School is a public learning area. Students come from various social backgrounds, different social status, caste, culture and community. Students come from different families. Each family has their own way of living. Each family has their own story. Similarly, the students too have a different story. While students from different families, gather at common place for learning, a lot of issues can arise. Issues like discrimination on the basis of social status, caste, gender, mental ability is common. It creates a rift between the students. Students still being in their formative years, facing such type of discrimination in the classroom, come out of school with a different mindset. They often loose belief in the system. It builds lack of interest in studies. Teachers often face difficulty in such type of classroom. Even effective teachers fail, if they are not able to recognize the differences among the students in the classroom.
We never know the back story about how our students came to school every day. Some students come to school empty stomach direct from the fields, tired and exhausted. Some come after being abused physically, mentally or sexually either at home or on the way to school. Some come from far community by walking, due to lack of bicycles. Some of them come to school without books, copies and pens. Some of them don’t have bags, due to which they carry heavy load of books in their hand, which must hurt. Some of them have to struggle to come to school every day. Some come to school with fear while some with confusion. Handful of students comes to school just to pass time or their parents wanted them to. When students from various backgrounds gather in a single class with all of the above factors, the teaching-learning process cannot be effective as desired.
While as a Teach for Nepal fellow 2018, working in a public school in remote Parsa district, I had decided to use breathing technique from day one. Initially we were introduced about this technique in our learning institute 2018.We practiced it every day and it felt so good, calm and refreshing. Being discriminated myself, I had the feeling, how it felt to be discriminated. It had huge effect on me. I didn’t want my students to experience such things, as least when I had the control. Furthermore, it was very difficult to focus on the content while students were going through different thoughts in their minds. It was very much necessary to bring the focus inside the classroom on the curriculum. Students were facing difficulty in studies while a lot of things were going in their lives. Also moral boosting of students seemed imminent. I had the challenge to take the class forward as one.
Every day at the beginning of my class, I made my students close their eyes and sit straight. I told them to focus on their breath. Just focus the inhalation and exhalation. They had to feel how air was being inhaled and being exhaled. While focusing on the breath, they must feel alive. We often take breathing as granted, but if we hold breath for some minutes, we have to run for our lives. I wanted my students to build this mindset. Breathing exercise was done for 2 minutes. I would keep the time and instruct them to open their eyes while counting backwards. Students would rub their hands and put on their eyes before opening. Some days I would play relaxing music while some days they had to follow my instructions. I would tell them to focus on certain things, certain moments, certain sounds or certain relationships. Some students felt emotional and used to silently drop tears. I could see them.
The breathing technique benefited me a lot. It helped me to further set my plans and priorities. It also helped me to establish better connection with my students. While students would close their eyes and focus on the breathing, I would just watch their faces. Each faces would reflect a different story. I would try to imagine, what was going on their lives. Just looking at the faces, I could know how they were feeling that day. It helped me to set the tone of learning. I could see how dedicated and responsible they were feeling at the moment. Another benefit was that, it helped me to build confidence in the students. It was a kind of equalizer. Everyone had to close their eyes and follow the instructions. It gave a sense of equality. It also helped them to remain attached to their roots. They would rethink relationships at the moment of breathing with eyes closed.
While they closed their eyes and listened to my instructions, I would tell them to focus on their family, friends and purpose in life. I would sometimes lead them to focus on the social issues. I made them to think not just as a spectator but how it feels in somebody other’s position. It made them feel connected with each other in the classroom. They could feel what kinds of problems their friends were facing due to all of these kinds of discrimination. Breathing exercise also helped to gather thoughts of students inside the classroom, which otherwise would be wandering somewhere. Breathing exercise made them responsible and caring towards their friends, family and community. I believe developed empathy in my students. As the classes ran smoothly, the academics of the students improved. The breathing exercise made students refreshed and happy for the time being.
We need to care our students during their formative years. The mindset that they build during the formative years stays with them whole of their life. We should be able to build morality and responsibility in students during this time period. If we are unable to address issues inside the classroom, we will not be able to create better citizens who will fulfill their duties towards family, society and the classroom. Change is possible and it should start from the classroom. Children today are the citizens of tomorrow.
