Scripted, standardized and structured programs with a “one size fits all” approach, is that all the school has to offer? A typical day in the classroom, “turn to page no 53, what do you see? Wait for few seconds; ask some students questions and move ahead to the next item”. All the classrooms have same words, actions, explanations and same answers for all. It set the chain of thoughts rolling in my mind. The raising hands and unraised hands, both seeking answers for different questions. But are all the questions catered to?
It was the beginning of the day as I was getting ready for another session, at a different school. It was also the time when my 8-year-old twin children were getting ready for their school, the time for key conversations to happen in the mornings. This was one of them.
One of them suddenly asks me, Amma (mother) what do you do at school? You are not a teacher. You don’t know any Art/Craft. Then what do you do at school? I replied, Son, I come and talk to children, in their classroom, open ground, libraries and just about wherever the space is available. Talk what Amma, popped the next question. I said, we play games, have some activities, and discuss some problems faced by children in or outside the classroom. All those things which he/she feels like talking to. We discuss in groups, sometimes with friends around and sometimes alone.
Amma, talking and discussing problems about children, you mean to say that you deal with difficult children? I replied, “Difficult? I would say they are Strong and have many ideas to share. The surprise and shock were largely writ on his face. He said, but Amma, we do not have any such person in our school who listens to us when we want to say something. When Rohini cries for her Amma, she is made sit in one corner. When Prajwal is too noisy, he is reminded of the discipline points. Amma, when Aman is not able to sit in one place during the class, teacher yells at him and makes him sit at one place, every day. There is one girl in our class who is always silent, in her own world, doesn’t speak with anybody, and sits alone. Has her lunch alone. Even in the PE period she doesn’t come to play with everybody. Amma you come and talk to them. You go to so many different schools. Why don’t you come to our school? And I didn’t know what to answer him. It was unbelievable for an 8-year-old child to fathom the fact there can be a person who listens to whatever you have to say.
How do I tell my child that my job is not to prepare them for answers, but to prepare them for anything they face? I don’t tell them to do anything, rather listen to them and know that there is somebody who listens to what you have to say.
How do I tell my child that I am there to listen to child who is very noisy in the class, for someone who is very silent, emotional, introvert, someone who is hyperactive in the class, disturbs and disrupts the whole class, the bully and cry baby of the class. It is important to listen to those who are left unheard by the rigmarole of the routine. And to find the strengths of those who go unnoticed in the class and flourish them into wonderful individuals. When I started as behavioral skills facilitator, the children used to ask, Madam, do I need to take notes? Were hesitant to ask questions or answer. All of them have stereotypical answers to the questions and an eerie silence, when asked something which their regular classroom never asked for. Soon I realized as a facilitator, the eerie silence was a thinking classroom. The responses, “we have never thought it in this way”; “nobody told us that why we behave the way we do so” beckoned me to use my knowledge and experience of psychology into innovative games and activities. A classroom is an outburst of different personalities, behavior, beliefs and interests. It is just how you clear away the hard issues rather than changing the child’s behavior and making them “feel” the charge of their own decisions. My classroom is striving to be “Emotionally Ready” to face the challenges outside the school with 40 different ways because “no one size fits all”
I see the flabbergasted face of my child, wondering what this is all about. But I am rest assured that even an 8-year-old today realized the need to talk and somebody to listen in the classroom. Indeed, a satisfying conversation to a wonderful day ahead. I know I am headed in the right direction.
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