Shiv Kumar Padha
Teachers and the parents, disturbed by the poor academic achievements of the children, are experiencing an alarming deficiency in them which is called emotional illiteracy the signs of which can be seen in the violent incidents taking place every day. The children are becoming more and more belligerent, violent, and aggressive day by day. The feeling of mercifulness, pity, kindness and belongingness is fast disappearing from their hearts. The Symptoms of this emotional illiteracy can be seen in the frequent violent incidents of quarrels by youngsters over trifles, coming to blows over small difference of opinion, taking precious lives of the fellow students during ragging process in the higher institutes of education, custodial deaths, brutal treatment of detunes in the jails, hitting the pedestrians and those sleeping on the foot paths to death by high speeding vehicles, throwing acid on the faces of girls, using third rate and inhuman measures to torture others only to laugh at them in their distress insulting and passing third grade remarks for the helpless and the handicaps.
Such violent incidents came to light in American schools as shooting of Ian and Tyrone in 1995, the April 1999 school shooting at the Littleton High School in Colorado, attacks on the devotees offering prayers in the Gurudwaras of Britain and America is an indicator of the problems which is linked with the lack of emotional literacy amongst the youngsters. Dragging of one lady SSP traffic by the speeding car by her own subordinates up to one kmt on the rough road when they were caught red handed taking bribe on highway. Broad day light murder of an IAS officers on duty by liquor mafia, beating the director of the school to death by the young boys in Bihar, killing a boy on motor bike by the Delhi traffic police by hurling the cane on the speeding bike, burning alive of the news reporters and beating the women on the highway in Punjab are the few examples of emotional bankruptcy among the youth since their early schooling. The act of violence on the girls, women ilk, chopping the parts of the girls in dozens of pieces, slitting the throats, throwing acids on the girls faces by the minors, murder of the parents by their own children and compelling the life partners to commit suicide are a fraction of the incidents which have shook the conscience of the whole nation.
The Kindergarten year marks a peak ripening of the ‘social emotions of jealously and envy, pride and confidence, feelings of insecurity and humility. The emotions of fear and anger remain more dominant during the preschool stage. We often notice the people even in their mature stage exhibiting fear, fear of dark, fear from an animal or a toy like animal. We see the women afraid of rats, squirrels and cockroaches.
The lack of emotional education in the very beginning of their schooling is responsible for this behavior. Programs must be started in our schools where the emotions like fear, anger, affection and jealousy can be controlled trained and channelized in the right direction. People often fail to distinguish between instincts and emotions. Instincts are innate, original or inherited tendencies to act or behave. They are present in the child at the time of his birth, whereas emotion is a stirred up agitated or disturbed state of mind and when one is under the spell of emotions many psychological changes like changes in the heart beat, pulse rate, blood pressure and changes in digestive system take place. The emotions can be acquired, they can be mended controlled and given direction.
Before proceeding any further a small introduction about the emotions will help us understanding the logic and rationale behind the need of emotional education in our schools. The emotions of anger has strongest impact on the personality of child and adults .An angry child shows a typical behavior which is known as temper tantrum the child kicks bites stamps his feet ,bites breaks the glass crockery. Fear is a self protecting flight from any dangerous situation’ fear of darkness fear of animals , fear of falling down ,fear of loud noises and fear of strange persons etc. The emotion of jealousy is experienced at the age of two. Jealousy is an outgrowth of anger .It is an attitude of resentment directed towards people, while anger may be directed towards oneself. Though the emotion of anger dominates the personality of the child and the adult, sometimes it becomes the cause of one’s success in life and is considered as the sign of masculine character.
Emotions are the prime movers of our thought and conduct. All the human civilization is the outcome of training of emotions. Imparting emotional education in the schools will enable to check up undesirable emotional attitudes and utilize emotional energy into proper constructive channels. Before the emotional education is started in the schools there are some do’s and don’ts for the teaching community for strict adherence which includes removing the anger provoking stimuli from the environment of the school; avoid giving commands to the young children; curbing own anger and avoiding giving direction; fore warning of the fear to the child; contact with the things related to fear; avoiding corporal punishment; making environment of good will and sympathy; showing no undue love to any child; avoiding false praise of undeserving child; and Giving special attention to the maladjusted.
The teachers will have to keep their minds healthy because this behavior of teachers proves the root cause of violence in the classroom. It becomes the duty of the educationists, psychologists and of all those interested in the field of emotional education to prepare the relevant curriculum suggest modes operandi for taking up and executing the program successfully in the schools and device the methodology so that the program can be implemented successfully.
(The writer is a social activist from Basohli).
