A teacher must be blessed with copious amount of goodness. The act of teaching must be measured by this statement. Yuval Noah Harari in his book ‘Nexus’ writes “Afterall, alongside greed, hubris, and cruelty humans are also capable of love, compassion, humility and joy”. The goodness mentioned earlier is defined through these four words. Teaching is all about making an emotional connect with the students. This will convert teaching and learning into an organic activity rather than a mechanical one. Education as a process of self-discovery which should lead to transformation and change in the learners. This involves minimizing or removing the negativities, badness and creating a space for nurturing the goodness in each learner. Every student is a slice of life. His attitude, cultural and financial background will be unique. The teacher should identify this uniqueness and nurture love, compassion, humility and joy. The Social Emotional Learning (SEL) concept can be used a reference for this transformation. It is the process through which individuals learn and apply a set of social, emotional, and related skills, attitudes, behaviours and values that help direct students. The five pillars of SEL are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making.
When I started brainstorming for this blog, the following questions crept into my mind:
- What good can human beings / students do?
- What are the ways to measure human capabilities?
- How can we quantify the goodness in a human child?
- What are the ways we can map out the social emotional system of a student?
- What are the available systems which will help us to create this template?
- What are the challenges in this journey?
What I have learned in my 25 years of teaching experience is how I respond to an irritated/ bored/ sleepy/ uninterested student makes a big difference in the teaching and learning process. The challenge is to find the real personality inside each student. My mission statement will be to uncover the goodness in each student and nurture love, compassion, humility and joy in the student. Based on this semester’s teaching experience I have a few examples which underline the important of SEL.
A first-year student was always irritated when I asked him questions or tried to interact with him casually. During a deep conversation with him, it was known that he along with another boy was elected as the class representative. He was feeling a bit inferior that he was not given importance in the class.
A girl whose mother was no more was always hyperactive in the class. She led a life which was filled with Christian prayer meetings and visits to the hills stations in Tamil Nadu. She along with her friend used to create ruckus in the classroom.
A boy who was a fitness freak and a body builder used to move around the campus along with a coterie of friends. He was not afraid to talk and always reposed his faith on the body muscles rather than the brain muscles.
He was part of an organization that promoted social justice. He used to travel around a lot in Tamil Nadu visiting different districts and was an active volunteer for community development. He used to absent for many days. Whenever he came back to attend classes, he used to look dishevelled and totally removed from the lessons discussed in the class.
There was this girl who used to talk while the lecture was in progress. She had many friends especially boys and I have seen her hanging out with boys in the suburban railway station. She was polite and was totally disconnected from her studies.
No comments:
Post a Comment