Latest news with #PialiBanerjee
Time of India
3 days ago
- Time of India
Mental health matters
Piali Banerjee teaches English in the International Baccalaureate programme at a private high school in Mumbai. She has authored three books for children, all of which take an innovative and personal look at history. She has also had a stint in journalism at The Times of India and Mumbai Mirror, where she focussed on writing features that looked at people and issues with empathy and humour. At present she is having a great time trying to instil a love for learning and literature among teenagers. Although she is a teacher by profession, she firmly believes that she is a student at heart. LESS ... MORE We all remember those Physical Training (or Painful Training, as we fondly called our PT classes) in school. All those laps around the ground, while still trying to keep the lungs functioning; those bends and twists and stretches that got our collective knickers in a twist. Oh yes, our schools sure know how to keep their students physically fit and healthy. It's just that most often our system falters when it comes to keeping students mentally fit and healthy. And that is probably needed more urgently. Most students find their own rhythm to keep physically fit as they grow up, badgered in varying degrees by mothers, peers, society aunties (functioning in a society where 'fat' is a politically incorrect word) and that slinky anonymous body called social media. But, to deal with all of the above, students need to be mentally fit too. Yes, students do talk of 'mean' teachers, but very few discuss their 'cruel' peers at the dining table. And I am deliberately differentiating 'meanness' from 'cruelty'. As a teacher, one has seen this cruelty up close and personal. One has seen a youngster's backpack being held up for inspection in a class full of students by a sneering peer, with the words, 'Hey, does anyone want to see what a fake Adidas bag looks like?' I call them 'words', but they are actually shrapnel that leave the target shredded and bleeding. Yet these wounds are never discussed at the dining table. These wounds are not seen by parents or teachers or school counsellors. These wounds are dealt with alone, processed through lonely tears. One has seen students being mocked at for acne, so much so that those being mocked pretend to sleep in class, so that they don't have to sit up and present their flawed face to their peers. One has seen students being trolled on social media by an entire batch, for their skin colour or their unwaxed legs or for reading Dostoevsky. (The last one is not a made-up scenario, one has seen it happen.) But these students don't breathe a word of this either to their parents or to the school counsellor. In fact, most kids do not want to be seen entering that socially branded door of a counsellor. They try to cope by isolating themselves. Some kids cope by turning on their peers, often violently. In which case the school ends up having to punish the victim of mockery, rather than the mockers. In rare, very rare, cases, has one seen a child systematically neutralise their tormentors through words and body language alone. It has been done, with the said victim topping every class; discussing every writer, (Dostoevsky or otherwise) that she wished to, with her teachers; and stretching out her unwaxed legs with a defiant smile. But this salvo must have taken extraordinary effort and courage – which the rest of us mortals often cannot muster up. So where is the average kid to go? More important, to whom can the average kid go? Since lecturing has never worked with teenagers, practical workshops are, perhaps, a way forward. These workshops can be conducted by teachers or guest experts. Empathy games, or even just a social circle time where pertinent questions are discussed, may help to at least open up those Pandora's boxes which are otherwise kept tightly sealed. Questions like: How does social media affect our ability to feel empathy? Is there an experience where you wished someone actually understood how you felt? Or even the simplistic: What would you say to a classmate who was feeling sad? It's surprising how much baggage emerges in these sessions. A school that I taught at once, came up with an idea to provide emotional support to its students. All teachers were allotted a dozen students, whose mental wellbeing was his or her responsibility – creating a warm bond with these students, checking in on them regularly, providing an empathetic ear, just letting them know that they had a solid support person at school. It was an experiment that worked very well in some groups, moderately well in others and failed to take off in some groups. Yet, it is an idea that is worth a try. The point is to keep dialogue always open. The point is to let kids know that they always have at least one person to go to, in times of emotional stress. P.S: Any more ideas on how we can achieve this? Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
25-04-2025
- General
- Time of India
Upside down, inside out
Piali Banerjee teaches English in the International Baccalaureate programme at a private high school in Mumbai. She has authored three books for children, all of which take an innovative and personal look at history. She has also had a stint in journalism at The Times of India and Mumbai Mirror, where she focussed on writing features that looked at people and issues with empathy and humour. At present she is having a great time trying to instil a love for learning and literature among teenagers. Although she is a teacher by profession, she firmly believes that she is a student at heart. LESS ... MORE I took a tour of a heritage monument with some interior design students, the other day. And I realised just how often youngsters look at things that adults cannot (do not) see. These students talked indignantly about how people do not actually see or 'experience' heritage sites that they visit. They simply go through the motions one-dimensionally – just look around, read some of the plaques, take some photographs. I do the same, I argued, and I 'experience' all historic sites well enough. 'Do you run your hands over the walls to get a feel of the stones and texture?' they challenged. I had to admit that I do not. (I generally keep my hands to myself in crowded, public places and use my ever-handy sanitizer if I happen to touch anything, I added mentally. I didn't dare to voice this, on seeing them diving into deep discussion after running their hands over the stones of the structure. They wouldn't understand this perspective of caution. They were design kids, with the wind in their hair and minds bustling with ideas.) A chat with these kids made me look back at all those instances over the years, where students have opened a new window for me to look through. It shouldn't take Einstein to tell us that 'If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.' Our students tell us this ever so often. There was a student in my class who was known for his genuine concern for everyone around him. I saw him, quick to anticipate others' needs, lending his classmates his notes, explaining complicated concepts to others before examinations, giving up his spot in the lunch line to anyone in a hurry… Everyone liked him – simply because he was genuinely nice to all. However, one day while I was chatting with him idly, asking him about anything he would like to change in his school life, he said, 'Oh yes! I am tired of being referred to as 'sweet and kind'. I read and can discuss so many authors, I play chess, I love discussing history – why can't anyone talk about all that?' He taught me that kids want to be known for their achievements, more than their personality. From where I was looking at him, I would have thought he would be happy to be known as a 'good guy'. Clearly, he was not happy about it. It, kind of, made me rethink the identities of my students. And I ended up seeing many of them in quite a new light! Some time back, I had accompanied some students to a residential school in another city for a debating competition. It was a beautiful location, so after all discussions were done with my students, I took off for a long walk around the lovely campus. That's when I was accosted by a student from another participant school. She asked me if I would help her to prepare for the debate, since she was at a loss for points of argument. Her request put me at a loss for words. I was there to help my own students win, in fact I was on duty to do just that. And yet, here she was, a member of an opposing team, asking for my help – now that was a new point of view. Surely, in an ideal world, any student can ask any teacher for guidance, without restraint? And yet, there I was, standing at an ethical crossroad, muttering excuses, offering platitudes. On a lighter vein, there are some perspectives whose freshness is off the charts! For instance, a student known for her aversion to bathing told me once (in all earnestness), 'Bathing is a concept created by soap companies who want to sell their products. We don't really need to bathe every day.' Uh huh. And then, of course, I see this ex-student of mine shining in the media every so often – the one who answers 'I live' or 'my best' whenever anyone asks him what he does in life. P.S: Now, that's another way of looking at life. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
