Sudeshna Sinha is an experienced educator. She explores a crisis in education which she says is not being addressed. Children face so many fears and insecurities and yet the education system has done very little to help children deal with their psychological issues. Why? What can be done?
Today we can easily teach our children Maths, Science or Geography, Robotics or even Yoga and Coding whether online or offline. But what about how to deal with their frustrations, disappointments, anxieties, fears and insecurities? Why don’t we teach them to accept these as normal along with their academic subjects?
Hasn’t the crisis in education become more glaring during this pandemic? For more than a year, children are attending online classes or no classes. They no longer meet their peers like in pre-pandemic times, neither can they laugh and play together like before. To add to this, their families have either been Covid affected or their parents may have lost their jobs due to lock-downs. Now they cannot even go out and play in parks like before and are confined to closed spaces.
Is there any understanding of the huge psychological void that is being created inside every school-going child especially in urban areas? Had there been something in-built in the education system to help each child to deal with disappointments, loneliness, insecurities and other disbalances in life at a psychological level, that could have been easily stepped up today through the online classes. But alas!
Whether during the present pandemic times or even before Covid times, children have been constantly bombarded with more and more fears. The fear of losing those close to them, fear of being mediocre and being rejected by peers, etc. Do we comprehend how adversely fear and insecurity affects a child? Isn’t it high time we help children to look at their fears and insecurities as a part of the education process?
In today‘s world, shouldn’t children be well equipped to deal with greed, fear, frustration, insecurity, and other emotions along with the demands of academics? Isn’t it the duty of the entire school community (which includes parents) to help every child with these or is it only about success in examinations or more certificates and winning competitions?
Had all the schools been addressing these inner issues of the child as an integral part of the Education System, they could have more easily handled their miseries on the eve of a third wave of the pandemic. Can a report card today not only talk about marks or proficiency in extra-curricular activities but also reflect the child’s ability to deal with fears, insecurities, disappointments or love for Nature?
Talking about some much required inclusions in education, among other things, daily mindfulness or happiness activities for children may help them gain self-awareness and build their confidence. There need not be a strict regime for this but a half-hour could be kept aside at home, for activities like sitting quietly, with no particular purpose or walking quietly on the terrace or perhaps watching a sunset or a sunrise in silence, maybe accompanied by parents or siblings. It could also be quietly observing one’s pet at play or birds in flight. During such times there is no pressure at all for performance, completion of syllabus or failure of an examination or confirming to an ideal during these times.
The children could be gently encouraged, in schools or at home, to observe themselves for a while, every day and thereafter express themselves through story-telling, song, dance or play or plain meaningful dialogues in the school classes as a way of catharsis.
This fosters compassion, self-esteem and helps them de-stress and they have healthy emotional growth.
But all this needs to be done with a lot of love, compassion and patience with the help of parents or teachers where both the parents and teachers are not running after their own greed, insecurities and unfulfilled desires of success and ambitions. I have experimented with this idea of having happiness activities within small groups in children’s summer camps and the children left for their homes extremely happy everyday but I never got the opportunity to try this in mainstream schools although I have been a school teacher most of my life .
Unless the Central Government and the relevant Education boards accept this void in the present systems of Education and make the necessary changes in the curriculum itself, our children cannot be saved from the present and possible future deep psychological crisis of fear, insecurity, violence, greed, corruption, and education would keep on generating fragmented minds .
So the burning question remains: is it possible today that a report card in a school could hold up a mirror to the child’s true self ?
This is a wonderful way of expression
Infact, we shd hv a session for adults incl teachers n pareas children do learn more by observation then teaching
Excellent writing. Raising very important questions. Finished it reading in a single breath.
This is the essence of Jk teaching.
Being an educationist you have really touched the core of education system; but the system are run by politicians and not educationist.
Very important questions that all educators and especially examiners and educational policy makers should take heed of! We cannot have more exams and marksheets – the pandemic has shown the hollowness of our educational system. Time to hold up the mirror to the child- well said Sudeshna, and also to hold it up to the educators!
Thank you dear readers for your valuable comments 🙏
Same problem here in France, education’s aim is efficiency, rentability, society wants to make usefull citizens, but usefull citizens are those who are able to deal with all aspects of life not just a narrow specialty, specialists turn into machines. Children have to be brought up as complete human beings
Delighted to receive comments from Michael Mendizza as follows.
“Sir,
The intent for education of the masses has never been for self-actualization and well being. Its form, structure and content are a form of conditioning, enculturation. J Krishnamurti saw this and rebelled.
The writer is correct in all her observations.
What she fails to see is the simple fact that these negative forces are intentional. The system is working as designed.
The outcome is to negate what remains of our true humanity and convert our children into machines.”
The way the educational system is designed is intentional. It has been designed with a purpose which is to create human machines doing certain jobs. If we go deeper, is not the education system a very small part of the entire design. Whether it is education, religion, nationalism, etc the script remains the same. The idea is born out of a desire to create followers by a very small group of people who want to rule. The very fact that everyone around us is talking the same language, whichever society you may go into, indicates the deep intentional conditioning which has gone into it. Faith in the system is crucial for generating purely mechanical human beings for doing certain pre defined works. There is no place of questioning. The mechanized human beings themselves do not allow this to happen.
Now let us see if giving avenue to create machines who have been empowered to deal with various aspects of life will be useful for those who have created such a society. This is an important question as the rulers will allow only those things which satisfy their needs and not that of some of us who think otherwise. OR will the society, which has been created in such a way, want it. What is that which Sudeshna wants to do ultimately? She wants to create humans who can observe, who can deal with various experiences of life. Is this not giving autonomy to humans? Will not such individuals, if raised, be able also to see the entire game beside tackling various parts of their lives? Will such thing be allowed to happen? I don’t say what Sudeshna writes is wrong? I just question its practicality of happening in today’s society.
But I do see a hope when I see more and more people coming up questioning formal education system, formal religions, formal statuses be it job related, birth related …. which all are divisive. When a critical mass of such people will be built, what Sudeshna says will happen automatically. Can we keep on building the foundation for such an advanced society? Surely, it is worth pursuing.
I noticed that the following sentence does not make sense.
Now let us see if giving avenue to create machines who have been empowered to deal with various aspects of life will be useful for those who have created such a society.
Will like to revise to:
Now let us see whether empowering these existing machines to deal with various aspects of life be useful for those who have created such a society…..
Thank you Meenakshi for your detailed comment . I have emailed you separately .
Beautifully written Sudeshana . Today’s times have heralded an unprecedented crisis specially in the mindset of children who are virtually traumatised with the vagaries of the online education .You have indeed high lighted these issues in a very sensitive way hoping to influence parents to change their perspectives on assessment of their children’s performances not based on marks but in facing challenges with a happy outlook on life .
I agree report card only reflects how much particular knowledge he is gaining that to only to some extent marks, performance at school and passing exam are only indicative never reflexive as the human being have got many traits in him and not even 1% is covered by report card we need to change our system from marks to making person
The problems and pains of present age students are beautifully penned down..
Very nice. 👍