Why We Return to Teachers

 

Masterclass with Sandeep Dutt

To introduce the book The Courage to be Happy by Ishiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, and its core themes.

Key Takeaways

• New Book Study: The group is starting The Courage to be Happy, the sequel to The Courage to be Disliked, to explore Alfred Adler’s psychology of happiness.

• Book’s Premise: The book opens with a teacher (Harshita) who, after three years, is disillusioned with Adler’s ideas, finding them impractical in the real world.

• Core Conflict: The teacher’s main struggle is with Adler’s “no praise, no rebuke” principle, which she feels led to an unruly class and forced her to revert to traditional discipline.

• Central Theme: The philosopher’s response is that the teacher’s problem stems from a misunderstanding of Adler’s concept of “love,” which is presented as the ultimate test of courage.

Topics

Book Introduction: The Courage to be Happy

• Context: The sequel to The Courage to be Disliked, this book continues the dialogue between a Philosopher (Sandeep Dutt) and a Youth (Harshita Dalawat).

• Goal: To find “true contentment” by exploring Adler’s psychology, which the book’s authors claim was 100 years ahead of its time.

• Key Adlerian Concepts from Book 1:

  • All problems are interpersonal.

  • Freedom is being disliked.

  • Happiness is a choice in the “here and now.”

The Teacher’s Dilemma

• The Youth (Harshita): Now a teacher, she is disillusioned with Adler’s ideas after three years of trying to apply them in a classroom.

• Core Problem: The “no praise, no rebuke” principle, which she followed faithfully, resulted in an “unruly class.”

• Result: She felt forced to abandon Adler’s methods and revert to traditional discipline (rebuke, punishment), viewing Adler’s philosophy as “quackery” and “empty idealism.”

The Philosopher’s Response

• Adler’s Ideas as a Prescription: The philosopher compares Adler’s ideas to “eyeglass lenses”—a tool that can broaden vision for some but may not be a universal fit.

• The “Stairway of Understanding”: The philosopher argues that the teacher has not yet found the correct path to understanding Adler.

• The “Biggest Choice in Life”: The philosopher identifies the teacher’s core issue as a failure to make this choice, which is defined as “love.”

  • Adler’s “Love”: Not a simple emotion, but “the harshest and most courage-testing task of all.”

  • Happiness as a Journey: It requires continuous effort, not a magical, one-time event.

Discussion: Why We Return to Teachers

• Initial Responses: Participants cited reasons like clearing doubts, seeking advice, or sharing success.

• Philosopher’s Correction: These are secondary reasons. The primary, unspoken motivation is “love.”

  • Rationale: Love is the pure, powerful bond that attracts students to a true teacher, distinguishing it from a transactional relationship with a tutor.

  • Connection to Adler: This bond of love is the fundamental principle of Adler’s philosophy.

Next Steps

• All Participants:

  • Read The Courage to be Happy for the next session.

  • Reflect on the concept of “love” in the teacher-student relationship.

• Diana L Kahmei:

  • Recruit a teacher to join the Masterclass.

• Minakshi Prasad:

  • Confirm Sunday meeting details with Vikram.

Happiness and Tolerance - Nikita Rajpurohit

Students always have the tendency to grasp things in different ways which may not always

be what we would like to portray to them. As teachers, we are expected to maintain a balance between students’ happiness as well as class discipline.

Happiness and Tolerance are like two sides of the same coin where the students, as well as the teachers, may face difficulty in applying them in their every-day lives. A classroom incident to which we as teachers or reminiscing our school days may relate to is given in the following short story.

So there's this one student in Class IX who has been good in academics, good in sports, moreover he is well-disciplined, but there's only one thing that he is lacking, that is tolerance and that too when he has done a mistake unintentionally and he gets a scold from the teacher, he loses all his cool and becomes the real opposite of what he actually is...

He feels happy when he succeeds in anything, be it academic, sports, arts, anything but once he gets a sign of failure, he doesn't seem to care what he speaks or what is he doing...

I noticed it many times and I was a bit curious to know a solution for him where he can be happy and tolerant at even bad situations. So one day, I entered the class, called him up and asked for his notebook, and I was really glad to see that he is all checked with his work. Still, I made a quick comment by saying, “You should pay attention to your handwriting, my dear."At the very moment, he listened to my statement and became red in anger and said,” I won't do anything now". And yes, he was in the intolerance phase now.

I called another student who had not completed his work and asked him to improve his handwriting and with that, the second student replied, "Yes ma'am, I will". Then I took the first student (the main kid) outside the classroom and made him sit on a chair and said, " You see even though he didn't complete his work, I was aware of that but when I suggested him the same thing I did to you, he was very polite with his answer and I know he will definitely pay attention to his handwriting. On the same place, you're a good student and we expect you to be the best as you are, and if you take our suggestions positively, it will be you who will be good at everything. I hope you understood my kid".

The next day when I entered the school gate, he came up with a smile and apologized for yesterday's scenario and said," From today onwards, I will not be angry at anything and really try to take your suggestions in a productive way".

This made me very glad, seeing a student like him who understood the concept of happiness and tolerance...

Nikita Rajpurohit

The Fabindia School

ABEA - Lead the Way| 25th Feb-19| Dehradun

The Aditya Birla Education Academy located at Mumbai is the newest venture of the Trust, founded with a vision to nurture the aspirations of educators who are in constant pursuit of excellence. The institute aims to equip teaching professionals with skills that will enhance their abilities, enabling them as facilitators to achieving better results in their classroom interactions.

In order to empower professionals, teachers, parents and families of the community, Mpower works towards creating a body of knowledge, expertise and specialises in the field of mental health & providing those in need with resources & information, training & guidance, diagnostic evaluation, therapeutic interventions, psychological counselling.

Educators are responsible for the development of the future generations, hence, it is imperative that they are ever willing to focus on their own professional development as well. The Aditya Birla Education Academy intends to provide its participants with courses that will further enhance their skills as educators and school administrators.

The main goal of the Aditya Birla Education Trust is to touch people’s lives and make a progressive impact whenever we reach out to them. Keeping this in mind, we wish to reach out to the education community in Dehradun via a conclave.

ABEA in association with Mpower is enthralled to present to you "LEAD THE WAY - A Conclave for Educators" which is our initiative to bring together the teaching community to 'lead the way' through close interactions with one another thus, empowering all other stakeholders in the educational sector as well.

The conclave will be held on Monday, 25^th February 2019 at The Doon School from 02:30 pm to 06:00 pm and will have a panel discussion and an interactive session on mental health awareness for schools.

The topic for the panel discussion is:

Skill or Concept, which is more important in a child's educational journey.

A coming of age debate, and rightly so! The last two decades have witnessed extensive changes in the educational system. The pace at which career options are evolving and increasing creates an urgent need for the school system to take stock and be future ready today! Educators need to evolve and enable their students with the right balance of skill and conceptual knowledge in order to excel in the varied avenues of the world. However, do we really need a balance, or does the role of one outweigh the other? This discussion is sure to bring to light different perspectives for us all to consider.

PRODIPTA HORE, Program Director

Vastu Shilp Annexe, Gamadia Colony, JD Road, 

Tardeo; Mumbai – 400 007 Phone +91 22 2352 8400 Email prodipta.hore@abea.in