Breaking down Barriers
No punishment zones:
Last week, provincial education department adopted seven point reform programs for government and private educational institutions. On the first of July, a bomb exploded near school premises, injuring 22 students. It is in Odisha, the eastern state of India, which is normally a peaceful region. This incident is the first of its kind here. Immediately, state government plunges into action. It is trying to create a congenial atmosphere within school premises among teachers, students and guardians. In an earlier announcement, school premises of government schools are declared as “no punishment zones”. The sole aim of this announcement is to curb cruel punishment given by teachers to weird students. This creates a blank space between the student and teacher. Teachers try to finish the course and they have hardly any concern about student. After two years of implementation of “no punishment” zones within education institutional arena, government is forced to review this movie.
Education begins at home:
According to latest government directives, in every month there will be a get together among the board of directors of school, teachers and parents or guardians of students about the discussion of various problems generating out of schools resulting from students actions and reactions. In the meeting students problems will be discussed in detail and imminent perceived solutions to these problems will be generated. Teachers will advise and suggest parents to condition social reform from home itself. Student stays in their home for 18 hours. They stay for six hours in school. This implies that education begins at home. In many instances parents used to complain to higher educational authorities about specific teacher, who may have given minimalists punishment to their child at school. It is a debatable question whether parents should reach to higher authorities over such tiny issues. Instead they should resort to the same teacher for personal consultation with the same teacher and try to pull out the real reason for such punishment. Many a times concern teacher is worried about student progression in terms of education advancement and the teacher many a times resort to microscopic harmless punishment student to bring back to the main stream of education. Parents or guardians should also observe their child behavior while he is at school and if they observe something different and they get the feeling of weirdness then they must consult with his class teacher to get back to real issues so that no rigidity among seniors such as parents and teacher should occur. There will be chaos inside the classroom in the case of no punishment to naughty students. Higher education authorities should seriously evaluate complaint from parents and guardians as many a time the punishment awarded to concern students is minimalists and aimed at disciplining the student. Learning begins at home. Education augments at school. Good teachers are bridge for a bright future prospect for students. Accomplished teachers try hard to flush all the bad characters from their students. They want them to excel in each and every field in their future educational careers.
A need for a better home environment:
Home improvement affects student’s basic career. School environment polishes the character of students and shows them the correct path to success. A child has maximum growth in an environment where there are serene family life and disciplined parental care. A positive and cumulative growth of a child occurs through disciplined parental care. In modern times, there are countless quarrels and ambiguities among various brothers within the extended family. All these contradictory situations affect immensely to faint under developed mind of the young child psychologically and ethically. In simple words, home environment can have positive or destructive effects on child’s psychological and reasoned development. In some families, due to absence of ethical and religious values young children revolt against their parents. They carry this anonymity to school premises and they watch the world in the eyes of their home environment and this enables them to reach for aggressive reactions to some meager incidents. Home environment generates huge positive or negative effects. After accumulation of such negative environments, ultimately it bursts up some of the worst nightmares incidents occur inside school premises. In a remote village of southern Orissa, a neighbor killed the girl child of his neighbor over a tiny incident. The little girl who was killed had accidentally seen her neighbor’s child stealing apples from her garden. As a consequence, children of both sides quarreled. The role of the respective parents of this in this already boiled situation is to create a congenial environment among their respective children and reach an amicable settlement.
This will have better ethical impact on their children and they should have learnt the power to listen and resist their temptation in the case of an imminent conflict. Instead neighbors resort to violence and murder. Think of what was the impact on their children’s mind. Their soft mind would imprint everything their parents adhere to in a conflict resolution. This incident affects children most. When at school she sees the similar conflict situation among her class fellows, she would bring the leaf out of her parents act and engage herself in the act of cruelness to solve a tiny conflict matters. Ultimately, everyone would see the fault is with school. In this case, matters relate to the home environment. The act done by her parents in a similar conflict situation come to her mind and influence she resists the temptation to act in a criminal manner. Parents must guide their children to go in a straight path of peace and tranquility. The path of love and compassion should be their resolution in conflicting environments. Parents should guide their children about the process of showing love and compassion and resist anger and violence.
