I have recently entered the world of teaching that is full of joy, experiences, and learning. Every day the little students make me learn so much about life and myself. I entered the class assuming that I am their teacher but I am learning as much from them as much they are learning from me.
My experience has helped me to contemplate about the culture of bullying and hierarchy that prevails in schools. A teacher has a lot of power. She has the ability to make or break a child during the eight hours that she spends with the students five days a week. These hours are very crucial in a child’s life.
We have this culture of bullying where we don't even realize that we are among the bullies as well. Bullying is just as deeply embedded in our lives and we as adults teach our children to be bullies through our actions. There is this culture of hierarchy in the majority of the schools where a group of children is treated as the center and the ones who actually need our attention are thrown at the margins. Even, then we come back home thinking that we have fulfilled our duty of being a teacher. I want to question all the teachers who treat the "good in studies" students better than the others, are scores the only scale of measuring a child's abilities? Do all the top scoring students succeed in life and all the other children fail at life?
These days I have a strong urge to question all the teachers who have this attitude of belittling the students who do not score well. Can scores determine a person’s course of life? I have seen toppers dropping out of universities and I have also witnessed the ones who couldn't score well in college working in multinationals.
This hierarchy then leads to bullying as well. We as teachers provide the good scoring students with a license of bullying others and I am telling this from my own experience. Children are simple, they do what they see. When they are treated above others, they think they can act in a similar manner. Children can be very brutal at times and we as adults need to teach them how to curb their brutality. When we call students by names in our own frustration and due to being overburdened, we unknowingly tell the children that they can do so as well. Never let children laugh over a weaker child. Make sure you never call a weaker student by names. You have a lot of responsibility as a teacher. Be the one who is remembered as the one who created a difference in a child’s life in a positive manner. Learn from your experience. Analyze your own student life and make sure you do not treat your students in a way that you disapproved of when you were a student.
Someone told me a really good thing and it felt really close to my heart that “Teaching a good child is no big deal; you will fulfill your duty when you will be able to teach a child who is not willing to learn.”