Some city school teachers are imitating Aamir Khan’s role in the Bollywood movie, Taare Zameen Par and extending their help to students suffering from physiological disorders of any kind. Many of them are attending the workshops on ‘Understanding behavioural patterns of students’ at Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychiatry and Allied Sciences (RINPAS) continuing since December.
Dr Masroor Jahan, Coordinator of Umang Helpline for counseling youth related problems informed the response of the teachers has increased in the last two months. “It is impressive to see teachers telling us that earlier they thought students react out of indiscipline nature. But, after attending our conducted workshops, they can identify students suffering due to stress or lack of adjustment in the peer group,” said Dr Jahaan. According to Jahaan, more students are now knocking the door of helpline along with concerned teachers.
librarian K Nalini of DAV Gandhinagar said it was difficult to manage students before participating in such workshops. “In order to improve the personality of students, it is essential to counsel them. Apart from my school students, it has become easy for me to understand the youngsters pursuing higher education like doctorate. We have come across some students facing cyber bullying,” said Nalini.
Similar to Nalini, Manorama Singh, a Sanskrit teacher of Kanya Ucch Vidyalaya, Boriya said she and her colleagues are now putting efforts of learning the psychology of students. “We are finding it easy to rectify problems of students from standard lKG to 12th. It is creating wonders for improving the studies of weak students,” said RK Sahay, a Physical Education teacher of DAV Nirja Sahay said.
Clinical Psychologist Dr Amrita Sahay at Umang Helpline said observing the demanding response, a workshop for all the teachers of DAV Gandhinagar was organised on February 21. “Teachers feel they are grasping knowledge on proper classroom management. We are hopeful of beginning similar workshops for college teachers and anganwadi sevikas. Few teachers from Nirmala College have requested us to involve them in such workshops. Participation of sevikas and college teachers will surely help in grooming the personality of students from different age groups,” sources at the helpline said.
The success of the previous workshops is probably demanding a continuation. RINPAS has planned to conduct the last workshop at a large scale for this ongoing financial year in March. Notably, discussions on depression, suicide, substance abuse, interpersonal and social aspects are held in the workshops. Teachers are suggested ideas to identify symptoms among students due to exam phobia.
Speakers like Central Institute of Psychiatry Director D Ram, Jharkhand Academic Council Official, RINPAS Director Amool Ranjan Singh and DAV Gandhinagar Vice-Principal Gunjan Baijjal have been invited for guiding the school teachers in the past three workshops.