Schools perhaps play the most significant role in the process of socializing a young person in their formative years. The other key players are obviously the family and society itself. As a teacher I am wondering about the role of socialization in schools. Within school too there are different players—teachers, peers, the culture of the space—all of which play important roles. In this article I am reflecting on my role as a teacher in our small alternative spaces and comparing it with my own experience as a student.
As I grew up, I went to a lot of government and large private schools, where there were more than 40 to 50 students in a classroom. In these sorts of spaces, while some teachers may be accessible to students based on their ability to connect to students and a passion for teaching, across the spectrum there really isn’t a very close teacher-student bond in which the teachers have a deep understanding of their students.
As for me, most of my teachers were not aware of my state of wellbeing or lack of it and did not concern themselves with such matters. I was never once asked how I am feeling or coping with my life. I was actually switched from a small city to a village school in class four, and from English to Tamil medium, in which I struggled. Then I was back to English medium from the village to another large city in class 11, where I struggled again. As my father was in a transferable job, I switched schools ten times. I was almost always the new student, having to find my footing in a new context. I was left to cope or not cope with my struggles. My teachers, who were by and large sincere, focused on finishing the syllabus and if they were warm and friendly, it was in a vague impersonal way.
I contrast this with my experience as a teacher. I have known each of my students well—their relationship with their parents, their areas of confidence, their inadequacies, their many challenges and possibilities. In other words, I have been quite in touch with their inner world and have felt that it is my responsibility to guide them towards a place of strength and well-being. In fact, as a teacher, I have felt that the sense of well-being is the most significant factor affecting a student’s life. Of course, this is true for all ages.
In our schools, where we do engage with each person, with care and the intention of bringing about a sense of well-being, I am trying to look at the possible consequences:
1. Is there a danger of making the students teacher dependent? If yes, how do we avoid creating this dependency? 2. Are we not giving enough room to build their own resourcefulness and the required emotional and psychological muscle to tackle adversity and challenging situations? 3. Most importantly are we subtly and not so subtly creating a mould for students to fit into?
I see that in our small schools, we play a significant personal role in the lives of our students. The fact that we have warm, caring, loving relationships is a significant factor in their lives. But with it also comes a responsibility, right? If we want to see our students as sensitive, responsible, caring, tempered, rational, intelligent beings there is nothing wrong in such a desire and aim, is there? But I am wondering, if in the process of doing so, are we making copies of ourselves and shaping them to be either in our own mould or in some ideal mould (according to us)? When put like that, it sounds scary to me.
I have been accused of being too strong an influence on students or, in less sophisticated terms, brainwashing them through my passion for nature and love for animals. It is true that many of my students have become nature lovers and protectors and have strong relationships with animals. Can this be called ‘being a positive influence’ or is it ‘brainwashing’?
Being teachers and adults in our students’ lives, there is no doubt that we are an influence on them, and I think it is futile to deny that, and irresponsible too. If we are passionate human beings, acting from that sense of passion, aren’t we likely to be strong influences in their lives? But does being influential foreclose the option of students thinking for themselves?
Another area which has regularly landed me in conflict is the action of students questioning their parents and house customs, values, practices. This invariably happens when we encourage questioning. When questioning hits close to home in areas like patriarchy, caste systems and practices, it causes a lot of upset responses.
Is there such a thing as a pure response, as a living human to the world outside, without the multifarious influences that one has imbibed through growing up? Other than inviting them to reflect on the conditioning, do we have enough tools to free them from this burden? I personally feel that conversation classes, circle time or culture classes, the different names which we use to describe the collective looking at conditioning, are among the best tools.
Returning to the main theme, I am asking: do we end up moulding our students in certain established ways? If they turn out to be reasonable, rational, intelligent beings, does it make it okay? Is education good moulding? Or, as I would like to think, is education the process of freeing the being within and allowing the being to find space and unfold their wings in this world?
Tentatively, I suggest that part of the answer lies in leaving the student alone. As much as there is a need to engage more with students in large schools, I think there is a case for engaging less with students in our small schools. I feel they must be given the space to fall, to make mistakes, be silly, hurt themselves a bit and learn from all that. I feel they shouldn’t have adult’s eyes on them all the time, even if they are caring eyes. For young children to develop a sense of independence and a sense of agency for themselves, they need space. When they seek help from us and bring us their problems, while it is tempting to offer solutions or perspectives, I think it is perhaps more valuable to turn them back on their own resourcefulness to engage with the problem. Of course, after giving it a patient and empathetic hearing.
Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind attributes the success of a mother in bringing up her child to ‘loving neglect’. I think there is something to that. As we have moved from large joint families to nuclear families, and from villages to cities, the amount of attention our children receive from adults has increased tremendously. While it may be a result of care and wanting to be there for them, it can have a very stifling effect on them.
How do we create care and nurturance without it being restrictive and prescriptive? In our small schools, we tend to very refined in our approach. I can say for myself that, in my 25 years as a teacher, I can count on my fingers the number of times I have lost my temper and shouted. But I have a far more deadly weapon—the withdrawal of affection and warmth. Just a reproachful look is enough. It is both far more effective and far more cruel. I don’t even do it consciously and deliberately. But when a child behaves in ways that doesn’t meet my approval, my stream of warmth seems to dwindle or dry up. I am trying to be more conscious of this and the awful impact it has on vulnerable children. There is a tremendous responsibility here.
I would like to end by posing a few questions in addition to the ones raised earlier:
1. How can we have a warm and caring relationship with students without fostering dependency? 2. How do we bring about a deep engagement without influencing our students’ own inner thought processes? 3. How can we foster the flowering of the inner being while unfolding the same for ourselves? 4. How can we validate and value each person for who they are while at the same time enabling the process of understanding and shedding conditioning? 5. How do we facilitate growth of resilience and emotional muscle from real life experiences without the students going through harmful or hurtful experiences?
My hope in sharing these reflections is the wish that it will lead to further engagement and dialogue.