Teaching provides knowledge. Knowledge leads to assessment of knowledge. Assessment of knowledge leads to scores. Scores leads to grading. Grading results in acquiring and securing higher jobs and higher jobs secure the life of a child. This is the thought of society at large. I firmly believe that this can be connected to the secured life of the children. I call it career build-up. However, career build-up without value build-up may not mean much to a child. So, teachers should help instil values in children.
A teacher should guide students to the deeper aspects of their behaviour which forms a solid part of character. If behaviour is the top of the deep water, character represents the depth of the deep water. It is very hard for children to shed or change their characters. However, teachers can help children reshape their characters by instilling good values in them.
The first value that a child should acquire while learning in a classroom is to welcome a failure and to love to start again. This is a very basic character. Do not think that you are going to be safe and secure, being a winner. Throw away all those thoughts. So, the very first thought a child should acquire is – winning a task, willing to lose, and ready to be a beginner. So, how can this mind-set be developed and willing to forgo what has been achieved to be a beginner? There is only one way and that way is love to do what you really wish to do.
Love what you wish to do is a golden word. Keep on loving and doing what you do rather than fearing what you wish to do. You can fail and can attempt again till you win. So, there is only one thing to do. Come back as a beginner at any stage of your life and start again. And when you start again, you have the thrill of doing it again and never regret of the many times you have failed. So, the first value is to love what you really wish to do.
Steve Jobs always said follow your heart. He had several failures but he fought back and became a winner. He loved his job but was fired from the company. He took somebody else to join him in the build-up of Apple, but the latter overpowered him. The company’s board approved that guy’s stand and Steve had to go out of the company. He continued with his same passion because of love for his job. The company was taken over by Apple and he became the CEO of Apple. How people can flourish in career – depends on how much you love your job and how much passion you have for it. In the similar manner, what a child should not lose in a classroom is love and passion in oneself and learning.
The second point is, in Steve Jobs words, “Stay hungry, stay stupid”. A teacher should work with a child with these words. Hungry means as you love your passions, you will never go out of hunger. Hunger is the driving force. Keep the hunger alive. As long as there is a hunger, there is an inner search by the soul. And being hungry, as you go in search you are bound to be stupid. So, be stupid and be hungry.
A child should acquire the two driving forces of life in a school. He/she should be willing to be hungry and become stupid at any point of time. Those children who have hunger will always be like a spider which weaves its web after several ups and downs. So, the second value that children should learn in a classroom is to allow themselves to be stupid and to keep the hunger alive.
Another value that a child needs to learn in a classroom is the ability to reject what you really do not wish to do. It is easily said than adopted. When you are employed, there will be so much pressure on you to accept things that your heart will not agree to. This could be compromising to take extra money or compromising your values to influence third person. Whenever you do this, you go against your heart and that should not happen. Likewise, a child should learn to reject things that does not appeal to his/her heart. It is a very hard decision to be taken by children as they will be projected as stupid, but they must be bold enough to reject.
When I left banking, wanted to put myself as someone who is going to dedicate and sacrifice my time and my dreams to the cause of children and to the cause of people suffering with diseases. At, 53 years of age I knew very well that to get re-employed will not be possible. But, I followed my heart and rejected jobs that gave the money to support my family. I went with the passion of providing affordable quality learning for children and hospitals to take care of people in pain.
I learned to reject from my primary school in a village in Kerala. I learned that one needs to reject what one really doesn’t want to follow. And this ability to reject has been my strength at critical times.
Another important value is the ability to look backwards at the turning points or events in life. You may think it is contradictory to what has been said so far. A teacher should help a child to find the doubts of his/her life. If a child can visualise the events that made a change in him/her, for sure the child can look forward to his/her future. If those events in a child’s life are connected together, he/she will find a meaning to the passion of his/her heart.
If I were to take an important event from my life which is a turning point, perhaps the first event I can remember is the death of my father when I was seven years old. When the cremation ceremony was happening, I was stealing a mango in the corner of my house, getting away from the crowd and eating it. I was quickly asked to freshen up to do the last rites for my father.
It has taken me many years to realise that the death of my father is an important turning event in my life. If my father was alive, I would have got the correct guidance and the answers to many questions in my life. As a student, I was confused. I didn’t even know how to write an answer for a question. Unlike the objective questions found in the modern question papers, students had to write descriptive answers. I always left the examination hall with completing all the answers because I did not have the time to complete the paper. I lost marks that I could have easily secured. My mom was not able to help me with this problem and I always wished that my father was alive so that would guide me to frame an answer and complete the paper on time. I was confused even when it came to choosing my career. What to do? How to shape my dreams? I missed my father. His absence ignited a fire inside me to conquer my dreams- something I continue to do even today.
I dreamed to become a college professor. It was my golden dream which I lost by an unfortunate incident. While I was writing the public service commission examination, I forgot to sign below the photo. My answer sheet was rejected though I was a rank holder. I would never forget that day. I was forced to deviate to banking and it took 30 years for me to enter the educational field. Another major event is when I met an Indian saint, a person who purified my soul. The day I met professor Bhaskaran in my post-graduation learning days in Sree Narayana College, Kollam, I felt cleansed.
If I connect all these dots or turning points or events together, I get a real picture of how I should go forward. A good teacher should help children to understand the turning points or events in their own lives and know what changes those events can bring to their lives. It will help them to follow their hearts for a better tomorrow.
The last value is the ability of a child to prioritise what to do. Just look at the mirror ask the question: If I am going to die by the end of the day, what would I do today? Suddenly, you can see your prioritises leaving you and you decide to do a single task that needs to be done before you die. Thinking of a death is, thus, a very positive aspect in shaping priorities in life.
In the similar manner, the teacher should encourage children to think thus: ‘If today is the last day of my school, what would I have done today’. This practice will help children later when they become matured people by thinking thus: ‘If today is the last day of my life, what will I do?’ Thinking is it the last day will help to prioritise. If the value of prioritising is instilled in children, they will target what they want to achieve in life.
What a teacher should bring into teaching is the values of to love to do, to keep the hunger alive, to learn to reject, to connect the important turning points in life, and to prioritise. With the help of these values, children will be able to build a passionate life towards achieving goals and shaping their career