Jeeyar Gurukulam teachers from Allampally, Beersaipet and Katarivaripalem took annual training by NCERT resource persons. This annual training aims at imparting higher teaching abilities to the teachers. HH Swamiji took a few personality development classes . Smt. Krishna Kumari coordinated in arranging resource persons from NCERT.
Concluding ceremony went well on 16th evening in the presence of three Jeeyar Swamijis. They offered mangalasasanams to all the teachers to excel in their endeavor.
Speaking to the trainees Swamiji has related the teacher’s service to be like Lord Hanuman referring to Sundarakanda.
Lord Hanuman during his travel to Lanka in search of Sitha devi faced lot of obstacles.
But He had only one goal, to reach Sitha Devi , get the news to Lord Rama and to unite them.
During his flight to Lanka on the sea, devathas had sent the sea serpent to eat Lord Hanuman. The serpent raised and blocked the way of Hanuman and asked him to enter her mouth as her prey. Hanuman requested to unblock the way as he had to go in search of Sita Mata. When the serpent refused, he started growing bigger and bigger. Looking at his size, the serpent also started growing his size.
Suddenly, Lord Hanuman resized himself to a small size and entered the serpent’s mouth. By the time it closed its mouth, Lord Hanuman escaped from the serpent’s mouth. He politely bowed to the serpent and said that he fulfilled her wish. The Serpent was pleased and let him go. This part teaches us that how we should be politely face the obstacles and focus on our goal. For a teacher, goal should be to train the student to be responsible citizens. During this, if one faces a stubborn kid, be patient enough by remembering the goal and train him using all the wits.
A teacher should not work for the sake of wages, but should be passionate enough to teach students.
His goal should be the success of his students and should not be tired until it is reached, like Lord Hanuman doesn’t rest during his flight to Lanka and stays enthusiastic to reach as fast as he could to Lanka.
This teacher training was a 10 day course where each subject teaching methods were taught for two days each.
First two days English language workshop was conducted. Speaking of learning a new language, kids have the ability to learn language very easily when the environment is created similar to the one for the babies. When a baby is born in a house no one decides which language she has to learn. It is the surrounding that teaches her. It is the observation of the words she listens from her parents and others that teach her the language. By 18 months -3yrs the environment plays the role that makes the child learn a new language and not the teaching.
Similarly when a teacher is teaching new language to the students, creating the learning environment is very important.
Teacher should help the student in recognising exactly why she wants to learn a language. Motivation is usually the first thing to go.
Like the parents don’t scold the baby while she is learning the language and praises for learning new words, teachers also should create a homely environment at school while teaching the new language. A baby has a ability to learn 3000 words and 40,000 sentences in 18months, creating similar environment students don’t need 10yrs to learn a new language.
Continuing on the training, Swamiji mentioned four qualities that should be possessed by the teachers.
1. Teachers should create passion to learn anything in student’s mind, so they can achieve and learn anything easily and fast. They should create a necessity for learning in every student mind.
2. Teacher should give opportunity to everyone and shouldn’t be biased. Every student either intelligent or a beginner should have equal opportunity in participating.
3. Encouraging students to explore and learn should be the key factor in every teacher. Students shouldn’t be compared with others and point them, instead should create an environment to change themselves.
4. Teacher should encourage students to have a daily practice of the subject they are learning.
When these four are provided to the student, he can reach to his goal and be successful.
If any of above mentioned is missing, success is tough to achieve. Swamiji mentioned its duty of the teacher to maintain these and help the students grow.
He also pointed out the existing fact that many tribes are leaving their cultures and mother tongue due to lack of confidence in themselves. It should be the duty of the teacher to encourage them and know their cultures and conduct cultural programs. This way student teacher bonding will be strengthened and kids can learn easily.