Courage and Patience - Swabhi Parmar

There are several different aspects of courage. Perhaps the most important is the courage to endure, to persist, to “hang in there” in the face of doubt, uncertainty and criticism from others. This is called "courageous patience," the willingness and the ability to "stay the course" in the face of uncertainty, doubt and often criticism from many quarters. In my experience, in life, there are crucial challenges which lead a person to lose its patience. 

This kind of hurricane occurs many times in the life of a teacher. It becomes difficult to make children understand certain points during teaching or we get fed up with continuous misbehaviour of certain children. This often leads us to lose patience. But what can we do is during this situation that we should not lose our temper and deal with that problem with a calm mind. Our actions reflect in front of the kids and they learn a lot from us. 

So we should be the true leader and stand firm and refuse to consider the possibility of failure because of losing patience. Courageous patience is the acid test of leadership. To encourage students or other colleagues and to instil confidence in them, to help them to perform at their best requires first of all that you lead by example. The second thing you can do to help alleviate the fears of failure and rejection in students is to encourage them to take calculated risks and allow honest mistakes. 

We should also learn to appreciate and keep a positive attitude with others. This is the key “Give the people who look up to you regular praise and approval.” Celebrate good tries as well as success, large and small. Create a psychological climate where everyone feels safe from censure, blame or criticism of any kind. A successful teacher needs to have a lot of patience. This can only be generated through positive thoughts and an optimistic attitude in life; only you can inspire people around you. In short, patience needs courage and courage comes from acting courageously on a day-to-day basis. Your personal development goal should be to practice the behaviours of a totally fearless person until you become, in your own mind, unstoppable.

Swabhi Parmar, The Fabindia School