Love Learning vs Hate Learning

 

Learning Forward Saturday

To read and reflect on Chapter 3 of “Wanted Back-bencher Last-ranker Teacher” by Kavita Ghosh. Narrated by Brinda Ghosh and Sandeep Dutt

Key Takeaways

• Create a “classroom without walls” by replicating the joy and positive social dynamics students show outside. This requires shifting from a rigid, fear-based environment to one that fosters engagement.

• Prioritise patience over perception. Judgmental labels (e.g., “Supriya does not want to study”) are ineffective and disrespectful. Instead, treat students like your own children, focusing on their potential and providing support.

• Understand the neuroscience of stress. Cortisol, the “stress hormone,” blocks memory and learning. Humiliation and fear create “test trauma,” which is a major barrier to student success.

• Make reflection a daily habit. This is the core practice for professional growth, distinct from simple note-taking. Share thoughts in the WhatsApp group to build a reflective community.

Topics

The Problem: A Disengaged Classroom

• The chapter’s protagonist, Roma, observed that her students were happy and well-behaved only outside the classroom.

• Insight: This contrast signals a need to bring the positive energy and social dynamics of the outside environment into the classroom.

The Challenge: Judgmental Attitudes & Poor Performance

• Roma’s class performed poorly on weekly tests:

  • 15 failed math

  • 10 had single-digit science scores

  • 8 performed miserably in social science

• A former teacher, Sumita, dismissed these students with judgmental labels, blaming their personalities and past failures.

• Principal’s Counter-Directive: “We don’t give up on our own children, so why give up on our students?”

  • Principle: Treat all students with the same patience and belief in their potential as you would your own children.

The Solution: Empathy & Brain Science

• Roma’s past as a struggling student provided critical context for understanding her current students.

• Neuroscience of Stress: Cortisol, the “stress hormone,” is released during stress and anxiety, blocking memory and learning.

  • This explains “test trauma” and why fear-based teaching is counterproductive.

• Roma’s Experience: Humiliation from a teacher who publicly shamed her for a math failure created a lasting aversion to the subject.

  • Rule: Never humiliate students or publicly announce their marks.

Logistics & Future Sessions

• Next Saturday (April 4): Guest speaker Rahul Chug (Learn PF app) will present to The Teachers Academy.

• Saturday After Next (April 11): The group will resume reading Chapter 3.

• Reflection: All participants are encouraged to share their reflections on today’s discussion via WhatsApp or email.

Next Steps

• Brinda:

  • Coordinate with Rahul Chug for the April 4 presentation.

  • Share her LinkedIn post on “failure as a great teacher” with the group.

All Participants to share reflections on today’s discussion via WhatsApp or email.

Fathom AI-generated notes, read with care.

Quality and Love - Reena Gusain

Quality refers to “The the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service and its ability to satisfy the needs”. In today’s competitive world, everyone is thriving hard to give the best qualitative result to make survival possible. In the field of education, when we talk of the word quality, it basically refers to the additional input poured by the teaching staff to give the best qualitative result either relates to teaching or any other problems arising. Any lackadaisical approach will definitely bring down the desired result.

1.  A student who does a shoddy job with classwork and homework

As the student is bright and intelligent, bearing the ability to grasp things quickly and have an upright approach towards studies, the case should not worry. Some students do bear this tendency of completing their assigned work in a haste manner to be identified amongst front runners.  Attention needs to be paid to such students because shining is needed for a diamond to sparkle. However, if a student is average or below that level, then special attention is required. Maybe the student is in some sort of mental agony, and as a result, he delivers such results.

For such situations quality and love skills need to be catered to the students. A teacher should be smart enough to arrive at the reasons for the student forwarding such weird presentation skills. The approach should be a positive one, and the teacher should try to assimilate the student so that he changes his perception of his skills. The teacher should take stock of all going inside the student's mind and sort them out with her skills.  If the situation demands, then a verbal talk with the parents/ guardian may also be carried out.

