Courage and Patience - Sharda Pullabhatla

Reflection 1 - A Fearful student 

Where there is fear, there can’t be any learning. This is the philosophy which I strongly believe in. Students who fear going to school, cannot pay full attention to what is being taught in the class and their minds are preoccupied with unknown and imaginary fears which dissuade them from letting their imagination go free. 

I encountered such a student from Grade 6, who was often dropped off at school by her father. She used to wail and used to get literally dragged into the classroom by her father. I never liked this as it made me think about what makes her dislike the school in general and her classroom in particular. 

Then I decided to sit in her classroom and observe what goes on in the class. I observed that she was leaning on her desk and looking out of the window, totally disinterested in the proceedings in the class. I being the coordinator, instructed the teacher to make her read from the textbook. When her name was called out by the teacher, she was trembling. She struggled to read even a line properly.  Further, when she was asked a few questions, she had no clue. I asked the student to follow me to my office. 

When she came to my office, I made her comfortable by offering her a few cookies. Initially, she was a  bit reluctant, but later she took a cookie. I could see that she was a bit comfortable then. I asked her about her interests, hobbies and what she liked to do in her free time. She told me that she was very good at drawing. I gave her a white sheet of paper and asked her to make a sketch of mine. She thought I was joking, but when I pushed her a bit she started sketching. Within a few minutes, she showed me the sketch.

Though it was a bit caricaturish, she did an amazing job. I congratulated her on that and wrote her name below the sketch and went with her and put it up on the Art Wall. She felt proud and I could sense that feeling of achievement in her eyes. I then rewarded her with candy.  I also told her that she should make a drawing and bring it to me every day. She just nodded her head.  I couldn’t decipher what she meant by that, but to my surprise, her father did not have to drag her to her classroom the next day. She hopped out of their car and ran inside the school gate. She had a paper neatly rolled up in her hand and she directly came running to my office to give me her drawing.  This time she drew the school building. I gave her a warm hug and rewarded her with candy. This practice continued and now she is one of the best artists we have got in our school. She has won several awards by participating in various competitions. 

Educators must identify the strengths of the students and work on them, rather than forcing them to learn everything. Results are important, but making the student love the learning environment and develop a sense of belongingness in the school environment is the beginning of the entire learning process.

Reflection 2 - An Impatient Student 

Patience is a virtue, but impatience can be a superpower when it comes to learning. I realised this when I met a student from Grade 8.  

Teachers regularly used to complain about him as he was never seated in one place and used to roam around the class, disrupting the usual proceedings. His impatient nature irked the teachers greatly as he never liked sitting in his place. I then asked the teachers about his academics. They had no complaints about that. In fact, they appreciated his academic performance and further, they added that his work is always complete and he was one of the first students to submit his work. I then got intrigued to figure out the cause of his restless behaviour in class. 

I decided to call him to my office and ask him how he felt in the class, as he was a new admission.  He was in a different school till Grade-7. Then I asked him what was the difference between his previous school and our school. Then he said that in the previous school, the students, who finished the classwork first were allowed to walk around the class and help the other kids. We did not have a similar practice in our school. In fact, I understood that the student’s behaviour was not out of indiscipline or insolence, rather it was a practice which was deeply ingrained within him by the previous school. In fact, this was a good practice. 

I encouraged the student and let him go. In the next teachers' meeting, I shared this best practice with all the teachers and our principal. Everyone liked the idea. We adopted it and we could see that students felt more engaged, responsible, and involved. This made the learning environment much better. 

Things may not be the way we see them. We need to go deeper and do a root-cause analysis. This helps us understand the students' behaviour and connect with them and can make our teaching and learning places more effective and livelier.

Sharda Pullabhatla @KNPS Phagwara

Happiness & Tolerance - Baljit Kaur

This is the story of a student in grade 8 in a Social Science class who was not happy with the system of the Punjab government. I was teaching them about the importance of the Indian Constitution and its features. 

We were discussing equality and how our Constitution followed these ideas. However, one of my students said, "No, Ma'am! There is no equality in the country because our community is facing inequality as many times it did not get justice." So, he said, "I am not happy with the Constitution". 

I tried to make him understand that the Constitution is fair to everyone, but a few people in the government/system take some actions that are not good for everyone. We have the right to ask questions of the government; why are they not implementing the ideas of the Constitution? 

We should not disrespect our Constitution because it protects our interests and rights without discrimination. The child understood what I said. I explained to him that we just need to find the right reason for the problem and also make our parents alert to examine these types of situations so we can avoid communal disputes. 

Another incident is from grade 7 when students were making fun of a student because of his eating habits and also maintaining distance. In our school, students observing Zero period started discussing their favourite food items. 

One of my students said, "I love eating chicken, especially fried and grilled chicken". He was very happy to share this information, but at the same time, most of the students in my class were displeased as he was talking about non-vegetarian food. Actually, the majority of students in my class are vegetarian because of their religion as well. That student felt uncomfortable after the reaction of other students. I observed that students started irritating him. 

