Role of Teachers In The Transitory Years Of A Child’s Academic Life

All parents remember the first time, their daughter or son holds their finger. Our heart is wrapped in their fist from that very moment. So how can it be easy for a child to leave that finger and spend even a few hours with complete strangers away from home?

The first transition – the move from home to the school

Preparation is key.Parents have to start preparing the child for school much before school years actually begin. I’m sure most parents take their children to parks but quite a few cannot leave their child alone on the greens. They must tag along on the merry-go-round or sit in the adjacent swing. If the space isn’t available, they must at least push the seat where their princess or prince is enthroned. They must follow every curve of the slip-and-slide or a maze and definitely run behind their bikes. Parents need to let children play on their own with minimal intervention. Sit back and watch your child make friends. Be there if they need help but do not cripple them with your eagerness to assist. They are more capable and independent than you give them credit. Once they adapt to spending time independently with their peer group in a park, they will be better prepared to spend time in a classroom with other munchkins of their size.

Similarly, most young parents are more focused on force-feeding their child an entire meal or all the water in their sippy cup. They run behind the child trying to get the tiny tot to take just one more bite. Stop spoon-feeding, literally and metaphorically!

Let the child learn to eat and sleep independently. Do not let them run around. Leave the plate and water and let the child come to it. The child will cry and throw tantrums – be strong. This is where your discipline is being tested – ace the challenge. Do not give up, my dear parent body. And most importantly, make them adopt one hour of self study time every day. Take away the distractions and give them a colouring pad or join the dots activities. These activities will be the strongest connect the child will have between his/her home and the school room when you leave the child there.

What can teachers do to help? If you are a pre-school or nursery teacher, insist on a parent orientation as early as possible before the child begins school. Tell them everything mentioned above and set the expectation that in the first days of school, the child may be irritable. She/he may vomit, may have psychosomatic symptoms such as headaches and stomach aches. They may make up wild stories of how they are treated at school. Teach parents to take it all in their stride.

Once the child is ready to enter the gates of a school building, stand there to welcome the new ones. Welcome them to their second home. After all, they call you mother teachers for a reason.

Primary classrooms are colourful and exciting. Teachers are called Mother Teachers and the curriculum move from art and craft to swimming, napping and story time. What’s not to love? Give them a day or two. Soon, they will be regaling you with stories from the classroom which will make no sense to you but their joy will be palpable. From one rung of the ladder to the next, for about five years, life will be a bed of roses for them. And then, everything will change.

Second transition – from Primary to Middle School

It is tough for children to move from Primary to Middle School. The classrooms have cream or pale yellow walls which sport undecipherable quotes on pastel – yes, pale pastel – chart papers. Even the chairs no longer bring rainbows into the room. Friends do not sit together and teachers suddenly begin to scold for the most innocuous reasons. What’s worse is that naptime disappears from the curriculum as silently as a bubble falling untouched on the ground. And to top it all, teachers assign pages and pages of homework. It is an extremely confusing time for the child. Parents have to begin talking about middle school about a year in advance. In Grade IV, tell them they have just a couple of years to be a ‘big girl’ or a ‘big boy’of middle school. In Grade V, tell them they look more grown up and mature now. Teach them to be curious and tell them middle school will answer many of the questions floating in their young minds. Teach them to love reading by making them pick out bed time story books. And most importantly, make them adopt one hour of self study time every day.

When children are unable to understand the task assigned as homework, help them out but do not do the task for them. Do not cripple them before they even learn to walk. Give them hints and explanations but the pencil or pen must never leave the child’s hand.

What should teachers do in their case? Teachers have a very important role to play during this transitional intersection. The child has left a mother at home and mother teachers of the previous classes to place their faith in you. Love them, nurture them and guide them but do not pamper. Just as you would play with your child, play with your students. A teacher Ms. Isha Chaddha at my school became Pinocchio for her students by entering the class with a long paper nose on her face. Imagine the children’s joy and eagerness to know what she was up to. She turned the paper nose into a paper plane. As she set it off in the class, whosoever’s desk it landed on became the next Pinocchio. What a fun way to introduce a lesson!

I caution you against using animated videos too much. Teachers of middle school do so when trying to compensate for the joyful primary school. However, the idea is not to make them intellectually lethargic and dependent on someone’s else’s image of a character or story. Instead, bring music into your classroom. Find a song that goes with each lesson you teach regardless of the subject. If Sheldon Cooper can turn the periodic table into a fun song, you can find one that resonates with your field of expertise. Make them good listeners by giving them tasks associated with the song such as drawing the first image that comes to mind using only geometric shapes, or writing the song in the form of a story or using the song to identify grammatical concepts. Music creates listeners and allows the ears to lead the imaginative brain into new horizons.

