Nurturing Human Values in Students
Children learn half their values from their parents and other half from teachers during their formative years. The behavior patterns of children depend to large extent on the parents and teachers. Teachers have to encourage and nurture basic human values in their students. Every child is born with these values and teachers have to nurture them. The seed is there and the early plant is there. It is the teachers' job to be good gardeners of these plants.
Authors
This knol is based on the chapter Human Values in the Classroom: A Talk to Teachers by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, in the book, Wisdom For The New Millennium, Vyakti Vikas Kendra, Bangalore, India, 1999.
Children learn half their values from their parents and other half from teachers during their formative years. The behavior patterns of children depend to large extent on the parents and teachers.
Teachers have to encourage and nurture basic human values in their students. Every child is born with these values and teachers have to nurture them. The seed is there and the early plant is there. It is the teachers' job to be good gardeners of these plants.
What are human values?
Compassion, cooperation, friendliness, smiling, laughter, lightness, wanting to help, sense of belongingness, and caring for each other were identified by Sri Sri Ravi Sankar. We can refer works by Sri Dalai Lama and others who are advocating value based living for some more. All of these qualities are there in the child and teachers need to nourish them and bring them out for repeated use by the children.
The model that a teacher must have regarding the positive and negative behaviors of a student is that of an atom. The central part of an atom is nucleus and it has protons – the positive charge. On the periphery of the atom are electrons – the negative charge. The teacher can increase the energy of the electron or decrease the energy of the electron. To decrease the energy of the electron and increase the influence of the protons or the nucleus is the job of teachers. With loving attention and care you can bring out the positive human values in the child.
Parents have to deal with only one or two of their children. But a teacher has to deal with many students. The burden on the teacher is more and to handle that stressful activity successfully the teacher must feel ease within himself first. The teacher has to feel that he can handle the job. The assignment is appropriate for him and he has educated himself and trained himself adequately for the assignment. The teacher has to do relaxation exercises and be with the nature for a short time every day.
Even a rebellious child can be encouraged to become friendly and caring. A shy child may require more firmness to make him stand up and speak out. Many times, Sri Ravi Shankar points that, teachers are strict and firm with rebellious children and pat the shy students.
Sri Ravi Shankar points out “Vata” type of people need a lot of exercise to reduce the vata tendencies. There is restlessness or discomfort in them if they sit quiet for a long time.
Sri Ravi Shankar highlighted an award given students in Canadian schools for being very friendly. He advocated steps in schools to develop friendship among all the students in class rather than among small groups only. He advocates that students be asked to sit with different students in the class periodically. Make people a part of larger and larger groups is the message. “We are all one first and then different next” is the message of spiritualism. The same thing is expressed as “We are all first part of the Divine, and secondly, we are human beings.”
Connection between the Teacher and Students
India has a tradition of worshipping of parents and teachers. Every morning, children are to worship their parents and teachers. Even if they fight during the day, the early morning has to start with worship. That has the potential to wash off every thing that happened till that moment and life can start afresh from that moment in a positive direction.
Worship means a person feels something inside – a deep feeling of gratefulness, love, confidence and trust. This feeling needs to be expressed. The traditional worship is the external behavior associated with the internal feeling. Without respect, without regard for each other, this world would not be very nice place to live. There is a need to encourage people to be grateful, respectful and worshipful toward each other.
Every Day Acts of Teachers
Teachers should tell inspiring stories about nonviolence and tell stories that send the message that violence is a shame. Teach children to honor and respect all life. If they are made sensitive to the life of a butterfly, their respect for all grows. Give children opportunities to share. Encourage them to share with everybody whatever they have. Give a child a basket of candy and ask them to distribute it to everyone. Ask the most intelligent person of the class to explain things to the least intelligent person of the class. Let each person share what he has and let him show care for other persons.
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