I am not making this up…honestly…this really happened…a kind of blooper you find in examination scripts…
A couple of years back on the directive of the Supreme Court, ‘Environment Studies’ was introduced as a subject in all undergraduate colleges across India…in the university where the college I teach in is affiliated, environment studies was initially introduced as an ‘audit course,’ meaning, teaching-learning will take place along with tests and exams, but the subject itself did not find a place in the final marks card…so one can imagine the seriousness with which teaching-learning of this subject took place in many colleges…anyway, in our group of colleges, the teaching of environment studies was ‘pushed’ to English teachers! The English teachers decided to something different with this and used the allocated class hours to make students practice presentation skills, group discussion, public speaking, etc., using topics from the environment studies syllabus…some students enjoyed it…some, as usual, did not want to do anything with this… anyway…
During one of the exams, the teachers had asked a question on ‘waste management’… an important topic in environment studies… about managing domestic, industrial, medical waste… and this was related to me by a colleague working in one of our sister colleges… many students had written brief answers indicating clearly that they had not prepared well for this examination…one student wrote about 2 ½ to 3 pages on this topic…and the teachers were curious to know what he had written…the answer was a scathing criticism of the college authorities…talking about lack of proper sanitation facilities, photocopying facilities, insufficient books in the library, benches and boards in the classrooms, lab facilities, indifference of faculty members…and the tirade went on for close to 3 pages and finally, he said, the college management is a ‘waste management!’
It was then that the teachers realised why he had launched this attack…he had ‘clearly’ understood the question in a different sense…in Hyderabad and most of Andhra Pradesh, the English word ‘waste’ is used as an adjective (across English, Telugu, and Hindi/Urdu) to mean ‘useless,’ ‘worthless,’ ‘hopeless,’ etc., (as against the standard English usage of ‘waste’ as an adjective which means leftover, excess, unused, discarded, spare, etc.) and it is a common to find people saying, ‘he is a waste fellow,’ ‘ waste film,’ ‘waste hotel,’ ‘mera bhai waste hai re,’ ‘waste cinema ra, damagkharab aayi poyindi’…
And for this student, the college ‘management’ clearly came under the category of ‘waste’… ‘waste fellow’…
A couple of years back on the directive of the Supreme Court, ‘Environment Studies’ was introduced as a subject in all undergraduate colleges across India…in the university where the college I teach in is affiliated, environment studies was initially introduced as an ‘audit course,’ meaning, teaching-learning will take place along with tests and exams, but the subject itself did not find a place in the final marks card…so one can imagine the seriousness with which teaching-learning of this subject took place in many colleges…anyway, in our group of colleges, the teaching of environment studies was ‘pushed’ to English teachers! The English teachers decided to something different with this and used the allocated class hours to make students practice presentation skills, group discussion, public speaking, etc., using topics from the environment studies syllabus…some students enjoyed it…some, as usual, did not want to do anything with this… anyway…
During one of the exams, the teachers had asked a question on ‘waste management’… an important topic in environment studies… about managing domestic, industrial, medical waste… and this was related to me by a colleague working in one of our sister colleges… many students had written brief answers indicating clearly that they had not prepared well for this examination…one student wrote about 2 ½ to 3 pages on this topic…and the teachers were curious to know what he had written…the answer was a scathing criticism of the college authorities…talking about lack of proper sanitation facilities, photocopying facilities, insufficient books in the library, benches and boards in the classrooms, lab facilities, indifference of faculty members…and the tirade went on for close to 3 pages and finally, he said, the college management is a ‘waste management!’
It was then that the teachers realised why he had launched this attack…he had ‘clearly’ understood the question in a different sense…in Hyderabad and most of Andhra Pradesh, the English word ‘waste’ is used as an adjective (across English, Telugu, and Hindi/Urdu) to mean ‘useless,’ ‘worthless,’ ‘hopeless,’ etc., (as against the standard English usage of ‘waste’ as an adjective which means leftover, excess, unused, discarded, spare, etc.) and it is a common to find people saying, ‘he is a waste fellow,’ ‘ waste film,’ ‘waste hotel,’ ‘mera bhai waste hai re,’ ‘waste cinema ra, damagkharab aayi poyindi’…
And for this student, the college ‘management’ clearly came under the category of ‘waste’… ‘waste fellow’…
2 comments:
Wonder how much his contribution would have been if the topic was 'Hazardous-Waste' management ! I like ur blog sir!
Very poisonous...I would say ... thanks for the words of encouragement...
Post a Comment