Behavioural fluctuations

 A widespread idea and a frequent statement which is heard nowadays is that the children of the present day are becoming indiscipline, disobedient, rebellious etc and some corrective steps should be taken at the earliest so that the future of these children and the nation can be secured. It is difficult to say whether this is true or not but when many people think that way so it is important to pay attention and do as required. There are a few who do not agree to this and their views are also important and should be paid an equal attention. We shall talk about it in detail later but before that one more issue is to be considered and understood, the idea of which was explored within the walls of the classroom and I would like to share the same. When a question was put to the children of a senior class as to why do they not want to be teachers, an instantaneous response of one of them was, because the condition of teachers is ‘bad’. I tried to understand the meaning of the word bad in the context used by them. The discussion was quite long and many examples were given by the children but one of the major reasons was, because the children do not obey the teachers. This was a reason implicit enough for the children not wanting to be the teachers in future. Out of the strength of thirty six students only two opined that they did not agree with majority of the children. This was an interesting discussion but the same left me a little disturbed. The uneasiness was because of two reasons. One was what will happen to the future of this nation when no one wants to be a teacher because nothing is possible without good teachers. The second was, if it the teachers only who are responsible for the so called pathetic condition as described by the children so innocently and mentioned earlier. The discussion held within the walls of the classroom was quite lengthy and I tried to make children understand that the condition of the teachers was not ‘bad’ but ‘good’. It was not easy for me to do that when the children had numerous example and incidents. Then they were told that the statement made by majority of them should be reframed and in spite of giving a sweeping statement that the condition of teachers is bad it can be said that the condition of bad teachers is bad and that is true for any profession. The people who are not good irrespective of the profession they are in, they would not be respected and the problems like indiscipline, defiance etc. would crop up. We must understand that the individual and the profession cannot be seen in isolation. They supplement each other and if we have good teachers in teaching profession then the things would be much better. I do not say that there are no good teachers in this profession today. Majority of them even today are good but the problem in the society is negatives are talked about more than the positives. The children agreed to this and gave examples from their own class that some teachers are respected and obeyed by their classmates whereas the others were not obeyed in the same way. This explains it so well that good teachers were respected, are respected and will be respected in future as well.

But while sitting alone and thinking about the same topic, I realized what the children told in the morning might have some logic and I tried to understand the reason behind this habit of the children to act in a little more indiscipline manner in the class and the school than homes. This happens quite often that when the parents of any child are called to the school or informed regarding some problem of the child or any act of indiscipline, the first reaction in majority of the cases is that they cannot believe it because the child was very well disciplined at home. I think they may be right to a large extent because majority of such children show contrary behavior at home and in the school. And one of the reasons for that may be the materialistic environment around them and their lust to acquire and possess all costly and quality things such as motorcycle, mobiles, Laptops and i-pad etc and the list can be quite long. As these are provided by no one else, but parents.  So is it so that just for the sake of this benefit that they try to do everything at home which pleases their parents. I am not very sure of the same but the children at times try to act and behave in an artificial way and try to deceive the parents and themselves both. They know it well that if the parents would not be happy then they may be deprived of the costly things which they want to get from them. This I am stating as there have been many parents who shared with me that they told their son/daughter to sit for study and do their work properly as desired by the parents and then they would be gifted something of their choice. This might have been done by the parents for the sake of making the child sit to study or may be the child just pretends to so. In this way, the child tends to miss his/her natural behavior at home and does most of the things keeping in mind the outcome in terms of freedom to go out and party with friends. We also know that everything in the universe is constant so I think that as the children miss natural behavior at home they tend to do the same more in the school. See, in the past the children had the company of many people at home and the family was not very demanding in terms of academic achievement and high profile jobs. They had enough space to do the things of their liking. Certain things can be classified as acts of indiscipline but these all were natural, and the children used to feel important themselves. Though today also they are given to understand by the parents that they are most important but in actions that does not seem to be happening. When the children are not able to do certain things (not considers being good though that may not be true) they do the same in the school. They want to be heard and their importance recognized by the adults so the best place for them is the school and the adults to face that are the teachers. The quota of not so appreciated actions is completed in the school because the children were not able to do the same at home. So to say that the children of today are more indiscipline than of the yester years, do not appear to be correct. If the children get their space at home and they are allowed to act naturally then such children are appreciated in the schools also because then their behavior is more acceptable than that of others. So my advice to all would be that we should allow our children to grow and behave naturally at home and also in the schools. They should be given appropriate space and importance as individuals. The teachers must understand that they have to perform a very important part in the life of the children and understand their needs to act accordingly.