Ms Sudeshna Kar

1
Ms Sudeshna Kar
PGT (English)
KV MAITHON DAM
Teach Classes XI XII
2
AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM IN A SLUM
(XII)
-STEPHEN SPENDER
3
CONTENTS- I) The poet ii) The poem iii) Visual
comparison iv) Give it a Thought v) Questions vi)
Assignment
4
Stephen Spender was an English poet and an
essayist. In this poem he has concentrated on
themes of social injustice and class inequalities.
5
Far far from gusty waves
6
These children's faces like rootless weeds
7
The hair torn round their pallor
8
The tall girl with her weighed down head
The tall girl with her weighed down head.
9
The paper -seeming boy, with rats eyes
10
The stunted, unlucky heir of twisted
bones, Reciting a fathers gnarled disease, His
lesson from his desk
11
At back of the dim class One unnoted sweet and
young His eyes live in a dream
12
Of squirrels game, in the tree room, Other than
this
13
On sour cream walls, donations
14
Shakespeares head,
15
Cloudless at dawn,
16
Civilized dome riding all cities
17
Belled,flowery,Tyrolese valley
18
Open handed map Awarding the world its world.
19
And yet, for these Children, these windows, not
this map, their world
20
Where all their futures painted with a fog,
21
A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky
22
Far far from rivers,
23
Capes, and stars of words
24
Surely Shakespeare is wicked, The map a bad
example,
25
With ships
26
And sun and love tempting them to steal-
27
For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes
From fog to endless night?
28
On their slag heap, these children Wear skins
peeped through by bones and spectacles of
steel With mended glass, like bottle bits on
stones.
29
All of their time and space are foggy slum. So
blot their maps with slums as big as doom.
30
Unless, governor, inspector, visitor, This map
becomes their window and these windows That shut
upon their lives like catacombs.
31
Break O Break open till they break the town And
show the children to
32
green fields,
33
And make their world Run azure on gold sands,
34
and let their tongues Run naked into books the
white and green leaves open
35
History is theirs whose language is the sun.
36
The map of the civilized world and the slums of
these unfortunate children are two entirely
different worlds..
37
A CITY SCHOOL
A SLUM SCHOOL
38
A CITY CLASSROOM
A SLUM CLASSROOM
39
UNIFORM IN THE CITY SCHOOL
UNIFORM IN THE SLUM SCHOOL
40
CHILDREN PLAYING IN THE SLUM
CHILDREN PLAYING IN THE CITY
41
Governors, inspectors, visitors and other
important persons must abridge this gap. They
must peep into the world of the children living
in the slums. The unsuitable environment of the
slums has blocked all their gates to progress.
They are lying shut like catacombs. These
obstacles should be broken. They must be allowed
to breathe in the open. Let them come out of the
narrow lanes and dirty slums. Let them enjoy the
beauty of the green fields. Let the pages of
wisdom be open for them.. Let their tongues
express themselves freely without any fear. Only
those people can make or create history whose
language has the warmth and strength of the sun.

42
Important Questions- 1.Why does the poet use the
images of despair and disease in the first
stanza? 2.What is the theme of the poem and how
has it been presented? 3. Which images of the
slum present the picture of social disparity and
class inequalities? 4.How far do you agree with
the statement History is theirs whose language
is the sun?
43
Home work a) The walls of the classroom are
decorated with the pictures of Shakespeare,
buildings with domes, world maps and
beautiful valleys. How do these contrast with the
world of the children? b) Why do you think the
poet has used the colour sour cream to describe
the classroom walls?
44
THE END
but not
for the slum children