2.  Two underage students in a romantic relationship

With increasing innovation and technology, social media platform has engulfed our society, and no one is untouched. Two underage students in a romantic relationship are basically due to excessive use of social media platforms which is unavoidable as the Corona pandemic has given birth to online teaching, thereby exhausting the offline teaching mode. Short bytes of romantic videos as advertisers do appear on these platforms. Also, the students have free hand access to any of the social sites. No quality time is being provided by working parents. Since these are tiny minds, they are vulnerable to such videos and start living a fantasy life. But need to understand why such a situation arises that a student at such a ripe age tries to find love outside. The reason behind it may be that he feels devoid of love in his home surroundings, especially with the working parents.

An experienced teacher facing such a situation, rather than manipulating things and trying to run away, will definitely try to sort out things before it worsens. The teacher should make the students understand the difference between good and bad, real and fantasy, especially if we are dealing with adolescents. The teacher should try to nurture the minds of such students with positive thinking and make them understand their prime responsibility. The teacher should also make the parents/guardians understand their prime responsibility towards their children to understand the purity of love they can receive from their parents in abundance.

For being a lovable person, you need to be clear with your thoughts, ideas and have a caring attitude. A person possessing all these characteristics ought to be loved by everyone and remembered forever.

- REENA GUSAIN, THE DOON GIRLS SCHOOL

Focus does not mean we should be serious! - Nibbrati Rathore

“Focus is essential to achieve your desired goal”- a commonly heard statement used by almost every other person at some point in their life.

 

“Sit quietly and focus on the activity” another widespread instruction given by a teacher in the classroom setup.

As a teacher and a parent myself, I believe sitting at a place is the most difficult task for a child. And we commonly perceive that the one who can’t sit at a place can’t focus. 

I would like to disagree with this notion and present my thoughts on it: 

I believe there are many misconceptions surrounding focus. These misconceptions often lead people to have a misinformed perspective on focus, thus making it difficult to adopt as a possible quality to cultivate in life. I’ll pick a couple of them and hope to eliminate these misconceptions here.

During a regular class, we essentially wish that our children only follow us with all their senses. We wish to have a classroom where: 

1. Children sit attentively and do not ask unnecessary questions
2. Children complete their work on time and do it neatly
3. Children understand all that is taught in just one go 
4. Children do not disturb the class
5. They remain seated during the class

A perfect classroom to many is synonymous with “NO NOISE.”

Look at the following picture and reflect:

 

1. Are these kids not focused on listening to their teacher?
2. Are they distracted?
3. Why are they listening to this teacher?
4. How this teacher has caught the attention of all 5 kids at the same time?

The answers to these questions can perhaps change one’s perception of focus.

We often confuse focus with discipline. Let’s see “What, the focus is not”.

Focus is not the absence of joy- Focus for most people is an image or a video of someone concentrating on reading a book or a tennis player focused on waiting for his opponent to serve the ball to him. Eyes locked in on the subject of focus. An absorbed and highly attentive look across the face with the forehead slightly cringed. Also, we’ve all seen a video or more of a girl running carefree through the forest or on a beach, arms stretched out to the side, embracing the wind blowing through her and on her face. She looks like she is not concentrating. When you see this video, you think to yourself, "She’s free. That's what I want. I don't want to be so focused that I can’t enjoy life." Let’s not make learning a similar experience.

 

 

I believe that a person can be most focused when he/she is enjoying. Imagine how you remember every detail of a party that happened a few months ago, or the scenes of a movie, not to forget the educational trips and the school annual days. You remember every detail of these events because you had a great time, and that’s what focus means. As a teacher and parent, it’s high time we reset our expectation.

“Focus simply defined is the ability to stay engaged with who or what you are within unbroken continuity”.

Focus doesn’t mean being stressed - Another common misconception is that if I am focused, it means I am not relaxing. Has it ever happened to you that you are reading your favourite book sitting on a recliner? And when your mom asks you didn’t answer the doorbell, you say, “I didn’t hear it.”

Here you were focused and relaxed at the same time. On the contrary, when you cannot focus, it takes a lot of effort to focus, and this act is not relaxing indeed. Hence, so many people think focusing is exhausting and not relaxing because all these people can’t focus.

  

The bottom line is that: the state of focus results in greater joy because you can better experience the things and people that you love.

