"Freedom is not the right to do what we please. But it is the opportunity to do what is right."
Being a girl is cool, but it is not always easy. For no good reason, girls are not always given the same opportunities as boys. Just sharing when I was denied the freedom to be on my own.
1. I wanted to go abroad to pursue higher education because of the restricted atmosphere at home. I had to compromise on my passion.
2. I wanted to pursue music as my career, but then, I was not given the freedom to choose my subject of choice.
3. I wanted to keep a full-time maid for the household chores so that I could devote more quality time to my kids. But I could not take this decision independently. My freedom to take such decisions was curtailed, and I had to compromise again.
Yes, definitely; there are many occasions where I still feel I am not free to take my own decisions. But no regrets so far because we have to make certain compromises when we are in a family. We want to bring so many improvements in our lifestyle, our qualifications, our style of dressing, our way of upbringing our own children, and in adopting new teaching methods in school. Still, the bitter reality is that we all must adhere to certain restrictions and can't take decisions independently or freely.
Peace
Why do people give up the peace and adopt violence? There are many reasons for giving up peace and adopting violence. Man is a product of his circumstances. There are several reasons for violent behaviour.
A few are mentioned below:
1. Neglect at home.
2. Lack of self-respect.
3. Low self-worth.
4. Peer influence.
5. Witnessing violence at home or community.
6. Impact of social media.
7. Availability of weapons.
How can we use the classrooms to shape peace-loving individuals?
• The critical action in promoting peace is education. Teachers are more than educators: mentors, event coordinators, monitoring and evaluation experts, curriculum specialists, conflict negotiators, administrators, and social change makers. One role of teachers that may be overlooked is peace builder. With ongoing global conflict, teachers must expose their students to those global issues and incite motivation in their students to be advocates for peace, both in their local communities and globally.
• Peace can be made the theme of various events like Sports day and the Annual day.
• Literary activities like debate, declamation, poem recitation, one-act play etc., can be conducted on the theme 'Peace.'
• no-bullying policy should be adopted strictly.
• moral lectures on peace and tolerance should be imparted.
• Board decoration, poster making, poem writing, story narration - all these activities should be done with the theme PEACE and HARMONY.
Ms Mridula Ranjit
Ahlcon Public School
JOL cohorts