A book - a kid's best friend or it is not?

This is about an incident that impacted me and I thought of writing about it. This will leave you with some questions to be answered or to reflect as a parent.
          One evening I was  playing with my daughter in the park near my home. She suddenly said Mummy lets go to pick Tannu from tution so we accompanied Tannu's mom. We entered a gloomy house with very heavy gates and a room having almost 12 kids of different age groups. I was surprised to see prenursery kids there. A middle aged women was teaching a 3 year old kid while shouting at him for not telling what is C for? He tried saying cat , cow, car etc. But his efforts went in vein as what was expected was Caterpillar as per his book. She again shouted at him for not giving the correct answer and awarded him with a slap. Then I wondered what impact will this have on the mind of this child. Will he ever be able to acknowledge by saying that a Book is a man's best friend . These daily encounters infact will drive him away from books.
          In the pressure of completing the course the purpose of education in early years which is to sensitize a kid's thought process while getting to know the surroundings gets defeated forever. As in the incident that I just shared its the Caterpillar which got reduced to mere C and not an interesting creature knowing about which the kid would have appreciated the distinguished characteristics and praised mother nature for the wonderful creation.
How can a toddler tell his teacher that Madam I have not seen caterpillar in my life of 2 yrs on earth, this word is too big for me to pronounce. Kid can not say that Madam is it really my fault that I cannot remember this word as I don"t have any idea about this creature . Hence, such issues deserve serious attention.
         We often send our children to tutions after school thinking he will be on the wining edge forgetting the fact that this may bring totally opposite outcomes which can have severe manifestations. Teaching is not only about covering course as in this race the rote learning becomes prominent. Several skills which should be developed in the early years of education. Some of the most critical skills are analytical, observational, & communication which take a back seat in rote learning processes. These little minds are filled with curiosity and wonder. Hence, no teacher has the right to kill them even before they have started developing.
Parents should feel the onus for ensuring  well deserved treatment of these young minds by the teachers. If they are sending their child to a tution then they should try to get the answer to the question that in what way are the kids being taught leaving apart the academic results of the students who studied from that institution.

Shalini Tripathi Sharma
( A teacher )

Is she just a "Teacher"?

Again the Medical Entrance Examination results are out and my phone is filled with messages of selected students in various medical entrance examinations which read - Thank you madam for your support and guidance, Only because of you I was able to do better and so on.
These acknowledgements of my students makes me proud of myself as their teacher and gives me a reason to relentlessly contribute towards their progress.

Having taught for over 6 yrs in Schools and different Coaching Institutions and to different age groups, I always take great pleasure in sharing my experiences with children and their parents when they heartily respect the teaching profession. To some people especially parents a school teacher is just a "Teacher" whose primary responsibility is to keep running behind school kids to keep them entertained in school and secondary duty is to complete the syllabus.

Instead of feeling annoyed of such people I happily take this as an added on challenge to prove that she is not just a "Teacher" because there is no better use of human time than teaching & successfully guiding youth in the right direction. To attain this there is a lot of action that needs to be done and that too with a consistent progressive mindset. Some of the actions are shared below:

1. She keeps herself updated about new developments or discoveries in the subject she teaches. This inspires young minds to think beyond their text books.

2. She keenly listens to the questions of each student however stupid it may sound while believing that a fresh approach towards the issue of "How can this world be run better?" can only be added by this youth and not the existing adults. Inviting open questions from students is the first step towards this approach.

3. She respects diversity in talents and personalities that exists in each class and hence, never believes in giving excuses for not being able to give individual attention to each child as the class is too big in size while also stating that in the allocated class time it is impractical to cater to the learning needs of each student.

4. She spends great time in planning lessons in a way that it suits the needs of different types of learners while clearly focussing on the factors such as learning pace, creative approach & enhanced interest on the subject matter . She is aware of the fact that tagging the child is wrong and kills his/her self esteem.

5. She does not let her teaching be affected by the parents who may be snobbish, curious, aggressive, chilled out or over demanding from their children.

6. She does not categorize questions as stupid or good while acknowledging the point that every question is generated by a unique thought process and so it always requires appreciation not judgement. In this way she gives liberty to the class and consistently tries to empower every child so that he/she freely asks questions for sure. Moreover, she also strongly communicates to all that "No questions are stupid but answers can be".

And above all she always feels happy and satisfied while trying to bring smile on the faces of students in her classroom.

So she is not just a "Teacher" but clearly a Motivator,  Subject matter expert ,  Psychologist and most importantly a non-judgemental support for her students.

A teacher's words in a classroom leaves an everlasting impression on her / his learners . A teacher should be very careful of his/her words in the classroom as these young minds are like soft clay. More than 8 hrs of a child are spent in school or any educational Institution. Hence, this gives a really strong reason to every teacher who is in a classroom to feel all the more responsible towards what is the discussed content and how is that being communicated.

Thank you
Shalini Tripathi
(A Teacher by profession and motivator by attitude)