A child falls from his chair accidentally, and a guffaw emerges from the packed classroom. This is a common reminiscence in such an incident. However, the thing to observe is how many extended hands come forward and help the fallen child regain his composure, or even to ask solemnly, “I hope all is fine…?” That is what determines the compassion quotient of the classroom. Compassion is an essential factor for the promotion of a congenial teaching-learning atmosphere in the classroom. This type of classroom is conducive to the exchange of ideas, collaboration, and integrated work; diversified yet not divisive.
Now the question arises, how can a classroom be made perennially compassionate? The following are some of the strategies:
1. Going by Role modelling: A teacher is a role model for a student in a class, as a parent is at home. She must exercise restraint on her emotional vents with her students. The teachers’ community should show integrity towards a basic human need as compassion, by being compassionate towards each other in their way of day-to-day conduct. Setting an example through themselves would be worth hundreds of words of preaching.
2. Exchanging pleasantries: A teacher can make the day of her students worthwhile by greeting them personally one by one and at the same time asking about their well-being right in the morning. This small investment of time will not only set the tone of the day for the students but will help the mentors, too, to be acquainted with their emotional state regularly.
3. Morning meetings and circle times: These activities right in the morning are highly appreciated by the students. The ritual of sitting in a circle in the background of soothing music for being in touch with their psychic energies is the essence of such meetings. Further, the most pressing issues of the students can be dealt with through games, activities, videos, and discussions. Some essential values fit for a particular age group can also be transcended through the above activities without sounding preachy.
4. Conflict Resolution: The way a child deals with conflicts can affect the environment of his classroom. At times, a child thinks that complaining is the only solution to resolve even the minutest conflicts. This way his immune system for conflict resolution becomes weak, and this tendency is likely to infect the whole group as well. A child should be equipped with the strategies to unknot the day-to-day tricky situations, amicably and without severing her relationships with her friends.
5. Listening out and reaching out to family: Invariably, the behaviour of the child is tied up to his family background, thus, it is important to keep the family members, parents, and guardians too in the loop by having casual meetings with them throughout the year. These interactions can be made interesting for the guardians by discussingthe special abilities of their wards. An added facility of familial guidance and counselling by experts should also be provided whenever needed.
6. Sharing and caring for society: In today’s nuclear family orientation and social constraints in general, children get fewer chances to investigate the problems plaguing the lives of people around them. Schools and teachers can bridge this gap and help students reach out to various communities around them, whom they can help by sharing whatever they have in abundance, tangible and intangible.
Thus, by observing the above points, we can hope to weave the threads of compassion tightly together in a vibrant class in an endeavour to make learning a reckoning force.