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School bags - the other pole of the Gestalte theory

by Padma Edirisinghe

The man, almost like a re-incarnation of Banda come to town seemed amused by all what he saw around him. By the way, there is nothing like a seat in a public vehicle to watch intense human dramas by paying the bus fare only.

Get cocooned in your own private vehicle and the world again gets sequestered. Just try the balancing act. Banda was titillated by all the funny goings on around him. Humans got in by dozens and he was perplexed as to which sex they belonged. Just by him sat a male with an Adolf Hitler moustache that told his gender but his hair was plaited neatly into two. He could make out some women only by the frontal protrusions, for their hair was closely cropped and their legs were immersed in trousers. Ever since the human began covering his or her nudity their tell tale signs of gender had been the apparel and the coiffeure but all that was now gone. A unisex creature was emerging.

Of course poor Banda did not know all these trends nor did he know the Gestalte theory. This is a very stimulating theory that ran vis-a-vis of the practice of compartmentalizing knowledge into compartments as done in school timetables.

Knowledge is totality, these academics argued and it should be always presented so. Of course the land of its origin was far off Germany but it does not take much time for the travelling of new thinking in the so called global village.

So the practical result of all this in Sri Lanka is the present situation where the child puts all his books into one bag and struts about like a pack-donkey creaking under the heavy weight. In short the student today has become a sacrificial goat to the Gestalte theory. A language issue might arise in the maths class and a physics issue in the health class for knowledge is a totality or Gestalte. Now everything is ready - packed all into one bag, never mind the brain.

Poor Banda again was blissfully unaware of all these grandiose and high-plane thinking. So he simply gaped and gaped when at a certain halt a horde of mini-Assyrians, sorry boys and girls from two schools invaded the bus with fearsome weapons ie. the inevitable hulky school bags, aggression marked on their faces as they competed for space for themselves and for the giant-sized bags. Now they began jostling each other with their bags while the war-cries emitted by the driver and conductor could be heard in the background. "Bags galavanta! Bags galavanta!' (remove the bags).

But the cries fell on deaf years. For about five minutes the mini-war dragged on making Banda's eyes grow round like saucers. Of course I only visualized it though he was seated by me. You cannot gape at people's eyes like an eye-surgeon. And of course in times of pandemonium one must take refuge in something to maintain one's mental equilibrium.

I took refuge by mulling over what went wrong with the practical application of this educational theory here.

May be the infrastructure arrangements necessary to promulgate it were lacking as in developed countries. In the schools of the West provision is made for a child to leave behind a part of his paraphernalia safely in the school, an amenity lacking in our schools.

So the child carts the whole cargo back and forth on his or her own poor back. Much homework especially by way of project work is assigned that make it almost imperative to carry all books home everyday. For those students who travel in the comfort of private vehicles the Gesalte theory has not imposed much burden. But as usual it is the child of the lesser income families who are forced to travel in packed public vehicles who again have to suffer.

Each child entered the bus, his or her back bent into two and all self-respect as future citizens of Lanka banished from them under the heavy burden. The toll on their spinal cords other than on their personality was equally heavy.

In addition to all these traumas and travails the conductor and driver went on with their banshee cries of "Bag galavanta, Bag galavanta". It was not that they were unduly alert to the effect of the heavy burden on the health of the children but the bags were obstructing their goal of packing the optimum passenger load. Finally a threat was made by the driver that the bus would by-pass the school halt from the next day. Banda watched it all, the leer on his face broadening and broadening almost to cover his rugged face. Now a little future citizen in blue shorts and a white shirt came and stood besides Banda, the knapsack on his back making him double into two. Banda whispered something into his ear that I lent ear to, out of curiosity.

It was a question, a concerned question,

'Putha, what are you going to be, when you grow up?" "I haven't thought of it yet" said the good natured boy creaking under the weight of modern but misused educational theories, advocated by brainy scholars and psychologists with the best of intentions.

The man then got up, offered his seat to the boy and the bag and said," A nattami, you can easily end up as. Son, see you are getting the practice".

Nattamis, by the way belong to one of the oldest professions of Sri Lanka, coming of course second to you know whom.

From the time the ships of antiquity arrived at our shores bringing in silks from the Cathay empire and luxuries from the Mediterranean terrain and the Arab Kingdoms these nattamis have been traversing the realm around Bangasala Veediya carrying these huge gonis of merchandise on their back.

Their descendents still ply the ware in different forms in the Pettah bus stand from the wee hours of early dawn to that eerie time called dusk when the sun transformed into a mighty cartwheel reddens the sky above the Galle Face Green. Almost tragically their ilk is now fattened by thousands of school children groaning under gigantic school bags, all sacrificial goats to a well-intentioned educational theory.

It is time responsible authorities took note of the problem before a whole host of hunch-backed future citizens with split and bent backbones begin roaming Lanka's earth, intensifying further all the woes besetting the country at present.

Call all Sri Lanka

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