Student Collective — When Students Realise Their Power Of Being The Change

It’s quite a known fact that many government schools in our country face shortage of teachers, facilities, and time, which makes it difficult to keep the school from functioning smoothly. The children often face the brunt of it, and find themselves directionless and clueless. Young children are powerhouses of energy, and when this energy is not directed creatively, they tend to translate into not-so-productive activities!

So what can be done by all the stakeholders of a school, when you are working with so many unavoidable constraints? We pondered about this question especially when we saw that schools were struggling with discipline, which further hindered the possibilities of self learning and peer learning for students; as they loitered outside their classroom.

We spoke to the headmaster, and realised there were not enough teachers to be present in every classroom. So we decided to gather some of the high school students together and have a conversation with them. A few girls from 7th and 8th grade showed great interest and so we used an empty classroom to sit in a circle with them.

First Circle With High School Students

In our very first circle with these girls, we took time to get to know each other better. We used this opportunity to build a relationship based on mutual trust and understanding. We started by asking the students to share a little about themselves, and we also shared about ourselves. Once the comfort level was established, we sat in more circles together, which by then had grown bigger with some high school boys also joining us out of their own interest. During one of these circles, we asked the students to share about their school and in the course of this discussion, a lot of issues emerged.

From lack of teachers and lack of textbooks, to lack of discipline and way too much noise, the students shared about the problems they face in school on their own. They expressed concern on these matters and showed some willingness to seek solutions for the same.

Taking Ownership Of School Problems

Post probing them a little further on their problems and what the solutions could look like, we could see that the students assumed the onus of these responsibilities to be laid on the teachers. When we started this discussion, students felt the need of a teacher for disciplining the classroom and the school. After reflecting together, students themselves came to a realisation that they don’t really need teachers to maintain a disciplined classroom.

Further, we shifted our discussion to whether they absolutely need teachers all the time in order to learn and revise what has already been taught. The students connected their lack of learning to all the noise in their school, because of which they found themselves very distracted and unable to focus on anything. Everyone agreed that instilling discipline in all the classes can translate into a conducive learning atmosphere.

To achieve that, they pondered upon having elected student leaders for maintaining the discipline of each class and thus the school. But the idea of some students managing them was soon shunned because it was not a popular opinion among the students.

So the students came to the common conclusion that they can each take responsibility of themselves! They decided to step up to transform themselves into ideal students, and inspire each other.

Who Can Be A Role Model For The School?

With the topic of becoming an ideal student at hand, we asked the students what according to them were the important qualities a role-model should have? The collective answers led to the following points -

1. Someone who is confident and can speak to others without fear.
2. Someone who can speak politely to everyone.
3. Someone who can help and support fellow students.

The students collectively agreed that they would each like to start working towards being their own agreed-upon idea of a role model. They realised the importance of students coming together to be the change that they want to see in the school!

This was an Aha! moment for Team Tarkeybein to witness children beginning to take their first steps towards taking ownership of their behavior and their learning in school collectively.

Coming Up In The ‘Student Collective’ Series

The students are now excited and are working on themselves to step up to become role models for their class and their school! They are analysing their strengths and weaknesses, and trying to see what role each of them can play in contributing to uphold the discipline of the classroom. As part of this Student Collective series, we will keep you updated on how these students empower themselves with an I Can — We Can mindset.

Do send them your best wishes!

If you resonate with our work, want to implement this model in your community, want to support this initiative, or just want to drop in some encouraging words, we invite you to write to us at tarkeybein@gmail.com :)