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Understanding the child

There is a lot of research taking place all over the world regarding how the children learn and what makes them to fear or like something. Some children are born brave. Here, I refer the word brave to be extrovert and do not hide anything which they might feel to say or do. I am not a researcher but being with the children has helped me in understanding many aspects of their life regarding their behavior and learning. Some children do not feel comfortable while crossing the road and the reason for that may be they might have got injured in a road accident. A very important example can be that not many people would like to cross the cemetery except the close relatives. This is because they are told about the ill effect of the problems related to departed souls. We in India find many places labeled as the point where some untimely death took place due to an accident and now frequent accidents take place on that spot. Such accidents are blamed to be the curse of the untimely death thoug

Morality in question

Recently our school celebrated Sanskaar Divas which involves the primary school and is intended to showcase the talent of the young kids to their parents and grandparents. The basic objective is to remind ourselves of the values and morals which are the asset of an individual to survive and make the society more useful and supportive group of the people. In Indian society, family fabric has been given a lot of importance which has kept the individual as a unit even in the most difficult and trying situations. We feel great when all the people share the importance of the values and morality. I do not know what would be the correct and exact translation of the word Sanskaar but this definitely includes values and morals and in wider perspective I can say ethics. I would leave the topic ethics for some other day and focus only on values and morality (I am not very sure about what is responsible for other but these are interwoven). The first question I would like to ask and discuss is

Life Skills

Recent reports in newspapers show worrisome condition of the youth, especially their emotional aspect. Newspapers are full of reports which reflect a significant rise in the problems faced by the youth, for example, serious emotional disturbances have increased and resulted in disturbed relationships among students in schools because of decrease in emotional intelligence among them which pushes them to the greater use of alcohol and other drugs from an early age. All this clearly result in increase in aggression, suicidal tendencies, drugs use, and depression cases. This scenario shows the struggle that the youth go through and emotional problems they face. So providing an educational experience that could strengthen their coping abilities to counter environmental stress is an important call of present time. One of the best approaches for contributing to the overall development of children is the life skills approach. A key aspect of human development - as important to basic surviv

Seeking excellence or perfection

The new government is seriously thinking to develop the skills of the people in different fields and want education which can make them employable and not merely degree holder. The emphasis has to shift from cramming to learning and that too creative learning. The education system should be such which makes all to explore their potential and make students’ happy to go to school or college. This should trigger a desire in children to work and they should avoid being forced for the same. The environment should be such that do not HAVE to do but they should WANT to do what they are supposed to do. For example, we usually say that "I want to eat food", and not that "I have to eat", until I am not unwell. If the same happens with the children coming to the school then there must be real learning taking place in the school/college. For this the parents and the teachers must ensure that two things are taken care of cautiously, one the self esteem and the other, the excel

Relationships at stake

I shared my thoughts with all of you a few days back regarding the laws related to safeguarding the children from corporal punishment given to them by the parents. Interestingly as usually happens in this country not much of discussion took place on this. One Hindi newspaper did express its opinion strongly against the provision of imprisonment to the parents. The newspaper very rightly raised issues related to culture and values. This country has innumerable examples which prove that the relationship between the parents and the children has been so pious and they both have been complementary to each other for ages. This may be the example of Lord Ram and His brother’s, Shravan Kumar taking his blind parents to pilgrimage on his shoulders, Mahatma Gandhi following advice of his parents, Bhagat Singh having a lot of respect for his parents and the family and list is never ending. These are some prominent names, but there are crores of people who would have sacrificed their life fo

Empowering women to witness change

The newspaper reports which keep appearing on almost daily basis related to the crime against women are very disturbing and are appalling for the society in the 21st century. More disturbing are the reasons cited by many people specially dressing of the women and other things including their going out in the night or doing certain things which till date were considered to be the sole right of men only. The question which has been asked is - what is the fault of a girl child who is five or ten years of age?   We need an answer for this. She does not wear that type of clothes which many people find provocative. Though the government has tried its level best to curb this menace but it seems to be having an opposite effect. The media does play its role by reporting such incidents but that too get carried away by some high profile cases and in this process the sufferings of many women is lost in the void because they are not reported so intensely as the high profile cases are.   Thoug