Should their voices be curtailed?
"Keep quite in the class"
"Maintain silence"
"Don't make noise"
If you had ever had the opportunity to pursue your high school education in a typical Indian school, you must have heard these intimidating words reverberating in your classroom at least 100 times every single day! No denying the fact that, undoubtedly this was one of the most used words by teachers in your school! In my opinion, perhaps, the word 'silence' has never been dealt with the actual seriousness it deserved.
As a high school teacher, I have frequently been asked by my authority to discipline my students by virtue of denying them of their right to speak. However, I never subscribed to that idea, at least to this very moment, arguing that it would rather end up being counterproductive considering the long run. Undoubtedly, I can seek the help of a wide range of studies and researches that were conducted throughout the world at various time periods to back my claim. None of them seems to be in favour of the system of schooling prevalant in India! Probably the world!
Within the short span of mere a month, I have grown up to the extent that nowadays I have started introducing myself as a teacher to my friends and well-wishers! I must admit the fact that the teaching taught me a lot that all other professions I have ever been to before this had failed to. Pedagogy helps me brush up my knowledge in all basic subjects alongside paving the way to understand the human psychology by observing these kids and teens who all are under 17.
One important thing I had noticed as a student which apparantly seems to be in prevalance to this date is that the same old attittude of teachers which doesn't seem to change a bit despite they themselves representing the so called new generation(Most of them are in their 20's and 30's). Although it appears to be a part of discipline, such silencing sows the seed of irresponsible citizens that invariably will be the real hindrance in the progress of a nation!
If the class is insipid, students will definitely get bored and start conversing with each other. In such a situation, according to the old laws of teaching(Don't ask me who set up those priciples; I would rather call them craps) an efficent teacher is expected to put an and to their chit-chats and make them listen to his/her lecture. Here you as a teacher are left with two options. Either you can make the class interesting by adding some flavous after understanding the actual needs of your students, or you can simply threaten them of some sort of mental/ phtsical punishment. Unfortunately enough, a large majority of teachers I have been in touch with all these years resort to the latter option. This generates a sudden response in students which makes them pretend to be listening to the class while the fact is quite opposite!
Volumes of admosnishments that I deliver towards my students are way less compared to other teachers that at times even students themselves requested me to adopt to a little strictness! Nothing to blame on them as they are very much adhered to this old methodologies and have consistently been oppressed by the system to the level that they even forgot their rights as children!
This indeed is a serious issue that our society must take care of immediately. It is likely and proven that these oppressed children in future will never tend to respond to the evils plaguing the society which they are part of. I think the only effective way to deal with this problem is to properly educate the teachers long before deploying them as teachers. As far as I undertstand, possession of contemptuous pride is the main villain that make these teachers ineligible to teach in accordance with changing times.
I believe that there are plethora of things out there to learn from everything we see. Childrens are no exception. A wide variety of things ranging from their innocence to their curiousity to learn new things are offering a great avenue to teachers to develop themselves. Let our students speak up loud so that they will not be silent anymore, whenever required!
DON'T EVER SEVER THEIR CREATIVITY BY SILENCING THEM!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://sathya-sankar.com/should-their-voices-be-curtailed/
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
Congratulations @sathyasankar! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCongratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by sathyasankar from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.