The role of class teacher:
In many joint families of Orissa, especially in the coastal regions, family disputes among brothers, spouses and laws re affecting deeply to intrinsic psyche of child living at the same environment. On the other hand, education department suggests the teacher to act as guardians inside school and also keep a strict watch on their manners and etiquettes. It is not a practical suggestion. Even at school, during intervals and period breaks, teachers are not with students. During these times, the situation among students inside school premises is left without invigilation. It is impossible to guard students at every second they stay at school. The Education Department says it is the responsibility of the teacher to see that no student resort to beating fellow students of their class. A teacher cannot stay with students during period break, sports classes, and intervals. A wicked student can resort to criminal activity while his teacher not to class students. During these times, the teacher cannot watch his students. It is impossible for the teacher to keep a vigilant eye on their students all the time. In some instances, the teacher while writing something with white-board and leaning backwards towards pupils inside class, students can resort to mild fighting among themselves. In due course of time, these minor incidents occur inside class can take gigantic proportions and unbeatable conflicting situations among rouge students. Unethical and unmindful parent’s involvement within these conflicting environments can make gigantic problems for students and their families. On the other hand, it is impossible to check lunch boxes and school bags of every student thoroughly. Mischief students can keep anything inside lunch box or school bags and can make disturbances inside school premises.
Similar incidents are happening inside US schools. Most of the students who have indulged in this are from single parent. Since childhood they have observed and perceived that due to their father or mother, their life is becoming hell. This stops the development of moral and ethical reasoning inside their brain. Basic love from their parents is lacking since childhood days. This is the cause of worry. Students can succeed in his home work through the more information and actual knowledge about a particular topic. For this systematic interaction between parents and teachers is a necessity. This will make a bond between them and help them to solve student’s issues amicably. Student education is a key factor in academic success. Removing the cap on how educational institution and parents engage the students is crucial for student academic success. This implies that responsibilities of guardians are more than the teachers. This does not demean the role of teachers. Teachers should show case idealistic inspiration through their work related performances to students.
Stats:
In the recent announcement, state government allotted computers to 65 schools. The aim of this project is to introduce computer to students. Most of these computers are out of order within some months. In 181 governments, high schools 87 head masters posts are still vacant. 300 teacher’s posts are still vacant in government high school throughout the state. There is no sports teacher in 21 schools. There is no Sanskrit teacher in 25 schools. According to survey conducted by the government, average marks of standard eight students are 39 percentages and average marks of class nine student is 33 percentages in government schools throughout Orissa. Students have performed poorly in English language. At one point of time, the pass mark of English reduced from 33 to 20. Average marks in English language in class eight students are 35 percentages and standard nine students are 25 percentages. These statistics say more about the state of education in Orissa.
Parental guidance:
With less salary for teachers, good students remove option as a career for teaching. This affects heavily to elementary teaching standards. The standard nine students who were accused of hurling a bomb at school premises, defended his action by saying he did not have any such idea that the circular object left alone inside school premises is a crude bomb. If this is true, then one lesson learnt from this incident. One should not touch abandoned and left over the object and also should not receive anything from strangers. Both guardians as well as the teacher should convey student not to receive anything from strangers. For my childhood days, there are child lifters who use to live kids while they are back from schools and then sell these children for a decent amount of child traffickers. In the remote areas of Orissa, it is a saying if someone sacrifices a child of turmeric field. They there will be bumper crops. For these farmers used to lift kids and sacrifice them in their agricultural fields. My parents used to tell me and remind me not to receive anything from strangers and also not to talk to them and ran away from these strangers in no time. Owing to this, from childhood I was always conscious of such pre-emptive actions. Digital divide: We are in the age of Internet. The Internet is reaching for critical mass in early 1990s. The transition of information to the common user is fast. With the use of high speed internet, one can receive innumerable information to smart phones and computers. With the use of specific gadgets touching through Internet and alerts you of breaking news. According to research, ten years back 18 years are called miniature adults. Now, that age shifts to ten years.
