If modern society’s approach, behaviour, viewpoints all boils down to making gains, be it politically, for business or for prestige it is because the foundation stone laid during school days was discriminatory. When he/she started going to school the teacher showed indifference towards him/her and favoured another child. The teacher has different ways of pressuring children and connecting with children.
In most classrooms, what has been prominent was hatred and less of friendship because the child who is discriminated against, and the one who is not treated on a par with another will feel left out as he/she is not the teacher’s preferred pupil. Another is favoured as he/she is able to learn better than him/her; he/she is able to express himself/herself better than the child who is ignored. So the preferred child feels that he/she is the teacher’s pet.
The seed of discrimination has been sown during school days and it is that seed that germinates and becomes a huge tree in society that lives with hatred in their mind. ‘You are successful, I am not. Why are you successful? Because you have a good job, have a social status, have access to money. So deep in my heart I hate you. But I won’t express it.
The media, often times than not, exploits this hatred that is simmering in the mind of most people who have been discriminated against. They know that people are sensitive when they see someone in a good position in life, better off than themselves. They would like to blacken them. When a society develops such hatred in mind, it will, in the long run, be a cancer to a community. This hatred originates in the classroom and you will realise it only when you walk back and see that it is a teacher who sowed that seed of hatred in the chid’s heart by discriminating against him/her.
Today, another major issue in the classroom is the lack of collaborated learning. Why is collaborative learning very important? Teachers mostly think that in a collaborative learning process, if they put children with various capabilities together the stronger ones will support the weaker child. Why do teachers think that one child is better than the other?
As a small boy, Michelangelo, sitting by the side of the street, used to take broken rocks and tried to work some sculpture into it. Once he was interrupted by someone from the ruling family, who was passing by. He stopped the chariot and asked him what he was doing. Michelangelo said, “Sir, there is an angel in this broken rock and I am bringing her out.” That is the talent of a child. Collaborated learning is not aimed at killing the innate skills of a child. It should bring up the talents of children together. One child may be good at playing drums, another in playing the piano, and yet another in singing. When three of them unite, and perform, do not bring out cacophony but produce great music.
Do our schools or teachers know this? That collaborative learning is the most important creativity that should happen in a classroom, where we bring out talents of children and blend them. A teacher should be able to understand the innate talents of children and put them together for a task. When they perform the task together, each one will develop his imagination, under the close watch of the teacher. It is like fire being conditioned in the oven for cooking. The teacher should keep the fire at the right temperature and children would learn by themselves.
Whenever they have a doubt, the teacher is at hand to clear it. Without giving out a ready answer, the teacher should give the children some interactive questions. That would develop their talents to work together and then nectar comes out of it. That’s the sort of learning required in our schools.
At the end of such collaborative sessions, when the context is not clear, the teacher can bring the children together and go back to a simple talk about the context. The whole class is happy, the teacher’s learning expectation is achieved, outcomes matched and there goes a wonderful class of children who have collaborated.
When such collaboration is not developed at a young age, when children are differentiated as good or bad, during their adult years they are unable to collaborate for a task to be completed. Imagine an office with 100 people who all would go in different directions. Why would that happen? This happens because everyone wants to be the leader. Each thinks that they should be better than the other. Imagine the same office thinking of a collaborative project, with a single goal, a single destination. If that were to happen we would have worked wonders in our government offices, private companies and in our schools. How did we lose sight of this single objective and happiness?
Sometimes we see families with 10 members and when they collaborate, nobody can beat them ever, as they were well-united. The union of a society, a state, the willingness to be together, is hardly found in India today. Where did we lose sight of collaborating and uniting with a single aim? This has been lost when schools failed the students. The lack of vision of a school and the lack of understanding of a teacher created such divisions in society.
It is not that the teaching community as such has to be blamed for this. Teachers are not aware of the harm of discrimination in a classroom. They are not aware about collaborative learning. Why is it for? What has to be achieved? If the school can go backwards and start working on a collaborated learning method, then it will become a fun activity for children and children will love to come to schools. If children hate coming to schools, if they wait for a rainy day, or wished that the teacher were to be absent, it is because they have nothing to gain or explore or enjoy. This is why children hate going to school.
