Curriculum, habits support personality development?
CHILD education is not the sole responsibility of schools where parents are paying fee but requires the equal partnership of students, teachers and parents more than before due to the sudden shift from onsite to online classes.
Constant modification in the curriculum with the provision of modified topics and strategies to meet such unprecedented situations like Covid-19 along with the proper care of student’s mental health not only because of the increased screen time but also the psychological/behavioural disorders as many families have suffered on a different level.
It is very important to re-visit the main purpose of the equation and to prepare our students for the future.
Are we teaching our students all these things? Are our curriculum modified to meet the following needs? Do we as parents alert about the following areas of development of child’s personality?
Soft Skills are personal characteristics that affect how well you can work or interact with others.
These skills make it easier to form relationships with people, create trust and dependability, and work as a team player.
We as educationalists and parents must be conscious about developing these skills in our children as the future is all about soft skills.
Communication, Organization, Teamwork, Critical thinking, Social skills, Creativity, Interpersonal communication and Adaptability are must to incorporate in school curriculum too.
I suggest all these must be taught as a separate subject at the university level.
This will not only make our children ready to compete on a national but international level as well.
Job recruiters are now more interested in these skills in candidates than degrees alone. Love for Books: Reading just for the sake of passing exams and not enjoying the actual essence of the reading is fruitless.
We need to inculcate the love of reading in our child’s routine by developing daily habits as parents, starting as bedtime stories to making book club and so on.
Also, as educationists, we must work on how to make it interesting for our students to read books, by relating them to different true stories or by showing the real application of literature in the books.
Reading dares you to grow, it allows you to experience multiple realities, it challenges your perspective, it helps you remember, it helps you forget, it means you don’t have to be alone; it brings life.
Academic integrity: Online classes and assessment has made us realize that why we did not teach our kids academic integrity? When they simply cut, copy and paste the entire papers and not bothering to analyze the concepts and reading literature and findings of others and then developing own understanding.
It is very important to teach them to show the commitment to and demonstration of truthful and ethical behaviour in an academic setting. it also relates to providing recognition to other people when using their ideas.
Intra-culture respect: with increased exposure and where we are preparing our kids for the world but not only for our society, it is important to develop respect for other cultures.
People are not always wrong but are different. Respecting others opinion not only bring peace in communication but also open your mind for new learning and perspectives.
Increasing trend of students applying to different universities all over the world, as parents and educationists developing respect for others’ culture and opinion it should now be an integral part of our teaching and learning. Most of our schools are working on it by adding values as a part of their curriculum.
Do not be afraid of failure: As failure brings the opportunity to try with a new angle, and this time it is not from the start but with experience in your hand.
Life is not a race, there is no competition. It’s a journey where it is more important to enjoy the process instead of fighting to reach to end.
We as a parent and as teachers must work on this behaviour of students to face the failure and to come back with new planning and strategies instead of letting the failure affect the life leading to depression and other psychological problems.
Our Curriculum and regular habits must involve regular talks where children feel free to share everything so that proper guidance can be provided before it will be too late.
—The writer is an educationist based in Islamabad.
