Happiness and Tolerance - Roopa Bhattacharyya

We, as educators, have to make a happy class. Extract from the child what we want. I have not had any such experience of an unhappy child or an intolerant student in my teaching career. However, if I did, I would do the following:

UNHAPPY STUDENT

1. If I find an unhappy child in my class. I will first examine the child’s behaviour under the Johari Window, as shown below. 

JOHARI WINDOW

2. Adults may have a primarily hidden self as they can play act through life – pretending to be happy when they are not. But a child cannot do so. Therefore the child is unhappy because of one of the following reasons or a combination of the following reasons:

A) Circumstances at home

B) Circumstances in the classroom

I. Behaviour of classmates

II. Behaviour of some other teachers

III. Behaviour of self (class teacher)

3. So, the first thing I have to do is examine my own behaviour to see whether I am making the child unhappy. If this is not the case, I have to closely interact and interview the child (in the most friendly manner possible) to pinpoint the root cause of the child’s unhappiness, whether it is because of the classmates/ some other teacher or domestic issues or a combination of two/three of the above reasons.

4. Having pinpointed the root cause/causes, I have to take the following actions:

A) Change my own behaviour (if that was a contributing cause

B) Council the parents if the circumstances at home were a contributing cause

C) Council the subject teacher if they were a contributing cause

D) Interact with classmates if they were a contributing cause and device

activities/games where the classmates will be enthused /invigorated to co-opt the subject child in the games/activities.

Educators can also act accordingly for an unhappy child.

INTOLERANT STUDENT

Let us try and understand what and who is an intolerant child. An impatient child believes that they are right and all others are wrong. This kind of a belief can emanate from one of the following reasons:

1. A psychological/ philosophical belief that propagates supremacist behaviour.

2. Delusional belief that I am always right.

3. Nurture by the parents to believe that their child is always right.

4. A self-defence mechanism to overcome adverse situations where the child starts off by believing that they are always right, and then it becomes a part of their nature.

As a teacher, I have to first pinpoint the root cause of this behaviour to overcome this. However, what happens in real life is the following:

A) Withdrawal – the teacher avoids the student's behaviour and takes no action.

B) Smoothing – the teacher emphasises areas of mutual acceptance and tries to create a healthy and conducive environment within the classroom.

C) Compromising – the teacher tries to compromise between the intolerant child and their victims. This makes the situation within the classroom more conducive.

D) Forcing – the teacher forces a solution to the conflict situation because they have to get on with the teaching.

NONE OF THE ABOVE ACTUALLY SOLVES THE PROBLEM/ISSUE. THESE ARE, AT BEST TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS.

E) Confrontation – the teacher interacts and interviews the child to discover the root cause of their behaviour. Then the teacher addresses this issue and removes the root cause.

The choice in front of teacher #1. Confrontation #2. Compromising #3. Smoothing #4. Forcing /Withdrawal

Educators can also act accordingly for an intolerant child.

Roopa Bhattacharyya
Ahlcon Public School
JOL Cohort 2022