Does teaching begin with a lesson plan?

 

Thank youuuuuu mammmm, the students of grade V sang and Ms Desai, their Science teacher smiled while cleaning the board, collected her teaching material and left the classroom.

Upon reaching to staff room she met Mr Nadan who was the SST teacher of grade V. Ms Desai asked him, if he had no challenges in handing those four students in the class named Riya, Aarush, Varuni and Samiksha who hardly opens up in the class. Mr Nandan, as if was waiting for someone to knock him, quickly said yes, I do face challenges since those never speak out but what to do they are so and don’t perform well in the assessments too.

Ms Desai who is recently awarded as a best teacher, whose lesson plans are the most descriptive and dam good has the sense of students not opening up and performing well. While Mr Nadan has been serving in this institution for 10 years and he is also known as Mr Perfect of the school but has nothing to do now.

The four walls of a classroom are the visible boundaries and can be expanded at any point of time by taking students in an open area. But the boundaries children carry with them while entering the classroom are invisible, may be carrying just today…tomorrow, for a week, month or for longer.

Those invisible boundaries may be-

·      Afraid of the teacher

·      Scared of being punished

·      Fear of being judged

·      Less confidence…what if….

·      Own judgement that others are good than me

·      Talking in front of others

·      Being laughed at

·      Emotional distress

·      Parent’s conflicts, negligence, abuse etc

·      Fear of making mistakes

·      Others like sleep issues, stress, poor diet etc.

·      And if a teacher is harsh, sarcastic or non-approachable, disconnected

Then where to begin with, a teacher within 35 minutes can’t shatter such boundaries within four different minds.

 

Where does teaching begin then? If not with-

-         Mr Perfect,

-         Ms Best Teacher,

-         a great planning,

-         in a huge infra structure

-         a perfect lesson plan,

-         flawless explanation

-         a text book

-         and nor with a good classroom

All these are to be in place because these are the important tools however teaching begins with-

-         the moment child feels connected, seen, valued and not judged.

-         when fear leaves those four walls,

-         when teacher offers emotional safety

-         and repairs the emotional environment of the classroom

-         when children are in their natural learning mind set

They do not learn from our long lectures, perfection and punishment but from our trust and connect they need. The beautiful phrases can be seen all around i.e. Beyond the books, beyond the boundaries and so on but the question remains same-

Are we really able to go beyond the boundaries and begin our lessons?

 

-Manisha