Courage and Patience - Monica Vaishnav

Courage is not about having the strength to fight and win or let down others in front of us.

According to me, courage is inner strength which inspires us to do the right thing, it doesn't matter how difficult it is. Courage is to raise voice against wrong, courage is to stand by the truth in any situation even if you are standing alone, it is when you can forgive someone and on the other hand, you also can apologise for your own mistakes. Courage is to have the confidence to face any situation in life and be with the right things.

Patience is to handle things calmly without being aggressive or showing our anger. Patience helps us to control our emotions or reactions which can be harmful to us in future to deal with different circumstances. Patience also helps us to gain our goals in life because without patience people may lose hope and give up. It makes us stronger internally and reacts wisely. It brings peace and relaxation to our minds. If we have patience, we can stand up and start the work even after the failures in life. In other words, we can say, it creates a second chance for us to get success.

How it is possible that we can express courage without patience. One must have the patience to show courage in the right way. An educator should have the patience to manage the student's behaviour in the classroom. Sometimes,  the situation is not as we want in the classroom, it can be the poor academic performance of students or disrespectful behaviour. But in such situations, we must talk to them calmly and have the courage to show them the right path.  It is very important to inculcate these values in our children. They would need the patience to achieve what they want and to improve their skills slowly with time. They should have the courage to face and overcome their challenges and show their abilities.

We can explain these values with the real exam of what we are going through these days. Everyone is going through different situations due to COVID- 19 pandemic. In this situation, especially the Health and Police departments are the true examples of courage and the people who are at home, not going outside are showing their patience to fight against this worldwide disaster.

Monika Vaishnav, The Fabindia School

Happiness and Tolerance: Sharmila Vijayvargi

Many times in class, students without having a choice, are forced to study and learn

everything. While they may want to go out and play in the games period, they are made to sit in class and study. Happiness comes to them when the bell rings and they go out and play. This happiness is unprecedented at this level. 

Further, they also demonstrate a lot of tolerance while being calmly and patiently waiting for the period they want.  This is a simple example of how in daily situations students demonstrate happiness and tolerance. 

Likewise, one should also be tolerant. Being tolerant means to accept things or others opinions,  without being aggressive, rude or reacting in a bad manner. Tolerance is a trait which sometimes is difficult to find and is different from patience. But, everyone needs to be tolerant as things don’t come easy. One has to be respectful towards the  opinions and wishes of others.

If you are tolerant, you won't have difficulty in adjusting with people around you, which will ultimately lead to a happier environment around us. One would stop nagging about things around him and will be comfortable in its surroundings. Thus, both qualities are a cause and consequence of each other. Tolerance will lead to inner happiness which in turn will help to spread happiness around yourself. Whenever we smile, we spread love, happiness and positive vibes around. Remember, everyone likes a happy smiling person and not someone who bursts out at everything. 

Sharmila Vijayvargi

The Fabindia School

Happiness and Tolerance - Rectifier BHIS

As Jeanette Winterson says, “The key to happiness is the tolerance of those who do not do as you do.”

Nina was a teacher at a school three blocks away from her home. After her husband Jim passed away, she needed something to keep her emotionally stable and teaching underprivileged kids brought a lot of joy for her. She fondly called her kids, Star Kids.

Pic by Saee Joshi

She always showed up early to her class & eagerly waited for them. In her small class of 10 students, there was a boy named Alex. He was a child of divorced parents and would often get in trouble with other students and act out his aggressive tendencies. “He would mess up the class vibe and environment”, some teachers would say. Nina knew he’s asking for love in the most unloving way. But she was always worried her class wouldn’t win the best class because her class would always be in a mess post the lunch break (usually when Alex would get into a fight and mess up the class).

Pic by Saee Joshi

One day, Nina hurriedly came up to the class and told them that their school was expecting some very important visitors & they would make some notes, inspect a little. This was the first time that the kids saw their teacher worried. She was worried that her class looked shabby, she had been trying to get some stains off that wall, her table looked messy, the chairs, the board. She had so little time to do anything! She would usually talk to Jim at a time like this when she was anxious & he would have just the right thing to say and make her feel calm. She instructed the kids that she would be back in some time and gave them a chapter to read aloud turn by turn.

Rajshri Mohite

She left hurriedly downstairs as she was a part of the welcoming committee too. Soon the visitors began going to each class, talking to the students and teachers respectively. When the turn for Nina’s class came, she was anxious more than ever. She knew her class didn’t look as good. But when she opened the door to her class, she was in utter shock n disbelief!

Rajshri Mohite

The class looked spic and span, books neatly arranged in the order one would need them to be, the shelf didn’t have cobwebs, her desk looked spotless and the chairs arranged neatly. To her utter surprise, the kids were on duty. One kid was standing near the books, one near the board, one at the door to welcome the guests and some kids had made a beautiful welcome card for the visitors. Leading on behalf of the children was Alex! He went on to give a small tour of their class to the visitors eagerly.

Nina’s happiness knew no bounds! She later realized that all of them had worked together on an idea put forth by Alex harmoniously. She knew it wasn’t easy for anyone but they tolerated each other’s ideas and worked with whatever they could do best in so little time. She knew she had done something right when she decided to become an Educator. She could never be more proud as an educator of her Star Kids than she was that day.

Rectifier @ Billabong High International School, Thane

- Pallavi Harkare, Kalpana Dodia, Rajshri Mohite, Prerna Khanna, Priyanka Iyer, Mahalaxmi Iyer