We live in the world’s largest democracy. Our Constitution promises Justice (social, economic and political), Liberty (of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship), Equality (of status and of opportunity) and Fraternity (assuring the dignity of individual and the unity and integrity of the nation). It comes naturally that we, as citizens, should imbibe democratic values in ourselves, for the prosperity of the individual as well as the nation as a whole. Human beings begin to learn from their environments and develop their value system from a very young age. Therefore, the school becomes an excellent (and at times the only) platform to foster and strengthen such values.
Let me share a few of my school experiences (as a regular guest teacher in a govt. primary school). Once, I was sitting with class 2 and 3 students. One of them took someone else’s pencil and they started fighting. I asked him to give the pencil back, instead he started smiling and teasing the other student. At this point, one other student said, “Maar laga do iski, aise nahi manega (Hit him, he won’t listen otherwise)”. I said no. He then replied, “aap batao, main marun? (Tell me, should I hit him?)”. Another such incident happened with class 5 students. Two of the students started a tussle over something. I requested them to stop, but to no avail. After repeated requests, I got a bit frustrated. Seeing my frustration, one of the students said, “Sir 2 thappad laga do, sahi ho jayenge (Sir, slap each of them, then they will listen)”. To this, another student replied, “Sir abhi pakke nahi hai, jab pakke ho jayenge tab marengey (Sir is not permanent, he will start hitting when he becomes permanent)”. I felt sad about the way their thought process has developed over the years.
Some of the teachers in the current system hold a belief that fear is an important tool to control the class. In such schools, the classroom environment is authoritarian in nature, where everyone has to follow what the teacher says. For young students, our National Curriculum Framework- 2005 says, “The formation of later attitudes and values as well as the desire to learn are also influenced at this stage, while lack of support or neglect can lead to negative consequences, sometimes irreversible.” As explained by my interactions, described in the second paragraph, an environment of fear and authority conditions the children to believe in the same. It will be foolish to assume that children will imbibe democratic values, if the classroom processes and environment remain authoritarian in nature.
Once, I was sitting with class 5 students, and they got bored of studying. They said, “Sir, aaj kahani sunao (Sir, tell a story today)”. I said, “Thik hai, kaunsi kahani sunoge (Ok, which story will you like?)”. They said, “Bhoot ki (a ghost story)”. I took 5 minutes to make up a silly story and then narrated it to them. The story lasted for 20 minutes and during those 20 minutes, each of them had their full attention on me. They were listening with great interest and none of them created any nuisance (which just doesn’t happen during a textbook chapter study). After that, I asked them some questions based on that story and they were happily discussing the answers with me.
Another day, one of the students brought a pair of scissors to school. Right from the morning, he was busy in cutting pictures from an old book. I tried to divert his attention towards me a couple of times, but he was immersed in his own world. I continued with my teaching plan with the other students and let him do his thing. This went on till lunch. After lunch, 2 other students arranged a blade from somewhere and started cutting the pictures with him. I had planned to work on “Make sentences with given words” with them. I engaged the other kids in my planned activity and then paid attention to three of them. They were cutting all pictures in rectangular shapes. With an idea in my mind, I approached them and said, “Tum log thik se nahi kaat rahe, lao main dikhata hun (You guys are not cutting properly. Let me show you)”. I took a picture of a bird that they have cut in a rectangular shape. I cut the bird along the boundaries, such that there was only the bird left in the cutting (no extra white paper). They gave me more pictures to cut in the same way. I cut a few more pictures and asked them to cut the other pictures themselves. Then I asked them, “Karoge kya aise kaat ke (What will you do with these pictures?)”. They said “copy pe chipkayenge (We will stick it on copies).” I asked “Ussey kya hoga (What will happen with that?)”. They said “Achcha lagega (It will look cool)”. I asked “ek kaam karoge (Will you do one thing?)”. They asked “kya (What?)”. I said “Isko ek paper pe chipkao aur iske baare mein niche likho (Paste these on a chart paper and write what you know about the picture, below it)”. I gave them a chart paper and glue stick. They carried on the activity with great interest and wrote interesting things about the pictures. One of the students even cut out a few pictures in a sequence and made a short story out of it. The rest of the students were busy in discussing sentences about the words given to them.
We can direct almost everything that the children do in a classroom, towards a learning objective. Activities like these not only help in engaging all the students but also help foster democratic values in them. We should try to become friends with the children, listen to what they say and understand what they do. With time, we will see that children reciprocate the feelings. If we start listening to them, they start listening to us. After breaking their initial apprehensions, we can start a dialogue with them on any topic, like what they want to do in class at a given time, what they want to study and how they want to do it. Once they are involved in decision making, we can easily guide them to take balanced decisions for every question or situation.
Our role as a teacher, is of paramount importance here. First of all, we have to break the existing authoritarian relationship between teacher and students and be a friend and guide to them. Secondly, we have to be very patient and understanding, especially with primary students. At times, there will be situations that may seem beyond our control, but we should never lose our patience. The change might not happen in a week or even a month, but eventually it will happen.
As a teacher, it’s up to us to understand the children in our class and guide them in their discovery of knowledge.