On the morning of September 16th, I found myself standing in the auditorium of Mater Dei School, Tilak Lane, New Delhi, with a microphone in my hand. I was there as a CBSE-COE, Delhi Resource Person to conduct a one day CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM ON HAPPY CLASSROOM for teachers. Like it or not, all aspects of our collective lives have been divided into two categories - Pre and Post COVID - and teaching is no different. We discussed how the inability of children to be social has now become a new-normal. And how this problem is more prevalent among primary children as they missed their first few years of school because of the pandemic and hence lack the social tools to overcome the hurdle.
Teaching, as far as I can remember, has always been my passion and therefore making it my choice of profession was a no-brainer. I am very much aware that not all of us are that fortunate. Many of us take up teaching not out of choice but rather the career is forced upon us due to various reasons and circumstances. I implored the teachers present on the day to look inwards, to firstly journey into oneself. Failure to acknowledge the drive and the motivation that made us choose teaching often fuels frustration much to the detriment of not only the students but of teachers’ personal and professional lives as well.
They say that parents are the first teachers and teachers are the second parents. I believe we teachers are so much more than that. At one point or the other, we are also doctors, judges, lawyers, and even CBI sleuths. There is an old African proverb which says “if you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family”. Standing with a microphone in my hand looking at the eager and ever so inquisitive faces of all the female educators gathered there in that huge auditorium, I could feel their passion to learn and grow, and I wondered if that same African proverb could be extrapolated a little more to also say that “if you let these female teachers take up the mantle, they can educate and transform the whole society”.
Finally, we were all in agreement that happiness has to be the cornerstone of whatever is it that we do. Taking a leaf out of our neighbour Bhutan’s notebook, we too should focus on the Gross National Happiness along with the Gross National Product. That is the need of the hour, that is the way to go.
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