Topic: Are the parents and teachers well equippedwith the approach to education?
I would like all of you to close your eyes and think of your favourite teacher for a minute.
What did you recall?
Teacher was a disciplinarian, had an excellent way of teaching, had good content knowledge and a caring nature?
Education is not just academic qualification it is the ability to live in society as a global citizen. Children to become independent thinkers, develop critical thinking skills. These teachers practiced reaching out to the children. They had the 3 Cs – care, compassion and commitment.
If all teachers need to have these qualities, the onus lies with the school to promote these qualities. In addition to this, the school needs to build a sense of trust.
Our parents never came to school to check on us. There never was a need. There was a major trust factor that existed between the school and home. Whatever the teacher does is for your good was the attitude of our parents.
The identity and self-concept of the child will be honed by both the school and the home. Identity can be self-identity or social identity. We identify with the school uniform or the men in blue.
Parenting styles – authoritarian, authoritative or lassie faire has a lot to say about the personality of the child. The child brought up in an authoritarian household might rebel against rules. The one brought up in a lassie faire set up knows no rules. The child brought up by authoritative parents will know how to be disciplined. Indulgence and over pampering is not going to build a balanced personality – eg. Parents were woken up by the police – son had met with a bad accident, he had taken the car keys without the parents knowledge with his friends.
To go ahead, in one of the recent Bollywood movies Mrs chatterjee vs Norway. In this movie Mrs Chatterjee is shown to be a caring mother, loving mother but not very socially intelligent. Had she been socially intelligent she would not have tried to kidnapped the children when she knew it was the law of the land. She let her heart rule over the head.
Another story another learning. This is a story of Ursula burns. Her father. deserted them and her mother brought up to 8 children by herself Ursula wore hand me downs and longed to have new clothes and a better lifestyle. Every Saturday the whole family would sit down discuss & Sing. This gave them a purpose in life and Ursula decided that should one day reach a stage where others will look up to her. She went on to become the CEO of Xerox.
These are the 2 stories which give us different point of view about parenting. But both the parents in the examples cited above had The emotional intelligence to rise up to the challenges. They had the grit and perseverance.
Professional ethics involves honesty and integrity. Teachers should try to rise above favouritism. Sharing important questions with the tuition students is not acceptable. Similarly, parents permitted their children to copy during the online exams. Parents and teachers are the role models for their kids. We need to walk the talk.
The Tata Group I believe recruits their staff from B2 towns. Marks are not the criteria for selection but values. this is the sole reason why the employees did not run away when the terrorists attacked Taj. The behaviour was so strikingly different that Havard did a case study.
The needs of the children and their nature are not what it was a decade ago. Children of today are more independent more tech savvy and more vocal than their counterparts of yester year. Therefore their expectations are different.
The parents and the teachers need to realise that gone are the days with the children would be quiet in the house when dad came home, The practice prevailing at that time was that children had to be seen and not heard. Today this has changed. The pin-drop silence in the class is passe. A murmur of discussion among students is a healthy sign. A teacher is not a storehouse of knowledge. Google has taken over that function. Teacher should be a facilitator, counsellor, provide crutches when needed and give a focus to the learning at school.
Parents want their children to do better than they did in life. Very often their expectations are not fully based on reality. This can cause problems for the teacher. During COVID time this very factor led to the formation of helicopter parents the teachers have to be very cautious and tread on their toes so that parents don’t get offended.
The wholesome personality of the child blossoms when home and school work in tandem. While teachers communicate a great deal through our actions, they also communicate a great deal through our inactions – establish the ground rules. Based on my experience and learning I have categorized 4 aspects that both teachers and parents need to possess or develop
- Social intelligence to know how to deal with parents, teachers, students and the others.
- Emotional intelligence to be able to balance the head and the heart.
- Performance – provide top class teaching and elicit an equivalent performance from students
- Communication intelligence – Learn exactly what to say, when and how.
I urge teachers and parents to let children become independent learners and not depend too much on AI.
I end with an anecdote very apt for metamorphosis. Once a man saw a butterfly struggling to get out of the cocoon. He took pity on the butterfly and slit open the cocoon and freed the butterfly. What came out was not the beautiful creature that we enjoy watching. This creature had shrivelled wings and was not even able to fly.
It is the struggle of getting out of the cocoon that makes the wings strong. Provide the platform of a discoverer to the child and enjoy the growth.