When we can develop a love for ourselves and the subject, focus automatically comes into the picture. 

Now, look at the first picture again.

1. Do you think the teacher and students have a strong connection?
2. Do you think that the students would be focused in her class and love learning what she teaches?

If it’s “YES”, then the key here: the day you start enjoying a task, it means you have attained focus in it. So let focus seep in automatically and make our journey of learning a joyful experience. 

 

 That is living a full life!

Nibbrati Rathore is an educator at the Gyanshree School, Noida

She is a Life Members and volunteer on the National Training Team of Learning Forward India.

You can join Learning Forward, find out more at 

www.SchoolEducation.com.

Honesty and Respect -Tarang JMMS

Honesty and Respect

Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know. When we hear the word Honesty the first thing that comes to our mind is Truth. No lying just speaking the truth. Honesty is not just about telling the truth. It’s about being real with yourself and others in your words and actions.

Honesty sharpens our perception and allows us to observe everything around us with clarity. As educators if we look at the classroom situation, there had been many instances when the child had lied or had been dishonest with us. The most common lies that we hear are usually regarding homework.

Honesty builds Trust

One of our teacher recalls an incident. It was the last day of submitting the work and the students were to be allotted grades. One of the students came up to her, saying that she has completed the work but could not find her notebook. The teacher thought that the child was giving excuse and might have not done the work. But the child was sure on her words that she has done the work. When the class was getting over, a boy rushed into the class and handed over a notebook to the teacher. He was the brother of that girl, and by mistake, he had taken her sister’s notebook. The teacher opened the notebook and saw that the work was done. She was happy to see the honesty of the girl and how she was true to her words. 

Honest intentions in speech and actions gains the attention and respect of others. It was an exciting day at the school as the school was preparing for the Christmas celebration, which was on the next day. The class teacher of Class 3 was in the staffroom and was counting the gifts for her class. Two packets were missing from the box. She was taken aback as she had just packed all the gifts a few minutes ago before she went to the library. She searched everywhere and then straight away went to the ground where the students were playing. She asked all of them if anyone had gone to the staffroom as it was near the playground. The students replied NO, as she was going back, one of the student shouted ‘Ma’am, Anuj and Rohit went to get the football and came back very late. 

The teacher called both of them and asked others to continue with their play. Rohit looked worried and spoke up that when they were coming back after taking the football, they saw the door of the staffroom was open, and nobody was there so, they both went inside and saw the gifts. Anuj took out one packet and asked him to take one, and then they both quickly ran back and hide the packets in their bags. The teacher was shocked but was also pleased to hear Rohit's honest confession and asked them to return the gifts. She also told them not repeat this again in future.

Children often get attracted towards things and indulge themselves in stealing and in hiding the actions they follow the path of dishonesty. Children can learn through our actions and  roleplays that stealing is bad and dishonesty is the worst habit.

“Respect is a two-way street, if you want to get it, you’ve got to give it.” - R.G. Risch

Respect is the most important value taught to us. If we want to receive respect we should first start by giving respect. Respect is not for granted or given, which comes with a high position, respect must always be earned. In class, room respect plays a significant role. The respect should not only come from the student’s side but also from the teacher’s side. The teacher and student both should understand and acknowledge each other’s dignity. 

There was an incidence when a student was being rude with the teacher. The teacher could feel that something went wrong as he had never shown such kind of behaviour earlier. It was found out that the boy had been scolded for a mistake which he had not done. Soon the teacher found out that he was innocent and had been wrongly blamed. The teacher realised her mistake and apologised to the child. The child also apologized as he had no intentions of disrespecting the teacher. He just wanted to justify himself. A sorry doesn’t make you feel low or down on your character. On the other hand, it is the best way to show your concern and respect towards another person.

The teacher should make sure to listen and encourage each student’s opinion. Respect is a very important pillar of development in a classroom environment. It is only when the students respect the teacher would they follow and trust the teacher. When the students learn the value of respect in school, they continue to follow the principle of respect in their life further.

Tarang JMMS @ John Martyn Memorial School, Salangaon Dehradun - Neelam Bhardwaj, Dolly Pharasi, Shalini Gurung, Laavanya Joshi