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 Schools take their children on educative field trips to several places from time to time, but for the students of Sishya this was a field trip with a difference that helped them take a peep across manmade barriers.
Sishya's experience
The Humanities group at the Higher Secondary level with Psychology and Sociology as major subjects was introduced in Sishya only from this academic year and the Sociology teacher, Mrs. Sera Cherian, thought of a novel way to open the young eyes to another part of the deprived society. She took these students coming from privileged families to an Ashram that acts as a transit home for orphaned, destitute or rescued children before being placed in families or foster homes.
 Says Sera Cherian, "I learnt many lessons myself that day. Chief among them was that, to be sensitive to other's misery, and empathising with them, needs no language. There cannot be any language barrier for this because most of my students don't even know how to speak Tamil, but the way they were moved by the reality of these deprived children cannot be expressed in words. They felt intensely about the whole thing. They have been positively motivated and have already learnt to 'give'. They have collected from among them toys, clothes, books and other material to be handed over to the children at the Ashram and are planning to organise staging plays and other entertainment there, next term".
Moral Education put into practice
 All schools have a subject called Moral Education where mostly children are told stories from the epics and the scriptures. These may teach children how to sympathise with the deprived but you need empathy to really make a difference in their lives. Empathy comes only when they see for themselves the plight of the disadvantaged and the visual images create a far deeper impact than narratives. In that direction, schools can inculcate a sense of caring and sharing by exposing the students at appropriate levels to the needy sections of society as part of their education. This will go a long way in helping them grow up not only as academically educated individuals but also as emotionally supportive pillars. For, doesn't education have for its object the formation of character too?
Akshaya |
