'क्योंकि.. . डर के आगे जीत है!'
By Dr. Nandkishore Rathi | Published on Nov 20, 2018
Good teacher is the one who is effective in teaching and is knowledgeable about the
subject matter. But despite good teachers why some students do so poorly in their
academics? This may possibly be for 2 reasons: (1). The student in question may be a
non-academic type (more practical type), and (2). He doesn't take the study-part of
the school so seriously. But despite all this, he has to secure marks at least to
pass the exams.
Today, we say that students have lots of stress, and that's true. Please refer the
image below from the Common-Wealth conducted survey in cities and counties around
Taiwan, from 2500 junior high school students.
![stress](../assets/img/articles-images/main-source-stress.png)
You will observe that 67% stress is due to exam & parent pressure, and merely 6.9% is on account of Teacher's Demands. Now, refer the following image from the same source.
![conduct classes](../assets/img/articles-images/class-conducted-teachers.png)
You will observe that 80% teaching happens through lecture-method; may be with an objective of 'syllabus completion'. Now, look at the following 2 images (Image courtesy: https://goo.gl/Lx4xVy and https://goo.gl/bt3xUs)
![stress level](../assets/img/articles-images/level-stress.png)
![performance pressure](../assets/img/articles-images/pressure-performance.png)
This indicates that if a student is only 'pressurized' by parents, exams and marks, they may develop high anxiety, depression or violent behavior. This is because no one is working on the solution (by taking the specific needs of the student into account). But despite having an effective teacher, many students are not doing well, probably because; the teacher cannot be so 'individualized/customized' in their teaching approach. Thanks to those schools that are trying to address this.
This indicates that if a student is only 'pressurized' by parents, exams and marks, they may develop high anxiety, depression or violent behavior. This is because no one is working on the solution (by taking the specific needs of the student into account). But despite having an effective teacher, many students are not doing well, probably because; the teacher cannot be so 'individualized/customized' in their teaching approach. Thanks to those schools that are trying to address this.
- Type-1 Parent:The School Needs to Make My Child Excel but Without Exerting Any Pressure/Stress on Them (as they pay hefty fee).
- Type-2 Parent: They Neither Want High Marks, Nor the Child to be Scolded/ Pressurized for the Same.
- Type-3 Parent: Highly Demanding with an Authoritarian and Watch-dog Approach towards Their Child and School to Make them Excel at Any Cost.
Before concluding, I would like to recall Aamle Sir from Zilla Parishad High School
in a small town in Maharashtra, where I studied till 10th Std. He was our Maths
teacher. His teaching methodology was ''extreme passion" and expectation was "High
Attention". He was very loud, energetic and use to move in the entire class (of 60
students) back-n-forth. Most importantly: he use to teach a concept followed by 2-3
examples with intense approach. After this, he use to write a problem on the board
and ask a random student to solve/describe the steps. If a student is not able to
answer, he use to give nicely on the delicate palm with a wooden Camlin 12"scale.
Though I did not like him during those days, and don't advocate his hitting-part at
all, the fact is "I use to have goose-bumps, whenever we use to have his class. All
the students use to come well-prepared for his class. I feel, he has done justice to
his job and our learning.
Even if we go by the above research-based findings, some stress needs to be
induced among students to make them pay attention & be alert about the
topic being taught for the learning to be effective. Some call them as Bad-Teacher
(I use to call Aamle sir a Danger-Teacher - with all due respect). I feel,
such Bad Teachers should be welcomed by parents, at least for
not-so-motivated, and cool kind of students. We need to have teachers who can
generate enough stress to move them from "Sleep Mode" to "Alert-n-Attentive
Mode".
Since, teachers are experts of teaching techniques and child psychology, they are more effective in inducing positive stress than others. Secondly, teachers have more influence on students than parents in this regard. Thirdly, this activity has more impact in a classroom-setting than in a home environment.
So, can the parents be more realistic about their expectations from their
child (as per their abilities and interests), and can we empower schools and
teachers to demanding and let them do what best suits the
child?
Disclaimer: The 'quality & effectiveness of teaching' is a very vast topic. I just tried to highlight a small part of it, applicable only to a small cross-section of students. The views expressed are my personal and not of my organization).