Parents need to understand this trend and behave such way in order to understand the rudimentary psyche of their children. Children of digital progress age can now have access to plenty of information at their finger tips and now they are smarter than their age. Teachers and parents needs to cope with this change and try to minimize these digital divide among themselves and children. How many of us do realize that we are living in the golden age of the Internet. Some parents would think of this technology as the great opportunity and some would consider it as a divisive force between them and their children. An essay by Bill Gates on the evolution of the Internet and the technologies that are helping connects people to information, resources and each other. He says, “The Internet can revolutionize schooling, giving children the opportunity to indulge their intellectual curiosity and explore their world. But while it helps them to learn about dinosaurs or world history, it can also expose them to obscene, violent or inappropriate content. ” This essay was written by Bill Gates way back in 2000, but his advice is still significant in the relations among parents, teachers and students.
The digital divide:
We are in the age of high speed broad band internet, direct to home satellite TV services, smart phones and tablets. Always on connection to the Internet and advancement of “push services” in different modern smart phones and tablets, students are garnering plenty of information from different sources. Teachers and guardians should have strict vigilance in internet activities of students and children. They should install parental control in computers. In the latest version of Windows 8, parental control is pre-installed and with the help of these services, which runs in cloud (on line) as well as off line, to have the street surveillance and blocking of unwanted sites from internet. Bad effects from daily television soap operas as well as violence in movies are affecting them psychologically and mentally. In South Korea, violence scenes inside television soaps are banned and this is good for children as they will not expose to such bad phase of worldly life from their early life. In India, the strict imposition of such rules in the arena of television is a necessity. Television is the only medium which reaches straight into your home. Organized crimes and other violent activities are performed by few adults in school premises burn out from all these mediums. It is better to have a strict vigilance on these mediums to make your child a better person in times to come. In India, there are few such cases. It is not a trend for the time being. It is a warning sign for parents and society. We should not go in the way of what is happening day by day in US. A developed society such as US does not mean that everything should be free so that chaos inside educational institutions should go on forever. Digital divide is a global problem which is marred by a generational shift. It is a perfect time for parents and concerned authorities should step in and bring forward some organized solutions to these impending problems.
Eye opener:
On last February, in a private school in a southern state of India, a standard nine students shove a knife to a lady teacher in his class. The student reacted angrily to lady teacher’s comment. The teacher died there. This incident shook India and after four months of this dreadful incident, we came across the bomb throwing incident by a student in school premises in Orissa. These are exceptional incidents but eye openers for all civilized people in the society. It is clear that these are challenges worth facing. What is government’s role? Deregulation of competition and introduction of resistance to temptation should be enacted by the government in order to give awareness to parents and children. Child crime rates are on the higher side in India. Teachers and guardians should live a decent life worthy of inspiration for students and children. Children should see the ideal inspiration of superheroes inside their parents so that they can behave accordingly in order to have a perfect life in a peaceful environment. It will give them a reformed life and a completely cultural outlook to students. The behavioral reform action sends to schools from the education department of Orissa should not limit itself from the paper work. It needs a practical implementation of all ideas and related attributes and proper feedback from parents and guardians from time to time. There should be continual vigilance on schools progression in behavioral aspects of students.
Conclusion:
These should include students daily life which begins at home and then to school and then to home. There can be privacy concerns but one thing needs to remember that future life of students is paramount and this all participants needs to observe all the rules in the proper manner. In this behavioral charter from the education department says that teachers have the responsibility to control students. These charters are silent on the role of parents and guardians. Officially, education department cannot hold parents and guardians responsible for omissions and commissions of students at school premises. Students stay 18 hours in the home and six hours in school excluding Sundays, holidays and vacations. Learning of proper etiquette is to begin from home. This is going to impress a proper impact on building a strong and committed life of future citizens.
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