Foundations of Social Science- 2

Fieldwork: Local Government School

To Kiroli, Sonipat

INTRODUCTION:
We departed from campus at 6:30 AM,
leaving campus in a cab with air-
conditioning, something that was not
available where we were headed. We
were headed to the village of Kiroli,
where we decided to visit two separate
schools. These consisted of an all-girls
school all-boys school. After thirty fun
and relaxing minutes in the vehicle, we
reached the village and were fully
prepared to step into the village. The
village in Kiroli we visited included
members of the ‘Jaat’ community. The
trip was divided into four sections, where the first section was simple, observing the school
campus, the behavior of students, the infrastructure, etc. The second section was the
interview of the students, where the girls were interviewed individually, as opposed to the
boys, who were interviewed collectively in a group, this may or may not have affected the
differences in responses. The third section of the trip to the schools was talking to the faculty,
the teachers, and the principal. The fourth section was focused on spending at least 15
minutes talking to the students and teaching them, something in general. This part of the trip
was not planned, as the intention of the trip was to gain knowledge and exposure to the lives
of the students and the government schools. This fourth section came into existence out of
our hearts as we decided to teach the students something in return for helping us understand
the working of caste prejudices and differences, as well as the general lives of people in
villages and government schools. Upon our arrival in the village, we were showered with
greetings from every person we came across, and they spoke in a tone much higher than we
were accustomed to. Hints of discomfort were also very clear to us as some folk looked at our
group as a bunch of alien people who weren’t aware of their customs and traditions and gave
us and our western clothing a long gaze as they were only conditioned to seeing a specific
kind of cloth being worn in the area where they resided. As we made decent progress in the
village and learned about life in the village we went to two different schools in order to
identify the different ways girls and boys are conditioned to learn things.
ALL-GIRLS SCHOOL:
First, we made our way into the all-girls
school. On our arrival at the school, the staff
and faculty were not pleased and questioning
began about who gave us the authority to
barge into their sacred space, concerns
regarding the ‘male’ members of the group
entering an all-girls school were also raised.
It came to our notice that, exposure to the
opposite gender was restricted when we
asked permission to interview. Boys in the group were not given the opportunity initially. We
were saddened to see that this school still has an outdated way of thinking and conforms to
this stereotype. Luckily, a local in the village who was our friend facilitated our entry into the
school, as he made the faculty and staff aware of his place in their hierarchy by making them
aware of the fact that his grandfather was responsible for building the institution where we
had set our foot in. After informing the staff and Faculty of this fact all the questions and
concerns seemed to have faded away and we were welcomed with warm arms to conduct
interviews with the students inside the principal’s office. This is because the teachers and
faculty were reminded of the hierarchical world we live in and their place in the hierarchy
that existed in. As we got permission to conduct the fieldwork, they invited us to attend the
assembly. It was noticed that the prayers recited were completely based on Hinduism. We
noted how each one of us in the group grew up reciting prayers that did not have a direct
relation to any religion as such. An environment of this sort restricts young minds to think
about the broader idea. Exposing and educating students about different religions in order for
them to understand all religions that exist can also help them have a sense of what they want
to follow. Girls school students seemed more educated and well-versed. They had much more
confidence than the boys when asked about information related to sensitive issues in the
village. They had different goals and ambitions which they wanted to pursue and achieve.
Girls that were interviewed came from a not so conservative backgrounds as we expected,
they had the liberty to choose their career path. The girls interviewed were asked about what
they wished to become when they became working adults, entering the world and gaining
exposure to everything the planet had to offer. It was noted that most of the girls, instead of
being ‘brainwashed’ into thinking they need to become doctors or housewives for the
betterment of their living situations, were told by their parents that they could do what they
wanted to do, and had the liberty to choose their careers. In the case of boys, every other boy
had this thought process that was not forced but consistently followed by men in the village.
When we enquired about streams that were available after 10th grade, we got to know that the
only available stream was Humanities. The majority of the students that were individually
interviewed wanted to become doctors- also realized how they did not know that they had to
take science stream in order to do MBBS. The fourth section, as mentioned before, was
focused on spending at least 15 minutes talking to the students and teaching them, we were
assigned a class, proceeded to teach them the chapter ‘circles’ from maths, and then recited
an entire kids story by translating it into Hindi to help them understand the story better.
On our way to the boy's school after
visiting the girl's school, we were
accompanied by a common friend of ours
who belonged to that village and stopped to
talk to one of the village women. There was
one point in the whole conversation that
struck us. They conversed about a fellow
village person who had been waiting to get
his daughter married. Her reply to this
conversation is what struck us. “She has cleared her UPSC exam, everything is going to be
fine with her marriage”. Her statement can be interpreted in various ways but as we discussed
we liked to believe it in our discussion, he says marriage is all going to be fine as now the girl
has cleared the UPSC exam.

