Joy of Learning
By Richa Wahi
Business Storyteller, Content creator, Creative writing
Foreword by Venkat
While at a personal level it becomes clear to us early in life on the basic principles of rights vs. wrong, we often face a deep chasm when it comes to our behavior and communication in a social context. Despite the best intentions and alignment to the right principles we are not understood or do not understand others. Behavior and communication present such a challenge because it may engage some and dis-engage the others within the same context. We are no longer dealing with only the self but on the fabric of interaction where often progress is critical to achieve the intended outcomes. This paradigm becomes complex when the ones we interact with are of a totally different age, culture or perception.
Richa Wahi brings such a conundrum faced in the schooling context where strictness may have a greater chance of instilling fear than discipline. She recounts her personal experience with her daughter and the incident in her school to substantiate her observations. I am sure many parents would find this resonate with their experience as well. It is clear that without a sense of security and belonging to a place, a student would never feel like opening up. Hence strictness, depending on how it is expressed, may endanger this feeling of security perhaps unknowingly by the teacher. This debate on what behaviors and speech instill fear, discipline or joy in the young minds to shape attitude is the highlight here and so wonderfully written by Richa.
Connect with the most relevant topic of teaching in our times with Richa Wahi in her thought provoking words.
Richa Wahi is a content writer and a story enthusiast working as a freelancer and setting up her own venture “Tales_dat_spin” focused on business storytelling. She truly believes in the power of stories and conversations. With almost 2 decades of experience in eclectic fields like Search, International education and coaching; writing remains her first love.
Joy of Learning
The schools opened doors to kids much after a long forced hiatus. The kids on the other hand had mixed feelings like a bittersweet candy… While they were overjoyed to meet their peers; the rigor of early morning waking up and writing up all text in their notebooks in the routine fashioned ways made them miss the online system a lot. My daughter too was in the same boat.
Post her initial week, she looked a bit too off and sad. On prodding she told me about her English teacher who was very strict in her routine exchange with students. She hated being asked too many questions and gave everyone stricter warnings lest they forgot a book or notebook pertaining to her subject. Her plea was simple – I want to set a precedence so that all along the year everything happens smoothly.
The flipside… Children started to refrain from asking – be it a question or help in times of need. The subject became a drudgery- The Ruskin bond stories that seemed to comfort kids now became nothing more than a chapter of a regular syllabus scheme. Little did she realize that this ripple in the pond can have wider repercussions. While this incident / set of incidences will be permanently etched in the memories of the children; this fear may continue to live deep inside affecting every sphere of your adult life. But “Why do we need to invoke fear to set a model behaviour”?
As parents, teachers, team leaders!
Can we replace fear with joy to make learning enjoyable in every classroom that exists? After all its less about ‘What is Taught’ and more about ‘How its Taught’!
By Richa Wahi
Business Storyteller, Content creator, Creative writing
Yes…very aptly put the children psychology vs teacher’s strictness. Perhaps dealing with two many children in classroom and time-schedule to cover a vast subject within a limited time schedule is a contributing factor. That does not preclude being children friendly. Kudos.
Yes true… Fear as the basis of pedagogy kills the spirit though