Educating tomorrow’s stars_3

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. - Desmond Tutu

Family is a very important part of our lives. It’s like the backbone. They support us all the time and their love for us is beyond infinity. We at times don’t try and understand what they mean and why do they do some things which we don’t like. We should always try and understand them and their thoughts. Because of not understanding many children leave their parents and go away. Parents and children, both should realize that they have a responsibility towards each other which is equal.

Before the children came, I, my classmates and our supervisor Shaila ma’am planned about today’s session. We decided that we would teach the children about family and how family is important. We planned that we would make them do something fun and creative. We had decided that we would make them do palm painting and tell them to draw their family members on the fingers. I and my classmates worked collaboratively and collected the materials for this activity. As the children arrived, we made them sit in a circle and distributed the colorful sheets. After that we also distributes the plates which contained paint. I made my student to dip her hand in the paint and imprint it on the paper. It was great to see the happiness in her eyes while imprinting her hand. I could see that how fun it was for her to do this. As her hands dried, I made her understand that each finger represents your family member and you are supposed to draw your family members.

 As she was small and couldn’t understand the meaning of members, I had to ask her one by one that does she have a brother or a sister. As she told me I told her to draw them on the paper. As this was done, I tried to make her understand how important family is by giving an example of her body parts. That is how she would be incomplete if she didn’t have ears or tongue or nose or some other body part. I was happy that she understood a little about it. I realized that how important it is to have a family. There are many children in the world who have lost their family. Being a teacher to these children, I felt connected to them. I felt as if they were my children only and I am teaching them. The relationship of a teacher and a student is very important. And I felt that I did maintain this relationship with these children when I came to know that they do remember me and somewhere like me as a teacher. There was never a thought of them being poor, I felt that they were lucky as they did get a change to get educated through us. 

After the painting was done all of worked collaboratively and collected the papers and the art materials and kept it back in the class. We showed them a small video on the theme of family. As we told them that we are going to show them cartoon, they hopped here and there in excitement. I had to distract them by saying that if they sit quietly and watch the cartoon, we would give chocolates to them. Finally they calmed down, sat and watched the video. I’m not sure even if they understood it or know. But one thing I know is that they were really enjoying it.  It was a great challenge for me to handle the excitement of these children. I learned that how important is being a parent and how we should understand them. I also understood why parenting is so much important for our lives. Let’s hope I get to do something enjoyable in the next class.

Till then stay happy!