Life-Skills, Lessons That Go Beyond The Books

When I was a kid I used to love to help my teachers, whether it was carrying copies to the staffroom or getting a glass of water for my teacher. I was always happy to be with her. I would decorate the classroom with charts, clean the black-board, and clear her desk. I was her pet. She loved me dearly. But there was a flip side. Other students made fun of me. They would say that I was flattering her to get more marks out of her. I do not know why I behaved like that. It was not the marks; it was just the peace it gave me. Seeing the pleasure on her face made me feel good. I felt wanted and loved as if I was of use to someone I loved so dearly. They nicknamed me Fevicol, Chipko and what not. Sometimes I would get upset and sulk. But when she came to class the sorrow would simply evaporate and I would be back to the same old ways. Even today I cannot explain why I was like that.

Last week I went to my daughter’s school and saw some students who were eager and helpful to teachers like I was in my childhood days. In my days there was no mechanism to reward positive attitude towards teachers and school systems but now thankfully CBSE under its CCE initiative has introduced a beautiful subject like life skills to make it possible for Teachers to mark them for their delightful ways.

Importance of life skills

In this day and age of ever evolving needs, the fastest growing and ever-changing needs are that of our children itself. While in the yesteryears, it was all about focusing on education and ensuring the children get into the best of schools and opportunities for their education, now it doesn’t stop just there. The needs of parents and children alike from the child’s lives go much beyond just education. It’s more about having a multi-faceted personality, being an all-rounder and excelling in various fields. It’s really about overall talent and personality of our children and how that would make them successful human beings.

One of the most important roles of a teacher is to prepare our children for life. But what they teach in school is mostly stuff that one needs to get a job and make a living, not the skills they will need to deal with social and emotional stresses a child will require to have in order to live a balanced, happy life. Examples of these include dealing with anger, peer pressure, bullying, sadness and disappointment, shyness, lack of self-confidence, understanding money and more.

So what needs to be seen is as part of the educational ecosystem of our country, how are we nurturing the Life Skills of our children? Are we giving them enough social/ emotional support, mentoring and encouragement that will give them the confidence to soar? Are we helping them become strong, capable leaders who can think “out of the box” and create great works of science, technology and art, and lead people and organizations successfully?

The education sector is undergoing rapid transformation. Schools face the challenge of preparing students for job titles that currently do not exist. They are evolving as learning communities, focused on the development of the students’ 21st Century skills - a requirement for success in the new, globally competitive economy.

It is no longer sufficient to operate a school under an ‘Industrial Model’ that simply teaches the 3 R’s - reading, writing and arithmetic. Students today need to develop multi dimensional life skills like creative thinking, digital literacy, collaboration and teamwork skills, with the ability to evaluate and apply knowledge in the rapidly changing information-rich digital work and community environment.

In today’s world where human life has ceased to have any value; where murders, suicides, rapes, and molestations are so common. We are waking up to the lack of Life-skills among the adult population. Due to the emphasis on academics and marks we have somehow missed the all-important bus of Life-skills. It is interesting to note that many brilliant students are admitted to the IITs every year. But the fact is that they are unable to cope up with the pressure of living in an aggressive competitive environment. The same goes for society as a whole. No matter how brilliant or talented we are we need to learn to cope up with the highs and lows in life. We need to develop the inner strength to fight our problems. Life-skills teach us just that.

This article has been written by Avinash Agarwal who works as CEO with AIETS –a research based educational organization. AIETS school programme, ELEVATE is a 21st century learning system which helps not only in CCE implementation but also builds skills like creative thinking, critical thinking, collaboration and communication thereby preparing students for challenges of 21st century. Elevate programme helps in connecting classroom learning with real life experiences and can be used to assess both scholastic and co-scholastic skills. Elevate brings student at the center stage of learning process and creates an environment where students can explore and acquire knowledge in their own style at their own pace. Team Elevate is working closely with more than 600 schools and helping them transform conventional classroom into collaborative/activity based 21st Century classroom.