier post I had I had mentioned that I hate poems and poets. Now I know why I hate them. Now I understand why I hate most of the things I hate. I attended a […]
In my case, I loved arts as well as sciences. In the school I enjoyed poems (esp. manipravalams, champus, sandesha-kavyams etc), and the musical genius of Cheusseri, Ezhuthachan, Kunjan nambiar etc. are unforgettable. Also loved the poems of Shakespeare and Milton later in the college. Since Maths was my favorite, I did well in Computer science later on.
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