What’s wrong with our teachers?

Media reports say the student was trembling at the end of her punishment, and that she was too scared to speak up and tell the teacher about her legs giving way. She did not tell the teacher anything for the rest of the day as well.

Despite corporal punishment being banned we have seen teachers mete out harsh punishments like sit ups for young students whose bodies cannot withstand physical pressure. PIC/ISTOCK

In no way can the teen be deemed responsible for the incident — but the biggest question raised is, why the lack of awareness and vocabulary among students to advocate for themselves? Students need to know that they can speak up for themselves beyond just basics like going to the toilet and feeling unwell, to instead advocate for themselves against corporal punishment.

Swati Popat Vats, president of Early Childhood Association (ECA) and Association for Preparatory Education & Research (APER), is often the go-to person for teachers and educators who need help and don’t know where to turn. “I have long been asking the education board to include neuroscience in the training of the Bachelors in Education,” she says. What has neuroscience got to do with teaching children? “Studies in this field have shown that when you discipline a child in any shape or form when imparting knowledge or wanting to encourage behavioural changes in them, corporal punishment doesn’t work!” she insists.

Vats seems exasperated with the lack of inclusion and why a heavy-handed approach has never worked for students; understandably so, given the data behind her statement. One of the reports that provided the data was “Corporal Punishment and Elevated Neural Response to Threat in Children,” published by researchers from Harvard University in 2021.

One of the workshops on child self-advocacy being conducted in Nirmala Niketan college

The study looked at 147 children, using MRI assessment, and found that children who had been spanked had a higher activity response in the areas of their brain that regulate emotional responses and detect threats, even to facial expressions that most would consider non-threatening.

The lead researcher on the study, Jorge Cuartas, a professor at Harvard University, observes in the study that spanking elicits a similar response in children’s brains to more threatening experiences like sexual abuse. “You see the same reactions in the brain,” Cuartas explains. “Those consequences potentially affect the brain in areas often engaged in emotional regulation and threat detection, so that children can respond quickly to threats in the environment.”

Rose (name changed) is a 24-year-old school counsellor in Mumbai, and even though she has been one for a year, she quit her first school counsellor job within a few months. The reason? “A girl in class 9 was having a mental breakdown. I didn’t want her to go back to her classroom immediately. I wanted her to come with me to my office and get a chance to regulate, but my incharge at the time told me something like ‘We don’t have time for this, you need to go back to class and get on with the day’,” she says and after seeing the girl to the classroom she felt miserable and had a crisis of faith in her vocation, “I couldn’t help but ask myself ‘What am I doing here?’,” adds Rose.

In a few months, Rose quit the school and joined her current school, where she says she has to share an office with the special education teacher. “I don’t even have designated space as a counsellor where the student can come and vent without having anyone else in the room,” she says. “One or the other of us has to step out.” We can’t do this all the time; we need to speak to other children, and we have administrative work,” she adds. Rose and her colleague have now reiterated their demand for separate offices, but the administration has responded that, due to ongoing construction work in the school, this might not happen anytime soon.

This lack of privacy seems to be a running theme in schools where teachers, especially principals and supervisors, do not understand the importance of giving a child space to sort out their feelings. “Most counsellors’ offices have glass walls or doors and provide no privacy for a child who might be crying about an issue with us,” she adds. This often discourages a student from taking up counsellors on their open-door policy, “For most schools, counsellors or any mental health resource seems to be just a box to tick so that they don’t lose ranking with the education department,” she adds.

Swati Popat Vats

Although the state government has not given out a single mandate asking schools to compulsorily keep one on staff, the directives had begun as far back as 2006. In 2020, the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP) only stressed the importance of having one. This, along with the figures released by  UDISE+ (Unified District Information System for Education), pointed out that only 375 counsellors are available across Maharashtra’s state board schools —this roughly translates to just one counsellor per 60,000 students.

Lata J Punathil, 62, was In charge of IIT Bombay Kindergarten School  and has been a educator for 33 years. Punathil, like many early child educators, talks about the empathetic approach that sets the tone for many students. “Not only the teacher and student but also parents deserve empathy as some problems may lead to parental issues at home which will need attention. An increased workload for teachers and over crowded classrooms may lead to unwarranted situations. Teachers too should be alert and lookout for warning signals displayed by the child and resolve it before it could escalate,” she says.

