Quiz time for teachers
Aditi Mathur and Ratnesh Mathur
This is not your regular quiz – here, for each question/situation you need to choose two answers!
One that you normally do (or would have done) – this helps you to become aware of your current thinking (and beliefs). If what you do, spans many responses – choose many.
Second, choose a response that looks interesting, different – something that you would like to explore, experiment, and understand more. Your second response could be the same as your first.
So, here goes:
You get to know that a child has just lied to you, is hiding something, and not telling you the right thing.
- I tell the child that it is not good to lie and give a small talk to the whole class about honesty.
- I get upset and scold the child saying that I hate being told lies. I question her why she is doing so.
- I tell the child that my ‘trust’ has been broken and that I’m hurt. I express this in private.
- I tell that child that she must be fulfilling some need of hers and I would like to understand the needs so that together we can eliminate the need for anybody to lie to anybody.
A child complains that he is being bullied in school by other children.
- I will go and talk to the children who are bullying the child. If required I will take the help of the principal. This needs to be stopped immediately.
- Will tell the child – “Come on it is not a big deal. Stop fussing now. Learn to face such situations in life”. (Or I may ignore this situation)
- I will start by asking him to share his feelings and thoughts about this situation. Then I will ask the child what he or she would like to do? If he says, “I don’t know how” I will suggest that he think more about it and then we can discuss when he is ready.
- I talk to the child. I suggest how he can face such bullies. I give him a few options/strategies that will work. I might even share some of my personal experiences. I encourage/motivate him to fight back.
You want children in your class to grow into confident and assertive individuals.
- I encourage children to be assertive in every situation. I guide them on how they can behave in a situation. I give them positive strokes. I praise them to make them feel more confident.
- On a regular basis we discuss our days and each one of us expresses how our day/week was, where we were confident and where we were not and how we dealt with situations, sometimes passively, sometimes aggressively, and sometimes assertively and how each helped/did not and so on. To ensure discussions are open we avoid any right/wrong way of doing stuff.
- I show them examples of how others have been handling situations more confidently and assertively.
- I do activities that make them gain more confidence in themselves.
An official visitor to your school pulls a chubby child’s cheeks/hugs the child. You notice that the child is clearly uncomfortable with this physical contact.
- I tell the child (now or later) that it is alright for uncles and aunties to do this – they are only showing affection.
- I object to the visitor’s behaviour and stop him/her. I tell them that the child does not like this.
- I listen to how the child feels when people do such things. I will then ask the child what he would like to do about it. I take the help of all children in my class to think of many optional responses or ways of dealing with these situations. I will use this opportunity to empower all children to take care for their own safety.
- I normally scold the child right then and there – not to make faces, not to make a fuss, to acknowledge their affection. I apologize to the important visitor.
Some children find it difficult to do homework or have no interest in doing it. When questioned they express, “I am not good at writing/math, etc.”
- I listen to and acknowledge the child’s disinterest/challenges. I realize that motivation is something that has to come from inside the child. I let the child decide how she wants to move ahead on learning this and emphasize that I am with the child.
- I sit with the child to get homework done. I give extra attention so that she develops these important skills.
- I call the child’s parents. To me it is the parents’ responsibility to get this done. They can tutor the child (or seek external tutors) to help the child develop the required skills.
- I normally scold the child as being lazy. I get upset that she is spending too much time on other things like chatting and playing. I compare the child with other children who do their homework regularly.
A child is very angry/upset with a friend of hers and she is not talking to anybody and instead fighting with her friend.
- I think it is alright to feel what one feels. I acknowledge her feelings. I give her space to figure out how she wants to develop
her relationships with others. - I tell the child that her behaviour is unacceptable and inform her of dire consequences if she continues to behave like this.
- I tell the child what she should do – how she should deal with her friend and it is important to develop better social skills.
- Her (this kind of) behaviour irritates me very much. I expect the child to do things in a more responsible manner. I express my
irritation to her in many ways.
One child is very good at painting and likes to spend a lot of time at it.
- I am proud of this child. I show his work to everybody, put it up on the display board, etc. I am excited when this child wins
prizes in various painting competitions. - I tell the parents to put the child in various painting classes. I push the child to become a master; I wish he becomes the best.
- While I like his painting skills, I would like him to focus on his studies, move up on his grades – after all we need to think about his career. I talk about this to him and to his parents also.
- I acknowledge his skills and interest. I let him decide how much he wants to focus on painting and how much on other things. I let him decide when and what external workshop he wants to attend, if any.
You want to teach the children in your class the right values. You are also not sure what they are learning from their peers or from the media.
- I keep a check on the children in my class – what they are talking about, what kind of language they use, what kind of stuff they get from home, what they share, etc.
- Frankly I don’t bother about this too much – this is not my job! I am here to teach my subject. This is the parents’ job!
- I often talk to children about values like honesty, hard work, etc. I also tell them to stay away from ‘that kind of people’ and from stuff like alcohol, smoking, etc.
- I believe that children learn from their experiences. Hence, I create a space where we all can openly share what we valued in
any experience. I primarily solicit their views (without judging them or imposing my views) on various decision-making scenarios
– which is where values come into play.
What do you think is your role/objective as a teacher?
- To ensure that children get good education – they learn the subject(s) that I am teaching. Children get good marks.
- To ensure that children have a happy and safe childhood in my class and they grow into successful adults.
- To ensure that children like the subject. For this I put in extra effort to make my subject interesting and fun.
- To provide the child a respecting relationship and an environment in which the child can learn and grow the way the child wants to learn and grow.
Dear Reader
The idea of this quiz is to make you aware:
- That there are so many ways to respond to any situation/aspect of teaching.
- That while we may be aware of many of these – we may be doing things the way even we do not want to do (kind of habituated or conditioned response – that we don’t really like).
- That some of our beliefs are actually limiting our own children and it would do us good to look beyond them.
- That since we all want to be effective and ‘good’ teachers we need to proactively weed-out these stressful ways and replace them with more joyous ways of working with children in our classroom.
In the next issue – we will offer our explanation of each quiz question. Meanwhile, do discuss the situations and the responses in your staffroom!
The authors run an open unschool called Aarohi and invite all readers to visit and see how open learning can be an amazing way to work with children. They also conduct training retreats and online training for teachers and parents. Visit www.aarohilife.org.