We all fondly remember that one teacher who was empathetic to us as students. Essentially, if we grew up in a safe, happy and healthy school environment, it reflects in our communication, workplace behavior, relationships and self-esteem. Compare this with adults who had unpleasant experiences with their school teachers.
Thus, school mental health (SMH) has gained prominence and counsellors are catering to students’ rising mental health issues. School children’s usage of technology has also impacted precious after-school time with classmates, and time spent narrating everyday school episodes to curious grandparents, family and neighbours. The same has been uninstalled and replaced by aggressive mobile games and cheap internet.
Based on my team’s interactions with hundreds of teachers and principals from across Maharashtra, following are some of their observations about students. The attention span has reduced and school work often remains incomplete. There is inability to solve age-appropriate math or language exercises. Screen addiction is ultimately leading to boredom. Moreover, the two extremes of increased violence and introverted behavior are observed.
A survey titled ‘Mental health and wellbeing of school students’ was conducted by the Manodarpan Cell, NCERT on more than 3 lakh students. This study published by the Ministry of Education in 2022 mapped a number of mental health issues faced by school children in India such as understanding of self and peer pressure.
These issues are not just plaguing our school children, but essentially the future of our country, its decision makers. Thus, as we deal with school children, we should play our part in making them happy and capable in all aspects. Up until a certain age, children will need to be disciplined. Parents have to be healthy role models as children and teenagers are watching them while their brains and bodies are developing. Children do recall key interactions with family members, both happy and negative ones. These form core memories for school children, which instill trust and kindness. Teachers will benefit by training designed to help them understand the changing landscape of education, identifying early signs of danger among children, and stress management.
To conclude, I would like to highlight a comprehensive school mental health (SMH) training program called SUMAN (SUpporting programme for Mental wellbeing of students And Nurturing whole campus concept) designed for teachers by our team at Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP).
The whole campus approach covers all stakeholders in the school, college, university or educational institution. It should be such that it creates a complete ecosystem that is capable of nurturing a Student’s psychological, physical and academic development. This all-round development should be achieved by a healthy dialogue between teachers, school management, staff and parents. The foundation of this approach is a strong and healthy teacher-student interaction.
SUMAN has been imparted to 800+ teachers and principals from urban and rural schools of Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Pune, Satara, Sambhajinagar, Jalna, Beed, Nanded and Latur districts. The key objectives are helping teachers navigate their own mental health, fresh teaching pedagogy, and improved problem-solving approach, while dealing with students, peers, parents and seniors. Our underlying purpose is to help teachers transfer this emotional literacy to students. The feedback from our teacher participants has been encouraging.
One teacher said, “Earlier we would react harshly to students’ questions; but after this I have largely reduced my over critical comments.” Another opined, “I am better able to gauge the mood of students and shift my teaching methodology to make them more attentive.” The training made some of them introspect, while has helped others restore their me-time. Thus, together we can work towards gifting happy childhoods to school going children.
Chaitali Phadke |
The author is a research fellow at Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, and a Mumbai based counselling psychologist