That's when I came forward to explain that every person has their eating habits and choices because of their community, religion and culture. We should respect each other’s eating habits. I talked with students and discussed about few non-vegetarian dishes and with others about vegetarian dishes to make them comfortable. In the end, they all were happy and satisfied. Now when we normally discuss these types of dishes they do not react negatively. 

Baljit Kaur @KNPS Phagwara (India)

Unity & Caring - Super7 BHIS

UNITY IS STRENGTH

Unity is a significant feature of human life. Without unity, we cannot go through a single day. Unity has a great value in every walk of life. Unity is essential to save any country and its countrymen.  People can enjoy a tension free life if they are united with the values and outlook of society. It is thus said, 'United we stand, divided we fall’. It is true that we can break a single stick easily. On the other hand, breaking a bundle of sticks is really difficult or impossible.

When work is done in a unified manner for obtaining a common goal, the participants develop a special relationship among themselves - they demonstrate unity. A pertinent example will be our group - Super7.  Many of us joined as complete strangers but as the sessions move forward we are working together and moving towards the common goal of internalising the necessary values.

Once there was a CCA class for basketball. A new coach had joined the school on that day and it was his first class. There is a child in my class with special needs and she had opted for basketball. For some reason, she wasn’t able to communicate with the coach what she wanted. She felt shy to talk to a coach about her own needs. She had a specific problem and wanted to take rest on that day. The other children in my class came together leaving their match and conveyed to the coach about the child’s need. The coach then understood and the smile on the child’s face was commendable. This shows there is unity in the whole class and the care was also not missed for each other. Caring for and helping other people is driven by deep value-based motivations and concerns to make a positive and practical difference to the lives of other people. Caring can take many forms. At home, it might involve being a parent or looking after an elderly, sick, disabled or needy member of the family. Outside the family it might involve voluntary work in all sorts of organisations that help particular groups of people, for example, befriending the elderly, providing home help or gardening, tutoring school children etc.

Caring allows an individual to connect with others, respecting human dignity and responding with compassion. Actively listening and being emotionally present, as well as providing support for important aspects of caring relationships. I had one special child in my class. He was a mild autistic child. A shadow teacher always accompanied him. We wanted him to become independent. He used to do most things independently but whenever he wanted to go to the washroom he needed shadow teacher’s support. We wanted to remove his anxiety so we had decided that we will try to send him alone to the washroom. We will just keep an eye on him. So one day I purposely sent the shadow teacher out from the class. During recess, I asked him to go to the washroom. He was searching for his teacher, but I forced him to go alone. Suddenly Kewal, one boy from the class came to me and said, “Teacher I will go with him, How would he go alone’’? All other students were also ready to go with him but no one wanted him to go alone. I was surprised and felt proud that whatever we taught them in the class about helping and caring for others, they are following that. I could see emotional attachment and caring nature in all the children. Care or concern automatically become an inherent part of the teaching-learning process. Teachers continue to try endlessly only because they care. Students listen to us because they can feel our concern. As a teacher, it's our responsibility not only to address the academic need of a child but also to help him enhance his overall personality. To be able to do so, teachers need to know their learners well which can be achieved through patient listening. Teachers need to be good listeners and sharp observers. It is also important for teachers to be able to demonstrate the feeling of compassion. We need to treat each child with respect and provide constructive criticism. Even while reprimanding a child, we need to demonstrate our concern. Only then will a child realize the mistake and strive to mend his ways. Care is generated by the way we act toward every student, in class. Care comes when a student sees you treat a difficult student with compassion, courtesy and kindness - particularly at the most difficult of times. Teachers genuinely care about their students as they come into the classroom with very different circumstances. Knowing about those will help make the learning experience much more successful. Unity in a class gives students courage, power and strength. We can see unity in the classroom when students work together in order to complete the target, some students create groups so that they can help each other in studies as unity always supports and helps. If students work alone there can be chances that people get defeated, but if they work as a team chances of success increases as they come up with creativity.

Super 7 @ Billabong High International School, Thane -Sayantani Mukherjee, Dimple Awasthi, Ritu Chitnis, Manjusha Saji, Jyoti Ramdhave, Vijaylaxmi Ramesh & Sumati Muthukumar

Role Modeling - Kusum Sharma

Role model is a person who has a positive influence and inspired you to be like him. Having a role model in our life is very important. Positive role model influences our true potential and we overcome our weaknesses. A role model shows young people how to live with integrity hope and determination and even they play an essential part in a child’s positive development.

It is very difficult to become a role model of a person because for this a person has to do the right things and to be patient  along with this there are many qualities like confidence, leadership, showing respect and concern for others are required for a role model.

We all want our children to do well or do better than us and for this, they need to see and hear us being the best version of our self as much as possible.

Kusum Sharma

ksa4fab@gmail.com

The Fabindia School, Bali