my soap box

I have yet to figure out why so many parents fail to see the harm that can arise out of putting a 11 year old boy in a school that is housed in a block of flats, has no games, no singing class, no art class, no drama competition, nothing.
Why, they are told by their teachers that languages are a waste of time. Now, if your kids are going to join the holy place IIT, how do they think the children will read all those tech papers w/o a command over a language?
The teachers have never been in an IIT campus. They would be shocked if they did.
One of the coaching gurus here(he is REVERED, not just admired), believes girls must not talk to boys. In fact, since his classes are at 4 am, one of the girls' parents arranged for her to go to the classes with a neighbour's son. What depravity!! how can she travel from home to class with a BOY? Has he ever seen girls and boys in an IIT campus?
The students must not wear sweaters (at 4 am in winter).
They can be slapped if they do not get the problems right.
All this and the total lack of interpersonal skills make these children very vulnerable to failure. They are totally crushed when they do not get into a med college / IIT as the case maybe. They develop such a sense of failure taht many attempt suicide.
I have had one or two such kids every year in my class.
First year a girl hung hersel from the fan
Then a boy who cried to me that he is a failure
then there was the boy who became psychotic, showing me his marks card saying "See I have passed ma'm" when it clearly in capital letters said FAIL. he did this for three years and then I don't know what happened.
A girl who cut her wrists
a boy who sat through class smiling benignly, laughing to himself, till parents realised and took him to a psychiatrist.
A girl who tried to OD on sleeping pills.
The list goes on..there are some whom I don't know about....some suicide attempts too.
Currently I have a boy who cannot remember the instruction...." go and add dilute HCl" long enough for him to walk three steps to his lab bench. He too smiles benignly through my class until once in a way he shouts in anger. He told me he is unable to do salt analysis because his stars are bad currently.
Hence I get very angry at the mention of coaching classes for young children.
A bit of coaching for a 11th and 12th class child who has had a normal life till the 10th class is fine, but to be "coached" for the entire duration of schooling is the sure recipe for failure or worse, mental illness.