What School Really Taught Us
"School sure taught us a lot of things, huh?" she says, face contorted with distaste.
"Like what?" I ask.
"Oh, you know. Swear words. Arguing. Backbiting. Gossiping."
A thoughtful calm falls upon me. She goes on, "Keeping quiet when we had doubts. Biting back questions we wanted to ask. Not wanting to draw attention to ourselves."
I think about how to reply to this. But she's not done yet.
"Not to be different. Not to speak up. Not to-- snort-- talk in class." She looks at me, as if daring me to argue. I admit to myself she's not wrong. "Also to, like, go with the flow, bla bla bla, try not to get on the bad side of your teachers, conform to fit in, discover loopholes to beat the system, how to cheat, how to lie how to--"
Again, she shoots a sidelong glance at me to see if I have something to say. When she sees nothing forthcoming, she says with a slight triumphant smirk, "Yep, school sure taught us a lot of things."
A long moment's silence stretches between us.
I look at her. "School did teach us a lot, to be sure." I take a deep breath so she knows something's coming.
"School taught us how to choose our friends carefully. How to mingle with others. To be be inclusive. To be accommodative of and look past differences. That everyone is different from each other, and unique.
"It taught us us to look for our real passions. To stand up for what is right. To believe in equality. To start voicing what we believed in.
"Laughing off embarrassing situations. Keeping our head high. How to put across arguments effectively. How to talk to whom. To be indignant of wrong things we see.
"It taught us sharing, and forgiving, and picking ourselves up when we fall. Picking others up. Lending a hand. Working as a team. Dealing with stress. Coping with frustration. How to keep friends.
"How the things that are most important in life are not marks or grades or even being able to remember pages and pages of NCERT textbooks, but trying to become someone whom people are glad to have around, and miss when they're not.
"How it's more important to learn to become a better person than one started out as, because that's what really matters in the end."
And I look her in the eye.
"To those of us who actually looked to learn-- yeah. Yeah, school sure taught us a lot."