ALL BOYS SCHOOL:

Upon entering the all-boys school, we came to immediately notice that the condition of the
school compared to the all-girls school was much different, the boys' school was not as well
maintained, the students on other hand
seemed to be just as behaved, at least to the
eyes of someone considered much higher
on the so-called ‘hierarchy’ system that we
hold. Interviewing environment of both
girls' and boys' schools was conducted
differently. The boys were interviewed
collectively. Back in our school days, it
was an offense to speak in vernacular, but
here, Hindi was the way to go. Their preferred language was not English.
The one thing that surprised our group more than anything else, was that the students, upon
being asked what their plans for their career are, had the same answer. There was not a single
child among the dozens who had a different view on how to live out their days as an adult in
this world. Their method of thinking could be described as "stereotypical," as if they were
influenced or compelled by society to think and act in a particular way. They all had the same
wish, of being a soldier and a member of the Indian Army, and retiring after a certain age in
order to live off a pension. It struck us that the students' mentality was to get a viable public
sector government job after school, without intentions of pursuing higher education
whatsoever. Maybe it was the understanding from some of them that their families could not
afford any higher education, but maybe it had something to do with the deep-seated mentality
passed through generations, of how an ideal life must mean to attend school, find a place to
work, that too preferably a government job. Going out on a path of their own to find
something they would like to do and be happy doing seemed to be away from their grasp, at
least in the eyes of people of ‘privilege’, i.e., us. Another major issue we were informed of
about the school was the fact that they currently did not have an English teacher.
The boys' school did not have an English teacher, period. They were not well-versed in the
English language, as opposed to the girls, and were struggling to form basic sentences. The
entire school had no English teacher, while only having a single Mathematics teacher to teach
the entirety of the Senior students.
Upon bringing up the topic of domestic violence and women in general, one of the boys
conveyed this particular line, “No
daughters and mothers are Laxmi
which struck each one of us mainly
because and also an idea from the
reading “Lajwanti” from English.
Seeing this could one could think like
a good thing but have a third-person
view all you can see are the flaws in
the concept of calling the women
goddess. Restricting them, not
allowing the women to go anywhere,
and talk with unknown persons just
because goddesses do not talk other
than the people of their respective
homes. The boys in the school had a
similar situation, they respected
women but didn't know why. Upon
this, we told them that we should
respect women because they are
human beings and one human should
respect other humans.
“Why do you respect girls?” A follow-
up question to “Do you respect girls?”
was raised to the boys as soon we moved on to the part we were having the discussion with
them. Their immediate response was "Yes". They said they respect every woman and girl in
the village but when they were asked "why", they were dumbstruck. They didn't know why
they did or should respect women. A long awkward pause later, a student said that they
respect women as they are women. We then made them understand that women or daughters
should be respected not because they are females and because they are human beings and that
every human should be treated with respect.
When questions that were related to casts were asked,
one of the students had an incident to share. The story
began with the boy explaining how he was crossing a
water pipeline and accidentally stepped on the pipeline,
which resulted in the breaking of the pipeline and water
leakage. This isn’t a serious issue in any sense
whatsoever, but it escalated to something much more, as
a ‘Jaat’ from an upper caste saw the boy, who was from
a lower caste, accidentally break the pipeline. The boy
proceeded to narrate in severe detail, explaining the
heinous ways in which the issue escalated to a physical
altercation, as the boy was beaten up and thrown into a
dark alley, in the middle of nowhere. The child, who
seemed innocent in every way whatsoever, in a village
that seemed pretty serene, nearly teared up explaining
the situation of caste discrimination, and how every person from the upper castes showed no
mercy to those of the lower caste,
causing physical altercations for the
smallest issues that come up.
Apparently, it was almost like the
people of the upper castes were
looking for some excuse or the other to
show the power they hold over those
who weren’t born with such privilege.

The government school was backward

regarding infrastructure but
educationally equal to a private
institution. It was noted how the
infrastructure of the school was nowhere near ‘decent’, the students had computer classes but
there were no computer labs, and the washrooms were visibly unsafe and unsanitary. The
teachers were not provided with a faculty room similar to JGU, instead, all they had was a
table outside on the plain ground in the scorching sunlight, with roughly 3-4 seats put up,
where all the teachers took a seat. During summers, the school was provided with electricity
for merely 2 hours, as opposed to the twenty-four/seven electricity provided to the privileged
people of society. Educationally, however, the school seemed to be at the same level, nearly
equal to the quality of a private institution
Upon interviewing the teachers, it was instantly noted how they were trying hard to prove
that government schools were not as horrible as portrayed by the media, and how they can
even be better than some private institutions. They were very sure of themselves when saying
that the teachers of the government schools are as qualified maybe even more than private
school teachers. They mentioned the rigorous selection process that they go through.
During the questionnaire, the boys when asked about the privilege they got said that everyone
was considered an equal be it a boy or a girl. But the fact that they were many things that the
women and girls were not allowed, one of the examples being that they were not allowed to
the crimination ground anytime and temples were prohibited for a certain time every month.
Inquiring about these issues they knew nothing about it and were just following it because
they were told to do so. The government school was backward regarding infrastructure but
educationally equal to a private institution.

CONCLUSION:
Going to school made us realize that people do think differently when reality is shown to
them. They feel free to discuss things most of the time when they are being shown that what
they were doing was not their own thought process. Rather it was the society and its norms
controlling them, their actions and thoughts. The all-girls school is the times shown to be
freer to speak about their own thoughts whereas the all-boys school had their minds being
dictated by society. Boys being the dominating class were shown the path this particular part
of their life to dedicate to in this case to join the army. We loved how welcoming the all-boys
school was as the faculty and the environment, in general, were a very simple and peaceful
one. This factor was pointed out as our group members grew up in a completely different
school setting where it was mostly strict and formal which can be taken in a positive and
negative way. In a positive sense, students brought up in those environments would have a
better sense of how to work in this very capitalized world. But if we look at it in another
sense, it creates this sense of fear and anxiety from within that stops one from expressing
what they actually feel and want.