The particular topic which I want to discuss today would be totally extraneous when I was a student. In those days, if the teacher said, A is for Apple, then the entire class of 40 students would simply accept that yes, A is for Apple because my teacher said so. I remember when my daughter was in PP II, she came back from school and said to me, 'Mom, my teacher says the clock is spelt 'CLOCK,' but mom, why can't it be 'KLOK'? I realized then that times were changing. Gone were the days when the teacher was the absolute authority on every subject, had a solution to every problem and was always right.
Indeed, the times have changed! These are the days when we, as teachers and parents, have to walk the tightrope between teaching, guiding and facilitating. The trick is in deciding which part takes the major slot in the ever-changing pie diagram of the teacher-taught relationship. Monarchy, both in the classroom and at home, is absolutely unacceptable. These are the days of democracy. However, though the power of choosing must rest with the children, the power of policy and decision making must always rest with the parents and teachers. Today, children have an explosion of information at their beck and call. We are no longer the sole repository of all knowledge. They, in fact, sometimes know more than we do. We must accept this and teach them to choose and also to live with the consequences of their choices. Camaraderie does not mean that children need us to be children or to act like children. What they need is for us to be friendly and also the grown-ups who they can look up to. This is where the tricky balance comes in. To be just the right amount of approachable yet within the boundaries of authority.
Children should not feel terrified but in fact feel comfortable to come to us with their problems, with the confidence and understanding that the teacher or parent has the capability to look at it from their view point and then apply some sort of problem-solving skills to solve that problem.
In other words, they should find both a mentor and a friend in us. The classroom and home must become a safe space where the temporary, day to day travails of childhood become just that: temporary and ordinary. As a teacher, I must be capable of both playing a fun-filled game in the class with my students and teaching them the rules that go with the game. As parents, we must be capable of making crucial decisions that affect our children, enforcing discipline as well as bending the rules now and then to just have fun with them or to give them the space they need for achieving specific personal milestones.
Our goals, as teachers and parents, ultimately converge at the common point of our children's st welfare. So let us work together for it. All that matters in the end is to unlock not just the intellectual potential in each child, but also the endless emotional potential to live and love.
By Mrs. Sudha Yadavalli
