സ്കൂള്‍ ലോര്‍

School Lore
E P Rajagopalan
Translated by K T Dinesh

The institutions and contexts in which people intervene spontaneously generate a wide range of original knowledge. This knowledge is called folklore. A school is not just the building in which it functions; it is the conglomeration of learners, teachers, non-teaching employees and the visible and invisible presence of the wider society that supports them. Within this conglomerate structure, numerous formal events occur. The curriculum and the method of examination will reflect the interests of those who run the school and those who are in power. Althusser enlisted the school along with religion, family, art and media among the ideological apparatus of a state. We get the same idea from Foucault who stated that a school and a jail performed the same functions - enforcing discipline and imposing punishment. The fun and games, the songs and stories, and the graffiti on the walls that punctuate the uni-dimensional execution of these formal functions together form school lore. The collection and analysis of these are a part of the study of folk lore. This has not yet begun in our country. Euro-American folklorists focus on this area too. There are some websites on school lore on the net.

The school headmaster/principal is the representative of the state. So is every teacher. Their job is to condition the children according to the interests of the state. Therefore, how far teaching is subjective and creative is a legitimate question. The task they have undertaken, the dissemination of the ideology of the state overtakes their creativity and subjectivity. However exemplary and scientific such dissemination may be, it is fundamentally an imposition (Imposition could be beneficial – but what is good will be decided by the state). Protest will, therefore, naturally be the outcome. Students who are thus imposed upon will begin to exercise their creativity. This is a form of counter discourse, major source of school lore. Children often notice the physical features of teachers and weave stories about them. They create caricatures of teachers. The idiosyncracies of teachers also inspire such narratives. This is also the context in which nicknames for teachers originate. Sometimes the nicknames are conjured from the imagination of the students. Sometimes the teachers are assigned the names of characters from illustrated stories or films. Nonsensical words also become nicknames. These nicknames at times become more popular among students than the original names of the teachers. The nickname is sometimes added to the original name and in most cases it is added as the first name. In due course the original sign value of the nickname may vanish and it might even be used for referring to the teacher with reverence. The nicknames assigned to classmates may be comparatively less critical but more sarcastic.

The experiences in the classrooms are the main items of school lore. School lore is richer in co-educational schools. The reason is that they are more representative of society than school which admit only boys or girls. There are social contradictions in the classroom which inspire the pupils’ lore about their peers. But the teacher-stories they create are sharper. Such stories are not always cynical; children record stories filled with love and respect on teachers who are close to them too. But the more popular and the more beautiful ones are those that recount their vices. This is because vices provide for more drama than virtues. And vices require treatment. Such stories are often anonymous. Their construction and transmission are collective efforts. If a teacher is seen at a place where he is not supposed to be, a bar for instance, it will immediately lead to the creation of a lore. In a lore that has been created out of classroom experience one can sense a softening of cynicism. But no mercy is given for a teacher’s indiscretion. The teacher is severely taken to task. Without being aware of it, children seek a model in a teacher. If that image gets even slightly distorted, it leads to the creation of a narrative. Narratives are focussed more on male teachers than their female counterparts. This shows that the interventions of female teachers are quite formal.

Programmes in the school like sports meets, arts fests and exhibitions enrich school lore. Each of these programmes flouts the routine schedule of the school. Children generally participate in them with the enthusiasm generated by a carnival. Teachers’ behaviour also changes during these days. The presence of the general public in the school on such occasions is natural. This digression leads to a different set of experiences, thereby generating more school lore. Study tours involve the participation of new places and new people. So they too generate a variety of school lore.

The most attractive part of school lore is graffiti, inscriptions and pictures on walls. The ideologically subversive nature of school lore is exhibited more in them than in any other form. Most of the wall exhibits tantamount to what we generally mean by obscenity. The principles behind it are protest, assertion and demonstration. Their aim is to present graphically what cannot be expressed through words. The child who writes such graffiti might have the lurking fear of being tipped off if he speaks out what he writes (each school has its own system of policing and judiciary). Hence it is displayed in writing. Interests like ‘let more people come to know’, the obstinacy, ‘let others understand only my version’ are at work behind wall writings. Some risk takers sketch pictures and words at heights from which it is difficult to rub them off. Such ‘lofty inscriptions’ can be seen in almost all schools. It can be discerned that their adherence to the task is quite intense.

Teachers also create school lore. Their powers of observation also lead to the creation of many a narrative. Though there are anecdotes on ‘good’ events, a major chunk of them are often about the ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly.’ The disagreements emanating out of their profession and the criticism against the activities other than teaching they indulge in are the favourite topics of such stories. All these stories are a nice mixture of reality and fantasy. The stories are born during the idling hours at the staff room. Though the majority of the stories are without any malice the contradictions related to teaching are latent in them. The characteristic features of some teachers lead to narratives which have the nature of caricatures. Yet another source of school lore is the Parents’ and Teachers’ Association (PTA). Peons also are subjects for school lore. Peons sometimes also create stories about teachers. Akbar Kakkattil’s ‘Teacher Stories’ represent all these categories. Vyloppilli describes an incident in his ‘Kavyalokasmaranakal’ (‘Reminiscences of the World of Poesy’): ‘It cannot be said that none of my teacher friends are envious. Once a scholar at a school told me straight on my face that it was not yet time for me to receive any amount as remuneration for my poems.’ This story must be in the air at that school as school lore.

Continuity is the reason for the dynamism of folk lore. School lore too traverses from people to people and from generation to generation. It might break the barriers of the school and reach the society at large. One, who lives within the region where the lore is in currency, cannot help remembering these informal narratives along with other things when he/she hears the name of the school. In recent times, children are not as keen in constructing school lore as they were before.. This can be attributed to a tendency to overlook schoolmates, classmates and teachers and turn themselves to the selfish structure called textbooks - examination. Lore is generated when people are looked upon as individuals. If they are seen as mere instruments, no interesting contexts will arise. The new school walls remain ‘unlettered’ because of this change. Earlier there were many narratives about inspecting officers like AEOs and DEOs. Such narratives have become extremely rare. This can be considered as evidence for the school becoming mechanical and for the untrammelled reign of the hegemonic ideology of the state.

Structuralism is a favourite tool of folklorists. If studied in the light of this reductionist science, school lore also limits itself to a few narrow structures – structures that can be identified in any school. But this is an approach which wipes out the variety and the interests of school lore. The right approach is to study the lore considering each school a different space and the lore a collective of characteristic resources. It is an informal, parallel history of every school. Even the architecture of a school is imprinted in it.