Right vs Wrong, how do we handle teenage challenges - Part 1

Learning Forward Saturday

To read and discuss a chapter from “Wanted Back-bencher, Last-ranker Teacher,” chapter 6, Right vs Wrong.

Key Takeaways

• Proactive Intervention: Roma’s calm, immediate rescue of four intoxicated students from a dangerous club prevented harm, demonstrating decisive teacher responsibility.

• Empathetic Guidance: Roma guided the students’ safe exit with clear, empowering instructions (“Hold your head high”) rather than scolding, building trust and respect.

• Collaborative Resolution: The school’s mature response—a private meeting with only Roma and the counsellor—protected the students from intimidation and focused on support.

• AI for Professional Growth: Sandeep introduced an AI assistant to generate summaries and allow teachers to ask questions about their own contributions, promoting self-reflection.

Topics

Teacher Reflections & Context

• The session began with a reflection from Sunita Tripathi on the “Like vs. Unlike” chapter.

• Sunita’s Experience:

  • Problem: Peer pressure led to mocking, causing emotional distress among students.

  • Solution: Sunita used calm dialogue to explain the difference between joking and insulting. A class discussion and group activity on positive words transformed the atmosphere.

  • Lesson: Patience and positive guidance are crucial for helping adolescents learn from mistakes.

• Related Book Session: Sandeep promoted the Thursday 5:30 PM session for “Every Last Girl” by Safina Husain, which covers the “Educate Girls” initiative.

Chapter 6: Right vs. Wrong

• The Incident:

  • Roma received a panicked call from student Rupa.

  • Four girls (Rupa, Simmi, Supriya, Patricia) were at “Club Paradise.”

  • Simmi was heavily intoxicated (“tipsy”) from beer and a neat vodka shot.

• Roma’s Response:

  • Roma immediately drove to the club with her father, Sunil.

  • She entered the smoky, crowded club alone to find the girls.

  • She gave clear, empowering instructions for their exit: “Keep your back straight... Hold your head high.”

  • When a man grabbed Simmi, Roma, a black belt, punched him to create an escape route.

• Aftermath & Resolution:

  • The girls were driven home; Simmi stayed at Roma’s house.

  • Simmi’s home situation (separated parents, caregiver only) was revealed as a potential factor.

  • Roma informed the girls that their parents would be contacted, framing it as support rather than punishment.

  • School’s Mature Handling: The principal arranged a private meeting with only Roma and the counsellor (Uttera) to avoid intimidating the parents.

AI Assistant for Professional Development

• Sandeep introduced an AI assistant to enhance learning and professional growth.

• Functionality:

  • Provides session summaries, key takeaways, and screenshots.

  • Allows teachers to ask questions about their own contributions, promoting self-reflection.

• Purpose: To use AI for genuine learning and skill development, not for academic shortcuts.

Next Steps

• All Participants: Write a reflection on Chapter 6, focusing on how the story influenced your thinking and how you might apply its lessons in your classroom.

• All Participants: Send reflections to Manisha.

• All Participants: Join the Thursday 5:30 PM session for “Every Last Girl” if interested.

• All Participants: Use the AI assistant link (in Zoom chat) for summaries and self-reflection.

• All Participants: Join the “Saturday 3 PM” WhatsApp group via the link in the Zoom chat.

• All Participants: Attend next week’s session to continue reading Chapter 6.

FATHOM AI-generated notes.

Honesty and Respect - The Doon Girls' School

Some section of school policy suggests implementing honesty and responsibility on the students. The students may forget about it and start to do things that lead to academic dishonesty or simply lying. They may begin to cheat by copying each other's homework, using their notes on a test without teachers' permission or having someone else write the paper. The students may bribe someone to do their work or let them copy their homework. They may start to submit the same paper to two different classes. They can also tend to plagiarise and present their work without changing any lines. Students may commit these dishonest things under peer pressure or anxiety about getting good grades. One of the most common reasons for academic dishonesty is students' ability to manage the pressures of their social and educational lives. Some students genuinely may not know what constitutes cheating or plagiarism and may not ask the course instructor for clarification. 

I have experienced this kind of situation. Once in my class, there were two kids. Both of them were very hardworking; however, one was a bright child, and the other was very weak. They both were close friends and used to sit together. At the beginning of the class, they were not together, and their result differed. Since the day they sat together, their results were equal. Every test I took had the same mistakes, scoring the same marks. I did not say anything and kept on noticing the two girls. Their half yearlies were near; they both were appointed at different places at the opposite corners of the class. When the result came, I got a little worried because the weak girl had scored significantly less, and the bright one had scored well. I was just waiting to make them realise their mistake and learn from them. 

According to the incident, the intelligent girl's first dishonest behaviour was shown. The girl should have warned the weaker girl about the consequences she might face shortly. She should have told her that you are not doing the right thing by copying from me because it will affect her future. You will be deprived of the proper knowledge. I asked her why did she do this. She told me that she was insecure about her friendship with the girl as she did not have many friends.

