This 8yr old is not too small to organize an outdoor trip to
Bangalore Palace in Chamrajpet.
Trip plan:
10am – Reach the palace
10-1 See palace
1-2 lunch (get from home)
2 reflection and bye bye ta-ta
The journey began with a belief “she can do it” – rest was just exploration for her.
She called up to find entry tickets, timings and other information about the place
Made notice to inform all the travelers (she yet cannot write on her own)
All necessary arrangements were done to create this opportunity for all by her.
She asked for support wherever she needed – isn’t that leadership is all about!
A Common Myth about children “Not as an adult”
By calling children “children” we are clearly saying that they are not adults. We end up believing that theycannot have the same qualities as adults. Also, whatever childish qualities they seem to have they need to outgrow them, only then they call be called mature adults! Qualities such as a sense of humor, joy of action, of achieving, etc.
We are amazed that in the workshop after workshop most adults believe that children are incapable of setting goals for themselves. May we remind you of a one-year-old – clear about her goal of wanting ice cream and the kind of perseverance she shows?Also, how flexibly she moves from father to mother to grandmother in search of fulfillment of the goal (the ice cream). If you observe carefully, you will realize that children do almost nothing without a goal and do not like others interfering with their goals. Children seem to have this innate goal-setting quality, which most adults think only they are capable of.
In much the same way, when a child senses that the mother is upset over something, he either backs off (leaves her alone) or comes forward and hugs her, even though the child may not have any idea as to why the mother is upset. We hope the above two examples show you the amount of mental (in the first case) and emotional (in the later one) maturity children have and show.
So isn’t a child also an adult and yes an adult a child?
Once we release children of this notion of ‘not being adults’, we gain two productive behaviors:
One, we start treating them with therespect they deserve.
Two,stop constraining themand eschew behaviors that only undermine the very development we want to see in them.
Clearly, if we want to be effective as teachers we need to release children from the prison of our perception. We need to relook at children NOT as children but as respectable, responsible, independent, individuals whose dignity is defined not by what they do and how they do, but by valuing them as what they are!