Life's lessons

Value education begins from home. We all agree on that point. Teaching our children the right values from the time they are young and trying to be a role model ourselves would be the first step.

I remember once my children were playing in the corridor of our apartment and accidentally broke the light fixture of our neighbour. As expected their first instinct was to run home and hide. When they told us as to what had happened we immediately explained to them the need to go and apologise for their action in addition to replacing the light fixture. They were very hesitant saying that they were scared thinking about the consequence and wanted us to speak on their behalf. When it was made clear to them that they had to do it themselves, they mustered enough courage and owned up. The neighbour was very sweet enough to say that these things happen and asked them to be careful while playing.

When they came back they were beaming. I felt that day they had learnt an important lesson in life - to own up. I found the next time they made mistakes they were bold enough to admit.

As part of school curriculum do we need value education classes ? I do not remember having value education classes in my school. But we had value education classes in college while I was teaching. I remember when the timetable was set we used to be very nervous when we were given the task of teaching value education to the students. We would be at a loss as to what we would talk about. Specially to girls whose ages ranged between sixteen to twenty. However since my specialisation was child development when we were given other streams like arts or commerce class students I would just talk on topics that we used to teach under child development like family relations and management. The students then used to find it interesting.

Now I feel the need is more than ever to have value education classes. One such initiative I read is being taken by all the branches of Kendriya Vidyalaya. They have found that these classes are being welcomed by students. Having specialised teachers imparting interesting aspects of growing up in today's world could infact help our children. Imparting this by way of plays, debates, poster making, slogan writing would make it enjoyable and more interesting. Catch them young. As the proverb in kannada goes "gidavagi baggaddu, maravaagi baggite?" Wish all the schools emulate this sooner.