The weaker girl showed dishonesty because she was afraid of getting bad marks on her tests as her parents were stringent in this matter. The girl was also insecure about not being able to set a good example to her younger siblings as she was the eldest in her family. 

One example of academic dishonesty is disrespecting the teachers and their fellow classmates.

I had been teaching the junior school and now was deployed to teach the seniors after 2 years. Everyone knows how many handful teenagers can be. Being promoted from middle school to senior school, the children were disrespectful towards me and used to disturb the class and not allow me to teach peacefully. But, slowly and gradually, most of the children accepted me and started giving me respect. Still, one of the girls asked silly questions and tried to disturb the class. One day she came to ask about some of her quarries which I simply explained to her, and she was pretty satisfied with my way of teaching, which changed her attitude towards me. She became quiet and did not cause any trouble in the class anymore. 

Sometimes children do not accept a junior teacher and show respect to teachers who teach them. So we should deal with patience and give them time to adjust to the situation. Slowly and gradually, good relations are developed between teachers and the students.

Jyoti Tadiyal & L K Bhatt
THE DOON GIRLS SCHOOL

Determination - Prerna Rathod

Determination means to stand firmly for what we believe in or support the truth no matter what others think or feel. Determination is one of the most important values that everyone should possess. Even if we face failure, then it is our determination and courage that helps us to try again and achieve our goals. A strong, determined person can meet and overcome any problems in life and provide strength to others. 

I recall an incident in my life. When I was in college, my relative's daughter and son were very weak in their studies. Their parents were worried for them. They requested me to teach them. I agreed. When I went to teach them, I found that both of them couldn't read and write correctly. I decided to give up. But their mother pleaded with me to teach them. Then, I made up my mind that I would teach them. I worked hard with them, and in their final exam, they both scored good marks. Their parents were thrilled and thanked me a lot. It was my determination that could make helped me to make it possible. If I had given up at the start, there would be no one to help the children. 

So one's determination can help others also to go through life's up and down.

Prerna Rathod 

The Fabindia School 

prd@fabindiaschools.in

Thoughtfulness and Understanding - Reena Gusain

Thoughtfulness -derived from the word thoughtful means deliberate thinking before doing something.  It means the quality of being considerate and caring for others and own self too. Thoughtfulness, in a way, characterizes the thinking power of an individual and also showcases his maturity level. Reacting to an unexpected situation in a thoughtful way will definitely give a positive outcome. On the other hand, if your mind is over-flooded with negative thoughts, values, and an approach in a haphazard manner will worsen the situation.

Even the golden rule of First Aid inherits in it the value THOUGHTFULNESS, i.e. to say ‘Make Haste slowly and carefully.                                                       

Understanding means being willing to forgive other people or be sympathetic because you understand how they feel. An understanding person has many qualities, he is a GOOD LISTENER, OPEN MINDED TO INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE & most important HE TRIES TO PUT HIMSELF IN OTHERS SHOE before taking the decision. Mutual understanding is the backbone of every happy relationship, so we must sprinkle it everywhere.

It is better to be called a thoughtful person rather than an irresponsible, reckless person. Thoughtfulness is not only a quality of being kind and thinking about other’s needs, but it is required for unwanted situations. I would also like to share a small incident of my life where I showed both thoughtfulness and thoughtlessness. Some five to six years ago, I received a call saying that the person is from the State Bank of India, Mumbai Branch. He said that due to security reasons, PINs of all ATM cards are being changed with immediate effect. Therefore they asked for my current PIN. In a state of thoughtlessness, I provided my PIN without even verifying that man. He then said a four-digit One Time Password will come to my registered mobile number, and I have to share that immediately. As soon as the OTP came I forwarded it. He acknowledged it and said my ATM is now safe. As soon as I disconnected the call, a thought struck my mind that SBI advertises that it never asks for PIN or OTP from any of its customers, so why don’t I verify the call. My face grew pale, and I became anxious to know the hard fact. At once, I called upon the SBI Customer Care and followed the recorded voice call wherein I was redirected to the customer care agent. The agent confirmed to me that it was a fraud call. I at once got my ATM card blocked; otherwise, I would have been bankrupt that day. So this was my state of being thoughtfulness. 

SBI CC suggested I file a case against that call to get punishment, and hundreds of people could be saved from falling prey to such calls. I was about to do that, but then I tried to put myself in his shoes. Though his deeds were wrong, I didn’t file any case, but for my near and dear ones, I shared a post on social media citing the incident so that they could be saved from such fraud calls.

The adventure of life is to learn and adapt. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change, so inherent thoughtfulness and understanding in your life and make all the impossible things possible.

Reena Gusain - The Doon Girls' School, Dehradun

Humility and Appreciation - Visionary JMMS

Listen to the story

Photo credit- Google.Pinterest

Humility and appreciation are two values of life. When péople stops judging others and try to find out the good qualities in them and encourage them to do something fruitful out of their actions. We can love and appreciate, which will create a happy and healthy environment in our educational field and our lives.

We have a story based on a real incident in the school. This is the story of a little shy boy who was afraid of speaking and taking the initiative, but he was always appreciated by the teachers due to his good personality. Days went by, but his nature did not change, all the teachers used to appreciate him and encouraged him to take part in the small activities, we even gave him one of the most powerful and important roles in our annual day function, he wasn't ready for that, but we politely encouraged, motivated and appreciated him for his every action slowly he also started gaining interest and turned to be the best role player of that event.

Photo credit-https://www.dmc.tv/pages//Humility-2.html

Visionary JMMS- Parineeta Negi, Ambika Gurung, Manmohan Kaur and Bharti Dangwal.

John Martyn Memorial School, Salangaon, Dehradun India

Courage and Patience: Urmila Rathore

Both courage and patience complement each other.

Whenever we find a situation unfavourable, we get scared or maybe try to run away from it.

It is often seen that we hesitate to get out of our comfort zone and think that now I do not know what will happen; can I succeed in a new task? Can I reconcile with an unfavourable situation or unknown people? Can I do better there? Many other questions come to our mind. This is why we start losing our confidence and unknowable fear keeps on frightening us. But when we are determined to face this unintentional fear and mental duality, our courage starts growing and with that, we come halfway across already. Now when we have travelled half the journey, then we win half the journey with qualities like patience. For this, firstly, confidence in us and continuity in work is very important. That is true patience.

When an ant repeatedly fails to reach atop something manifold its weight but still can endure to success,  that's because of its courage and patience, that’s because of its 'trying countless times' that it succeeds in the end.

We have to accept this learning because there are endless possibilities in human beings if they try patiently and continuously. I was very impressed by an incident of a few days ago when four children were playing a game of Ludo. In these three boys were teenagers, who were 12 to 18 years old and a fourth boy was about 8 years old. Those four boys started playing Ludo. Three boys - Sidhu, Vishal and Priyank, and Yash, the fourth one was younger to them.

Now the rules of the game we're told and predictions were made as to who could win. Yash said that I will come first while all three of them refused to include him stating that he would lose but keeping in mind his interest and desire to play, he was also included. All prophesized their own victories. The game started with Yash playing patiently while others got extremely impatient as he managed to throw a six while others were having their tokens' lockdown, unable to get a six. Finally, all his tokens were out from the square and I got very eager to know the next and wanted to be in the game. At the same time, Yash's courage was distracting them all. Frequent ups and downs made the game exciting. The cheating took place somewhere in the game and there was a big debate about this, but eventually Yash's honesty, patience and courage led him to victory.

In this way, we can say that we can ensure victory by remaining calm in any task or situation. Patience gives us the courage to fight against difficulties.

Urmila Rathore

The Fabindia School

Happiness and Tolerance - Dutt's Top Ten SHS

Gautam Mukherjee,  as an inexperienced and young school master, thought that all school teachers have the license to beat students for any indiscipline.

A student once came to his class without his homework and on the pretext of being a strict teacher,  slapped him without asking him for his reason of non-submission of work. In that class of 35 minutes, the student cried in the most heart-wrenching manner as the class progressed. At the end of the class, he called him aside and asked him the reason for crying so long. He explained- My father is a drunkard and has come drunk last night and had started beating my mother. In fear, then the student had hidden under the bed for the whole night and ran away from home early in the morning. He waited outside the school gate to enter the school when it reopened .

The incident was a turning point in Gautam's life. A student had come to the safety of his school, classroom from an abusive father. Surely a slap from a teacher was the last straw for the child.
He thanks God for the lesson on tolerance that he received from that day's incident in the class.

Mr Bismarck was working as a warden when he noticed that a student was depressed and unhappy for a long time. After spending some time with him, he understood that his father was on the verge of bankruptcy in his business and this was making the student anxious and worried. He advised him on dealing with this problem. After some days the student came back to him to inform him that he was no longer feeling depressed and sharing his problem with Bismarck was all that was necessary to help him.

He realized that as a warden, sometimes giving your individual attention and time to your student is all that is required to create happiness.

Gautam, Joyce and Debasish teach Political science, the Primary School and Computers respectively. They feel that happiness can be created when we help our students achieve something more than what they thought that they were capable of achieving. Isha Mandal was a political science student who had never been able to score well academically. Isha was the happiest student that Gautam Mukherjee remembers in his teaching career when she managed to score 92% in her ISC exams through constant encouragement.

Similarly, Pawan Yadav is another happy face that Joyce remembers at the end of a school year when he was able to do well in all his subjects when Joyce could spend time with him all over the year to help him improve his score.

Piyush Pallav is another student in grade 8 who had not passed in Computers all over the year. A small encouragement in the form of a promise of "10 grace marks" in his practical exam if he managed to score above 20 marks in his theory was all that was required for him to work harder. Debasish remembers Piyush as the happiest student in his class that year when he scored 55 per cent - much beyond his own expectations when he had encouraged him to work harder.

-Gautam Mukherjee<gautammukherjee1302@gmail.com>for Dutt's Top 10 at Sacred Heart School, Siliguri.