Children are more likely to remember familiar things; but choose innocuous ones

While the choice of objects to illustrate letters of the Hindi alphabet in one school textbook being used in Uttar Pradesh is certainly shocking, it cannot be faulted for attempting to capture the zeitgeist of our times.

After all, it would be naïve to imagine that only children growing up in notorious badlands are familiar with terms such as ‘bomb’ or ‘chaku’, making the textbook a damning indictment of the state in which it was being used. The fact is that even kids who live in the most cocooned enclaves of genteel privilege are conversant with an alarming array of weapons, killer manoeuvres and gore thanks to countless video games that judge proficiency via body counts and debris.

And all parents will concur that getting their progeny to focus on anything for a reasonable amount of time is nigh impossible these days; learning their ABCs is no exception. If these images actually made the letters stick in their children’s memories — never mind the larger ramifications — some could even deem it a job well done. Indeed, had this alphabet bristling with weapons been marketed by one of those video-game companies, it may well have been hailed as a major initiative to engage young minds already acclimatised to a violent virtual world.

The incident should serve as a lesson to those formulating new imagery for alphabets. For many kids today, age-old objects are anathema and, therefore, boring. So, contemporaneity in selection and presentation is imperative for recognition and retention. Of course, they should be innocuous items with wide appeal —not guns and knives, no matter how common they become. Before this generation reared on a new alphabet reaches voting age, though, political parties may need to do a rethink on election symbols to appeal to a changing electorate.