Tasneem Dohadwalla, the Middle school coordinator at Fazlani L’ Academie Globale in Mazgaon, points out that a 10-minute delay by the student should not be an issue that resulted in such a severe punishment. “As teachers, we must understand the ‘What and Why’ behind a child’s actions I would have asked the teacher to think about asking the question, ‘Why  was their child late by 10 minutes? Was she not happy to come to school? Was she scared of something? Is something happening at home? This must be our first thought,” she says.  Dohadwalla encourages her teachers to also engage with the child after they have had time to calm down.

Preeti Pasricha headmistress, Lata Jagdeesh early child educator and Zeb

“The child is already anxious that they are late, not done their work, whatever the situation might be — so I ask the teachers to give the time to take a breather, and then maybe in the break strike a conversation to further comfort the child , also helping them reflect and positively encouraging them,  a small incentive could go a long way at times .. example ‘if you come on time tomorrow’, we could play together during break time. It’s smooth and easy it’s not confrontational,” she adds.

Dohadwalla has been using the mantra ‘connect not correct’ with her teachers to rein in the human tendency to often feels punitive to a young mind and heart.  Teachers have been increasingly seeing a drastic increase in administrative work than ever before. The need to document every interaction, be it with a student or a teacher has become one of the ways in which schools are ensuring that everything is on the record in case things take a turn for the worse. This has especially come at the cost of many teachers’ mental health, adding to what many teachers during the course of conversations referred to as a ‘thankless’ job.

Preeti Pasricha, Primary Head Mistress at C P Goenka International School Thane, “Though as teachers we get tired of documentation putting everything down on email or the internal system, it is always good, it helps to document your meeting with child and parent. Minuting is always better, and it ensures clear communication between all,” she says. “At the same time, our golden rule is talk less listen more, it’s the best way of communication. We ask our teachers to be empathetic, and that if they scream, nothing they say will matter anyway,” she adds.

Nikita (Zeb), 28, has an MA in clinical psychology and a post-graduate degree in family and couple therapy, and has been practising for five-and-a-half years. She admits that let alone children but even parents have no concept of self-advocacy. “Very few schools have been able to provide the language of self-advocacy, although a lot of young counsellors who I work with tell me that they want to but the school system is very rigid and its very hard for them to create a space where any new concepts can be introduced because the schools are punitive driving or are afraid that a child’s parent might not receive the change in syllabus well, leading to clashes,” she says. This also tells Zeb that is the reason they have stayed away from school counselling, “I had a supervisee who is a school counsellor come and tell me that a student wanted to speak to them but when the teacher overheard that she something to the effect that ‘Why do you want to go to the counsellor? Come and tell me what the issue is. This is a school in Mumbai, but the kid didn’t seem to be comfortable speaking to the teacher. Finally, the teacher said that if you go to counselling, you will miss out on the period, and then you will have to make it up on your own,” she adds.

Nikita (Zeb) often believes that the way forward is that the schools have to understand that counsellors don’t just work for the students but teachers too. “Schools have to understand that they cannot be as rigid as they are; we want schools to let us talk to parents and, of course, teachers as well. This will be for everyone, and it cannot be looked at as something they ‘have to do’. Holistic therapy that addresses the lack of empathy is crucial for all parties involved, especially the child,” she adds.

As we speak about the importance of arming the children with the language of self-advocacy, we can’t help but think of the American educator Mister Rogers, whose show in the United States did just that for many Americans across race and genders for 33 years — ‘Nobody knows what you’re thinking or feeling unless you tell them’.

How do you report a teacher?

Santosh Shinde

Santosh Shinde, who has been a child rights activist for the last 20 years says that there is no vocabulary in the normal schooling system by which a student can address mistreatment via teachers. “There is no language of self-advocacy. The child is labelled as trouble maker or someone who can’t respect their elders/teachers or has a “problem with authourity if they say that a teacher is disrrespectng them or challenging their physical or mental autonomy in anyway,” he says.

Shinde is currently doing workshops with students including colleges like Nirmal Niketan where the conditioning trickles into. “In the workshops we are hoping that children understand if any kind of odd behaviour is happening toward them from the teacher they have the full right to stand up and bring it to the notice of the school and parents too need to be told that this can be done,” he adds.

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