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Its time for us parents to go back to school - not to learn new things, but to unlearn -
a whole lot of what we have been unfortunately conditioned with. Its time to question our beliefs, its time for some de-weeding - to create a better, more organic, more meaningful and vitalizing ecosystem for our children.
We share 20 such "OH NOs" below.
1. We are supposed to teach the students according to the syllabus.“Oh,No!” The syllabus is only an excuse to make them think, to develop this core ability.
2. Knowledge is powerful. “Oh,No!” Knowledge is a commodity. The real power is each child's ability to apply knowledge.
3. Children need to know. “Oh,No!” Children need to experience and understand. From understanding will sprout knowledge of all kinds, of all requirements.
4. That, who has scored high marks has understood. “Oh,No!”. Mere marks do not guarantee understanding or learning.
5. That who scored low marks is less intelligent. “Oh,No!” That who has scored low marks is differently intelligent.
6. Knowledge gives confidence. “Oh,No!” Knowledge gives arrogance. Confidence comes from understanding (Understanding is always ongoing, open).
7. The teacher's job is to teach children. “Oh,No!” The teacher's job is to get learners to learn. The teacher is just the catalyst.
8. Children need to be corrected. “Oh,No!” Children can correct themselves. They need space, the tools and trust.
9. Children need appreciation and motivation. “Oh,No!” Self Assessment and self motivation are more powerful and important.
10. All the child needs is lot of love and care. “Oh,No!” While the child needs love, the child equally needs to be respected - as an equal.
11. A child needs to be disciplined. “Oh,No!” Each one of us only operates from self discipline. So it has to be not via outside control but through self- realisation via self- awareness.
12. Emotions interfere with learning they need to be kept out of the learning / classroom. “Oh,No!”, we cannot not have emotions. Instead of shunning emotions, let’s understand them.
13. We need to make learning fun for children. “Oh,No!” We need to make learning challenging for children and it is the scaling of this challenge that makes learning fun.
14. We need to teach values. “Oh,No!” We can't. What we can is help children understand the importance of each value in their life and then out of this understanding they decide when to use which one.
15. Rewards / marks are important to motivate children. “Oh,No!” Rewards and marks take away the real reason to learn something. Children learn better when they do / learn something for the intrinsic value of it.
16. Parent’s job is to build their self esteem. "Oh,No!". We can't build their self esteem - it has to be done by self. We could instead give them an environment where they can build a solid self belief.
17. Life is competitive, so should be our education. “Oh,No!” Life is cooperative and so could be our education.
18. All children need to be taught by the same method. “Oh,No!” Children have different learning styles. Children need not tune to the method - the method needs to tune to differences in children.
19. Children are, well, children – ignorant, dependent and incapable.“Oh,No!” This notion of children less-than-us (adults) is a huge put down. In reality - they are quite like us. All the time learning, fiercely independent and “I am able”.
20. Education is to get them a good job. “Oh,No!” Education is to give them the tools for life. We have to stop confusing career for life.
Do add your “OH NOs” to the list here and share with us.
If you agree (or disagree) or want to understand more on how all you can keep away from such myths then do consider our TTT program (batch starting 3rd July) - which as one parent participant puts in her own words -
Once I came across Ratnesh's class on empowerment, that class left such a big impact on me as a parent that I decided to join TTT program by amable geniekids. Its was an experiential, participative, challenging, thinking, unlearning and learning. It opened new ways of looking at self, others and worlds. It helped me to evolve as a parent, facilitator and the different roles I play. It is a program on self awareness and self growth and in the end u come out as a skilled facilitator, parent more in tune with self.
thanks amable genie kids :-). Priya Talreja TTT (S1).
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