We have grown up believing that the
student life is the most beautiful phase of life. It is the time when we got
introduced to the world and learnt the nuances of practical life. It is the
phase when we got best of our buddies, with whom we played, fought and
reconciled and then, through the rest of the life, have carried that nostalgia
of childhood friendship.
I remember, we used to have only two
sets of examinations in a year, the mid-term and final-term (half-yearly and
annual, in some schools) and rest of the year used to be a fun going to school
and colleges. We perhaps, used to look forward to next day, to hit the school.
I was so obsessed of going to school that I continued to go even when it was
only fifteen days for the board exam to begin and one of my senior teachers had
to counsel me, “beta, there is no
class happening now a days and you should study back home. Don’t worry, after
fifteen days, you will be back to school for writing exam”. The advice was so
comforting that I stayed back at home from the next day.
And today, when I see my college going
daughter dragging herself out of the bed, being sluggish while getting ready
for her classes everyday morning, I do curse her. “In your age, we used to be
so energetic, and look at yourself, at the age of sixteen, it seems you are out
of any enthusiasm!” She gives a blank look, brushes her teeth with equal
un-mindfulness and leaves her breakfast half-finished to drag herself out for
the college bus. “See, today again she is wasting food; she doesn’t even tell
me what she likes in breakfast; I will go mad with this girl; we have never
troubled our parents like this”, my wife curses her with equal fervour. This is
how, my ‘princess’ starts her day, and little we realise that during our time
these so called ‘IIT-JEE & Medical Coaching’ or rather ‘Capsule Courses’ were
non-existent and we had a happier teenage.
Normally, in these ‘Junior Colleges’
they promise you to prepare your kid to face the world of JEE Mains, JEE
Advanced, NEET, AIPMT, JIPMER…and the list is non-ending. The seats are not
guaranteed, rather what they guarantee is a tormenting two years for the child.
A horrific two years, after which only a few of them will make it to the premier
colleges and their pictures will appear in the admission brochures next year
and rest of all will be left half mad, heartbroken and down with guilt
conscience of spoiling parents’ hard-earned money.
These kids usually start their day at
five thirty in the morning, catches the college bus at six thirty, classes
start at seven thirty, each of one hour duration, one after another. There are
two breaks, one for snacks and one for lunch, during which also they are
supposed to revise their portions. They are confined inside the ‘twelve by
twelve’ rooms, without any windows, till five thirty in the evening (in some
colleges, it is till nine thirty in the evening). The rooms are so stuffy that
the air conditioning has to be kept running, all the time, irrespective of
ambient temperature. So, you will definitely find students with pullovers,
hoodies and runny noses because of their constant exposure to the artificial
weather in a confined environment. Remember, the college authorities will boast
that ‘all the classes are air-conditioned’. You will not know that they are
made airconditioned to bypass the need of windows, and any open window can
prove destructive to the students’ concentration! When the kids come back from
college, they have to start preparing for next day’s assessments, twice in a
week. Even on Mondays, there are mandatory tests, so that the kids cannot have
a recuperating time even on Sundays! Infact in some colleges, the first half of
Sundays are meant for revising the answer keys of the last test. The hostellers have an added brownie, their
lights are off at ten thirty at night, so that they sleep with math, physics,
chemistry or biology playing constant guitar in their subconscious delicate
minds. The number of holidays are also minimum, eventually I had to fight once
with the college authority for not declaring holiday on one of the major
religious festivities.
And, as parents, what do we expect of
our kids? We expect them to study harder, to do well in the weekly tests, to
sleep less, to eat properly, to not watch movies, to not read any fiction, to
not chat on Whatsapp with their friends and last but most importantly, to rank
high so as to bag a seat in a prestigious college, where we don’t need to pay huge
capitation fee. All these should happen when the kid remains happy, takes part
in our laughter, doesn’t show any irritability and makes the parents ‘happy’!! Experts
say that parents try to figure out their unfulfilled aspirations in their
children. But this analogy doesn’t hold good for the “Coaching Colleges”. The
kind of tuition fee (they say that those are payable in instalments) these
colleges charge, cannot come from parents who are devoid of good livelihood. So,
most of their career aspirations are fulfilled. Then what do they want to see
in their children? It’s more like, “I am good, you can be better”. The children
should outshine their parents in career. And hence, the parents pump in their
time, energy and money in making their children someone better. Aspirations and
expectations keep building up and eventually, the child ends up crushed in a
double-edged weapon, one edge being the parents’ expectations and the other
edge being the pressure of ‘engineer’ or ‘doctor’ making machines.
Then we curse those students who, out of
sheer frustration, ransacked such a college hostel in Hyderabad for not
allowing them to have one day leave to meet their parents. They have reportedly
not been allowed to go out of the college for almost two months. Those human
minds just wanted to go out of that captivity for some time and requested the
college authorities for a break. When denied, the delicate minds revolted and
ransacked the hostel. Really insensible on the part of the students! They should
have acted in a more civilized manner!
