BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE...

GURUKUL, The first Indian education system dating back to around 5000 BC, with the foundation of strong emotional bond between student and teacher, not focusing only on memorizing information but on the holistic development (mental, physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual) of the child. The aim was to develop student’s human values such as self-reliance, emotions management, empathy, creativity, morals and ethics which will help to solve real-life problems….

Let’s see where we have landed up from such a wonderful and well-thought education system of our own. The current system was designed way back in 1830s where science and mathematics became the focus and rest all were deemed unnecessary. Parents start focusing on grades and competitive exams to be in the mainstream with very little focus on the holistic development of children. In last 75 years of independence we have developed significantly as a nation in most of the areas except education. As citizens we have focused on many as aspects but not done much about the education system…Why? What are we waiting for?

The challenges faced by the youth definitely indicate that something is missing in first 21 years of their learning. Their inability to cope with the changes around them, finding their own identity in the complex social and profession setup, building and sustaining meaningful relationships and taking their own responsible decisions are few among the many things…

Who is responsible and accountable for this? Our education system or Parents?

Let’s not forget parents are the part of the education system and society. What are we doing about developing their social and emotional skills (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, decision making, and building relationship skills)? How much investment we are making towards their Social Emotional Learning (SEL)??? What are we doing differently?

There is a mention of integrating SEL in new National Education Policy but the implementation is in initial stage across different states…Now, shall we wait for the system to change or be the change we want to see? Where do we start?

There is enough and more information about SEL on internet with activities, handbooks, courses etc…We can get the information but unless we implement in our life, we will not be able to bring the change…We need to start understanding and practicing SEL as parents and teachers NOW. We need to become mindful about why we do what we do. Our parenting and teaching styles, must reflect our self-awareness and self-management skills. We need to demonstrate those skills in our behaviors for our children to learn.

While we integrate SEL in our life, it is important that SEL gets integrated in their learning process. We need to invest time in building SEL skills to our children. They need to learn how to reflect and understand themselves in different aspects of their life. First 21 years of children’s lives are dedicated for learning and let’s not disregard the importance of SEL in their learning years. While SEL gets integrated in every classroom, let’s consciously bring SEL in everyone’s life BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE…