The recent gruesome murder of a female teacher by a Class VIII student in a Chennai school should force both parents and school management to sit back and devise ways to inculcate good behavioural patterns among students as well teachers. A positive and a respectful relationship is the need of the hour, otherwise things would continue to slip from our hands.
SCHOOL VIOLENCE is widely held to have become a serious problem in educational institutions at all levels. Besides the one-way imposed discipline, verbal spats, corporal punishment; now weapons such as guns or knives are brought inside the premises of educational institutions, both by teachers and students to fight out their rifts.
It seems that the main reason of the increased violence among school students as well as physical attacks by students on school staff is due to loss of mutual respect. It is thought that schools have faltered in creating the adequate learning environment for meaningful education.
Despite all kinds of imposed educational reforms by the NCERT, CBSE and SSA, the quality of education right from teacher development institutes to the school level has gone down, resulting in an increase in mutual aggressive stances, both by students and teachers.
Students often blame that teachers do not teach well and harass them to the extent of hurting their self-esteem. The incidences of aggressive behaviour need to be seen as a breakdown of congenital relations among students and teachers. Educational institutions need to be seen as a web of relationships, first and foremost, since learning is a social act. All the stakeholders in education must constitute committees involving students, parents and teachers to self-reflect and effect changes.
Many well-meaning educators suggest that there is need to involve students in the day-today management of schools; create webs of mutually respectful webs of relationships among students and teachers; implementing cooperative learning techniques; incorporating the life-skills component of education as a part of environmental studies, and empowering students to become autonomous learners to curb the current surge of aggressive behaviours in institutions.