Physical and mental stress are bound to show
up. Some of the early warning signals are change in eating habits, nail biting,
abnormal failure or delay to complete everyday responsibilities, unusual desire
for social isolation, frequent lying, less than normal patience, restlessness,
irritability, more frequent or extreme pessimistic attitude, etc. These are
only suggestive manifestation and the list can be longer. Apart from these
emotional and behavioural symptoms, there may be physical and cognitive
symptoms like irregular bowel movement, irregular or missed periods, headache,
nausea, indigestion, impaired concentration, trouble in remembering things,
chronic worrying, etc. Watch out in your kid and if any of the symptoms is prevalent
and appears as unusal to you, it is the time to intervene. The Kid needs help
and as parent we can’t ignore that.
Then what can be done
to help the kid in this scenario? There may be a threefold approach to this
issue – the three most important parties in this game have to play crucial
roles. The three parties here are the teachers, the parents and the kid himself
or herself. The teachers of the coaching colleges are the most important
building block and can make or break the child. Says Shri Harimohan Paruvu, a
noted writer, management coach and an ex-cricketer, “anything that forces people to do things resentfully, I feel, is an
uncreative method. It is the laziest way of doing things. To threaten, force is
the easiest way for a person in power. But the real idea of empowerment
is to make them feel like they want to do it. In companies and in schools and
colleges people should be facilitated to want to do things. To listen to
them, to understand their needs and their limitations, and then create a space
where they willingly learn and push their boundaries, is the challenge.
Only a creative teacher, someone who loves his wards and his craft, can do
that. When students rise in protest against the teachers, it shows that
they have lost the connect and the respect. That the teachers are not
listening and understanding. That they are simply pushing and using
excessive force and authority. For me, it's time for the teacher to go
back to the drawing board and learn to listen, to understand the purpose , the
why of he is there.” This statement reminds me of the character of Ram
Shankar Nikumbh in the movie Taare Zameen
Par, played by Aamir Khan. As a teacher, his empathy with his student, was
of highest level, as he had also passed through a difficult time as a student.
This empathy can be the winning factor for the teacher. Please don’t treat your
students as machines in the making, rather just put yourself in their shoes and
moderate your teaching style. Be a friend of your class rather than becoming ‘Dr
Viru Sahastrabuddhe’, alias, the ‘virus’. I know that you teachers are master
in your own fields and I don’t have the audacity of suggesting you. But as a
parent, this is my request to the community of teachers – be a friend of my
ward.
I was going through a
very interesting article in newspaper, a few days back. It says that in
advanced countries, they have started special course for students to teach them
how to face failures. These life skills teach them of setbacks and struggles
and how to keep floating in such challenges. Here too, the colleges, which run
on a ‘high pressure-high performance atmosphere’, definitely need special
counselling classes by resource persons, atleast, once in a week. Team building
exercises help individuals in learning life situations in a group environment and
the ways of overcoming challenges. These team exercises must be made part of
the curriculum with expert intervention.
The next building
block, is, we, the parents. And while doing the first thing first, let us not
try to make our child, that, which we failed to be! On parenting tips, says the
profound mystic and yogi, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, “Just allow him to grow, allow his intelligence to grow and help him
look at life on his own terms, as a human being”. We, the parents, sometimes,
lose this perspective and tend to throw the child in the face of unfruitful
comparisons, ‘if the other boy can get it, why not you?’ And this comparison
makes the world so very difficult for the child. He can neither face the
failure with dignity, not he can face his friend, who is doing better in exams.
While writing this part, I am strongly feeling a sense of guilt in me. I
remember the blank and blunt look of my daughter, whenever we have tried to ask
her the similar questions, ‘if your friend can get it, why not you?’. Poor
girl, she doesn’t have answers to these foolish questions!
The key for the parent is to, again,
be friend of the child and limit the expectations. The world is not limited to
only class tests or securing a seat in an engineering or medical college. While
we have to constantly encourage the kid to deliver the best, at the same time,
we have to acknowledge the fact that every exam cannot be the same. In some
tests the kid will do well, in some, not so well. That’s the fact of life and
our maturity lies in accepting this.
Last but not the least, the child
needs to be understood that syllabus, exam and a seat is not everything in
life. While all these are important for the future well-being, but none of these
is indispensable for becoming a good and successful human being. The mantra to
survival and winning this battle is “take it easy and give your best”. Dear young
girls and boys, consciously practice to have plenty of sleep, as not getting
enough sleep impairs academic performance and makes it harder to get through
the day. Secondly, research has shown that positive thinking improves physics
well-being, produces lower feelings of depression and produces lover levels of
distress. So, stay positive.
You guys need to have a stress outlet.
This could be anyone or anything, like a social activity to go out or
participate in some sports or finding a hobby or joining an activity class. In
addition to this, fifteen minutes a day, engage in some relaxation techniques.
This can include things like slowly counting to ten, meditation, positive
visualization or playing with a stress ball.
Don’t forget to talk to someone and
please keep in mind that your parents are your best friends and they can come
in handy at any point when you find it difficult to sail through. So, talk to
them. Your parents love you unconditionally, only sometime, like normal human
beings, they also feel stressed. So, next time, when you feel as if inside a
pressure cooker, hug your father, dig your face on his chest and whisper to
him, “papa, I can’t. I can’t take this anymore and need your help to cope up”.
You will see the miracle, that together, you and your parents can create magic
so that one day you will bounce back and shout, “yes, I did it, papa and ma”.
All the best !!
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