Being in child education has often given me valuable insights into the development of any human personality (btw analysing charachters is my full day job... I like the feel that I am reading a book all day, which has MORE number of characters than Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace! I sure live in one lala dream land) . I have observed that children take to the act of pleasing their teacher/mentor very quickly. They observe you very keenly, what you do, how you wear.. what you eat.. what makes you laugh, how you smell, how your hair feel like... they notice EVERYTHING.. and then take to the act of pleasing you.. they might begin with it, because they like you.... and you are their teacher... they might not be aiming of benifiting from this.... but once they realize that pleasing their mentor at times gives them some extra advantages over other classmates, this habit gets ingrained... These children grow up to be adults.. with grumbling colleagues, about their habit of buttering their bosses...
Now this attitude is not found in all children. It is found in a few, but it infects others in the class gradually. I dont know how many other teachers/mentors concur with me, but I think that nursery, kindergarten and primary school teachers have a lasting impact on lives of people. Like till date when I eat mouthfull and try to speak, immediately an image of my KG teacher flashes in front of me... "Anvita dont you eat like a buffalo.. shut your mouth!!"..
Sometime down the line I want to take up teaching seriously.. but to think of it.. what would I teach.. (my friends would echo "Shit" as a response to this).. this fizzles out my excitement to teach....
Coming back to development of character...
There is this another aspect I'd like to talk about.. The act of discarding or rejecting the weakest. Like during one of my activity classes there was a a weak , tired and nervous child.. I prompted her to act in one of my short skits, just because I wanted her to get more vocal and interactive, and wanted to see what lies beneath.. I gave her one of the simplest lines to act.. She did very well in front of me.. but later on the day of the event, she froze on the stage... it was half stage fright, and half the fear which other children had instilled in her, by constantly nagging her on forgetting her lines.. strangely, she never forgot lines in front of me. But after the day of the event, children came up to me and told me .. that I shouldnt have taken that girl in show at all... I told them in a very dramatic way, that we cant leave the weak ones behind, because we dont know, she might not be good in singing or acting, but she could be good in running etc. Then I gave an assignment to my children to find out qualities about their fellow classmates. This was just an excercise to make them learn the uniqueness of every individual.
I have to rack my brains all the time to keep up to fast pace of learning of these little ones.. but surely it makes me realize in what skewed and distorted ways an adult personality is formed.
Now this attitude is not found in all children. It is found in a few, but it infects others in the class gradually. I dont know how many other teachers/mentors concur with me, but I think that nursery, kindergarten and primary school teachers have a lasting impact on lives of people. Like till date when I eat mouthfull and try to speak, immediately an image of my KG teacher flashes in front of me... "Anvita dont you eat like a buffalo.. shut your mouth!!"..
Sometime down the line I want to take up teaching seriously.. but to think of it.. what would I teach.. (my friends would echo "Shit" as a response to this).. this fizzles out my excitement to teach....
Coming back to development of character...
There is this another aspect I'd like to talk about.. The act of discarding or rejecting the weakest. Like during one of my activity classes there was a a weak , tired and nervous child.. I prompted her to act in one of my short skits, just because I wanted her to get more vocal and interactive, and wanted to see what lies beneath.. I gave her one of the simplest lines to act.. She did very well in front of me.. but later on the day of the event, she froze on the stage... it was half stage fright, and half the fear which other children had instilled in her, by constantly nagging her on forgetting her lines.. strangely, she never forgot lines in front of me. But after the day of the event, children came up to me and told me .. that I shouldnt have taken that girl in show at all... I told them in a very dramatic way, that we cant leave the weak ones behind, because we dont know, she might not be good in singing or acting, but she could be good in running etc. Then I gave an assignment to my children to find out qualities about their fellow classmates. This was just an excercise to make them learn the uniqueness of every individual.
I have to rack my brains all the time to keep up to fast pace of learning of these little ones.. but surely it makes me realize in what skewed and distorted ways an adult personality is formed.
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