As a Teacher, I Believe We Need to Think Carefully About How We Vote in 2019

As the country celebrates Teachers’ Day on September 5, it is my sincere hope and prayer that the BJP does not come back to power in 2019. Let me explain why.

I have been teaching high school students for the last 25 years. The subjects I teach, however, are not commonly found in a school’s curriculum – empathy, listening, conflict resolution and relationship management. They are, nonetheless, the building blocks of a good life. Extensive research over the last three decades has given scientific undergirding to what we have always known intuitively – that emotional and social skills do indeed help children have not just a happier school experience, but do better academically as well.

At the turn of the millennium, the World Health Organization finally gave emotional and social intelligence their due and mandated the teaching of ten ‘Core Life Skills’ in schools around the world, namely self awareness, empathy, critical thinking, creative thinking, decision making, problem solving, stress management, conflict resolving, effective communication and coping skills.

But it wasn’t until 2008 when professor Martin Seligman (former president of the American Psychological Association and one of the founders of the positive psychology movement) helped Geelong Grammar School, one of Australia’s largest schools, build social and emotional learning into the structure of the school curriculum itself that ‘positive education’, as it came to be called, found a serious foothold in the rather stern, empirical world of education.

Encouraged by their success at Geelong, Seligman and his team then went on to help the government of Bhutan craft a ‘national happiness curriculum’. Subsequent evaluations of this curriculum and its effect on children showed that incorporating the teaching of social and emotional learning in schools did indeed have a tangible and lasting impact on the lives of school children, measurably improving their academic performance. They also helped to establish and embed systems and curricula of ‘positive education’, as it came to be called, in Brazil, Peru and the UK. Positive education, has, since, caught on slowly but surely, (though admittedly erratically) in many countries around the world. Closer home, the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi, its many political troubles notwithstanding, has also recently introduced a ‘happiness curriculum’ in state government schools.

One of the biggest and recurring lessons shared by the growing tribe of ESL (emotional and social learning) teachers to which I belong is that in the case of ‘subjects’ directly related to human behaviours such as empathy, conflict resolution and coping skills, children learn by observation and example much more than they do by instruction and curriculum. Simply put, values are caught much more than they are taught – not just by the immediate example of their teachers and families but also by the example of role models in society at large.

Which is why I fervently pray that the BJP does not return to power in 2019.

While it is true that other political dispensations have hardly been exemplars of character and civic virtue, the moral fibre of the country has never been weakened as seriously has it has since the current dispensation came to power. The last four-and-a-half years have seen a relentless and steady attack not only on educational institutions across India but on the very idea of modern, liberal, progressive education. This has been made abundantly clear by the government’s budget cuts in education, its policies and attacks on institutions of higher learning. But there is a deeper harm that is being inflicted on the minds and hearts of millions of children around India and that is the blatant undermining of the very qualities and strengths of character, the emotional and social skills that undergird a healthy, flourishing, democratic society.

Let’s take a look at the damage that has been inflicted on the psyche of our children through the lenses of five of the ten ‘Core Life Skills’ that the WHO has mandated:

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is probably the mother of all ‘Life Skills.’ It is only when we become truly aware of both our strengths and weaknesses that we can grow in objectivity and compassion not just for others but for ourselves as well. But if representatives of an elected government make a concerted effort to impose religion and/or caste as a primary identity, then genuine self-awareness goes out the window. If a child has been taught to see himself as a creative, self-aware human being, he will think about what he thinks and as a result, will strive for creative engagement with others. But if a child’s primary identity is one of religion, caste or community, then that child will start seeing himself merely as a representative of “his side”, he will think only what his group thinks and will thus find him locked in a state of perpetual superiority, condescension and conflict with those who are not on “his side.”

If representatives of an elected government make a concerted effort to impose religion and/or caste as a primary identity, then genuine self-awareness goes out the window. Credit: Reuters

Empathy

The relentless stereotyping and demonising of “the other” are designed to kill empathy. The very essence of empathy is mutuality and the fact that my humanity is caught up in yours. But if I am convinced otherwise, then I don't see you as a fellow human being worthy of dignity and respect and it will be much easier for me to attack and brutalise you.

Critical thinking

Implicit in the ability to think critically is the freedom to question and disagree with what I have been taught. If I am threatened with dire consequences every time I question authority, then, unless I am an exceptionally courageous person, I will not question the prevailing narratives. What kind of an example are we setting for our children when activists who have spent a lifetime ‘thinking critically’, questioning the government and fighting for the rights of the most disadvantaged members of society are suddenly branded ‘enemies of the state’ and arrested?

Arun Ferreira being taken into police custody on Tuesday. Credit: PTI

Conflict resolution

Children need to be actively taught how to resolve conflicts. They need to be taught the art of communication. Instead, what they get to see are prime-time news programmes on TV every night where conflict and abuse are encouraged and promoted. Add to this the vitriolic rhetoric of our leaders and their hateful comments regularly aired on television. Our prime minister may speak good and beautiful things on his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio broadcast. He must not forget, however, that children have never been good at listening to their elders but they have never failed to imitate them.

Effective communication

In a world engaged in a perpetual non-stop conversation a la’ Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the ability to communicate respectfully has become more critical than ever. But what is a child to do when the level of public discourse has fallen so low that a member of the ruling party calls the leader of a major opposition party “a gutter worm” (just to use the most recent example) and gets away with it?

Do we really want our children growing up without self-awareness, empathy and the ability to communicate respectfully, think critically and resolve conflicts peacefully? As a twig bends, so the tree grows. What the India of tomorrow will be, it is already becoming in the lives of millions of our children.

It has been said that the difference between a politician and a statesman (or stateswoman) is that the politician only thinks about the next election. The statesman (or stateswoman) thinks about the next generation.

It is time we elected those who truly care about our collective future.

Rohit Kumar is an educator with a background in Positive Psychology and Psychometrics. He works with high school students on emotional intelligence and adolescence issues and helps to make schools bullying-free zones.

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