Grade VI teachers have to find that crucial balance between what the child has left behind and what they will encounter in the next year. You are extremely important to this child’s learning curve my dear teachers. Discipline is crucial at this stage. You must teach them to obey rules and respect their elders; however, you cannot expect the child to be quiet in class if you shout at them. So slow down, take a minute, talk to that naughty one, and help them understand why it is important that they be quiet. They will remember to be quiet the next time as well.

I always advise my fellow HODs to give grade VI to the warmest teachers. Make the classroom joyful and bright like your personality. Your warmth can bring back the sunshine into the child’s classroom regardless of the insipid furniture or dull walls. After all, in three years, they must go through another transition – middle to senior school.

The third transition – an amalgamation of the mind, body and heart

As teenage hits, so do hormones. Puberty may have come for some and may be delayed for others. While the body is going crazy trying to keep track of the changes, the heart starts feeling the first pangs of attraction and the mind turns body image an obsession. Without proper guidance, this is the transition which can either make or break children’s evaluation of their own self. Become friends, but not too friendly.

Parents and teachers have to be extra cautious. Keep an eye without being intrusive. Parents and teachers must be constant team members with the welfare of the child being their common topmost priority. Respect your child’s privacy but know all their friends. Study their body language, dear parents. No one knows them like you do. But do not try to put chains on their feet for they will renege and rebel. Instead, try to recall your youthful errors. Draw the line and tell them exactly what you will just not accept; in other words, teach them to be adventurous within reason. If you have given them your values; tell them clearly that you expect them to uphold those. Give them lots of inspirational stories to read. Encourage them to journal but dont read! Emotional health is as important as physical health.

Sometimes, children go off track despite the parent’s best efforts. Do not be afraid to seek help. Educational counselors and psychiatrists need not be a shameful secret; rather a healthy and timely cure to a problem which has not yet turned into a disaster.

What teachers can do? Many teachers cannot even fathom how they can change a child’s life in this phase of their young lives. Teachers can become role models with just the right combination of playfulness and discipline.

In many schools, at each of the transitional stage discussed above, the child often comes from different sections to a new section. This is usually done by the school faculty to break the notorious groups and teach children to adapt to new people outside their comfort zones. However, we often forget to take into account all the other changes the child is experiencing. Devote the first two days to fun activities and help the children get to know each other. Some such activities are suggested below:

• • tête-à-tête: Children sit with someone they do not know in class yet and interview them. The partners then introduce each other to the class.
• Mirror activity: Pairs stand at various places in the class and mimic each other’s actions by turns, as if one was a mirror for their partner. Encourage them to make faces and go crazy with gestures.
• Throwball: Get your students to form a circle. Next, take a sponge football and throw it to one of the children taking their name. This child will throw it to the next and take their name. The game continues till all the children are covered. It’s a great way to know the names of new classmates.
• Blindfold Parity: Ask three or four students to put on blindfolds and stand side by side. Ask them questions which resonate with each new child in the class (such as are you worried you will not be able to make many friends this year? Do you miss your friends from last year? Are you nervous about the level of studies this year?). For each question, ask them to take a step to the left if the answer is yes, and to the right if the answer is no. You will notice that most of the children will take steps in the same direction. Afterwards, point that out to the class and tell them they all have the same concerns so they can help each other out.

As they grow up, students remember teachers who loved them like genuine parents and disciplined them like genuine parents. Teach children to be confident more than you teach them to be toppers. Teach them to find the best in themselves and in those around them.

Give the same training to the parents as well. Parents tend to focus on the highest scorer of the class, the best dancer, the best singer and so on. If everyone was the best, the word itself would lose its importance. Teach them to find the best within their child and to polish it to a shine. For one moment, let us assume that there is a child who isn’t interested in anything nor motivated to try. This child is the true test of your skills, dear teacher. If you can take this apparent lump of coal and find the diamond beneath, you have paid the gurudakshina of all your teachers. Nothing is the end of the road. Every child finds their space under the sun. Teach them to seek their place eagerly. Stephen Spender said, “History is theirs whose language is the sun.”

If you are a preschool or nursery teacher, insist on a parent orientation as early as possible before the child begins school. Once the child is ready to enter the gates of the school building, stand there to welcome the new ones. Welcome them to their second home. After all, they call you mother teachers for a reason.

Bring music into your classroom. Find a song that goes with each lesson you teach regardless of the subject. If Sheldon Cooper can turn the periodic table into a fun song, you can find one that resonates with your field of expertise. Make them good listeners by giving them tasks associated with the song. Music creates listeners and allows the ears to lead the imaginative brain into new horizons.

Students remember teachers who loved them like genuine parents and disciplined them like genuine parents. Teach children to be confident more than you teach them to be toppers. Teach them to find the best in themselves and in those around them.

Geetanjali Mukherjee has been associated with the training industry since the last fifteen years. She began her career with the corporate world and has been associated with renowned schools such as Bluebells School International and Tagore International School. She has served as the Head of the English Department since the last five years.