Transforming The Classroom Into A Child's Happy Place

Spread Happiness 

Reading the book "Is Your Child Ready to Face the World?" by Dr. Anupam Sibal has been a very pleasant experience. I liked all the qualities explained in the book, but "Making Others Happy" has  impressed me the most. I believe that it is a very important quality in order to improve the ethical standards of our children. The author describes how the students live happily in their own dream world and try to reconcile the world around them with it. 

Now a days, students in a classroom increasingly need happiness as they are constantly experiencing a number of pressures relating to academics, parents and their peers. The result is stress, frustration, and anger. We can make them happy by listening to them and guiding them towards the joy that resides in sports, music, nature and art. 

When the students in my class spot clouds in the sky, they always demand to play or study outside. And though it is difficult to send them outside on a regular basis, a creative teacher can do that some times by asking them to maintain happiness and politeness in the classroom in return on other days.

A happy teacher can instil joy in the circumstances and the world of her students. A teacher can transform her classroom into a place as exciting as the Disneyland by teaching her students about values such happiness, love for nature, and sporting attitude. She can demonstrate to them the importance of having a zest for life despite its harsh realities.

I remember a boy named Ajaypal in class II who always used to sit quietly in the classroom. Whenever I asked him questions or went near him, he got upset and scared. He never participated in class activities. I decided to find the reason behind this behaviour in order to solve the problem. So, I ordered him to keep smiling regardless of his mood. After some days, he began turning into a happy and confident child. He even secured the 1st position in the Inter-House English Recitation Competition.

Through this incident, I learnt that a happy child never gives up hope. We should listen to them carefully, try to remove their unhappiness, and teach them with a positive approach. It is well understood that stressed and unhappy people never think positively and make mistakes in their tasks. Hence, being happy and positive is a necessary trait to lead a wholesome life.

I believe that real learning happens in a happy environment, so I will try to make my children happy to help them achieve better results, both in the classroom and beyond.

~ Urmila Rathore is an Educator at The Fabindia School. Her email is urd4fab@gmail.com