‘Primary education has to be child-centred, not performance-centric’

Alka Sharma, who received the prestigious CBSE ‘Best Teacher’ award for the year 2019-20 in the primary teacher category, believes in her mantra of 4Ds — determination, devotion, dedication and discipline. Being the only teacher from Punjab to have won the honour, this teacher from Bhavan’s SL School, says, it is time that approach towards primary education changes in India. She shares her ideas and understanding of her profession in a conversation with Neha Saini.

What has been your approach towards teaching all these years?

When I started teaching 12 years back, I noticed that the basic understanding of primary education is focused only on completion of curriculum. Learning has to be child-centric, especially in early classes, where a child's ability has to be explored. My approach is quite simple - one has to come down to the level of children while making them learn. You cannot force feed texts and concepts into a young mind but only learn with them. I believe the way a teacher treats her students in and outside class, is reflected in student's output. I had heard somewhere that you pass on your energy to your students when you enter a class - negative and positive.

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This generation of kids is quite technologically aware and digital classes have only increased their interest. For younger kids, the novelty of the entire online classroom is exciting and keeping them engaged. We have moved over the early challenges and I feel that even for primary school teachers, to have the opportunity to become technologically educated and empowered is very encouraging. But I still feel that revival of offline school education would be the best move, though with caution. —Alka Sharma, Primary Teacher

The performance pressure starts early. It has its roots in parental expectations and schools pushing for competitive education. What's your take on it?

I feel that there is systematic way of understanding a child's physical and intellectual capabilities. Nothing has to be shoved down a child's psychology, they need some breathing space too and parents as well as teachers need to know that. In most cases, it is seen that kids who are academic achievers tend to become emotionally unbalanced because of the stress we put on them. A 5-year-old or 8-year-old need not have to be judged by the numbers they get on report cards. Instead understand their natural learning graph.

What are the challenges of a primary school educator?

The biggest challenge is to understand the need of the student. For example, I had a student who was a slow writer but not a slow learner. So, I had to engage him during class by calling out his name in between repeatedly. When he got used to the idea of being called out randomly during class, he started to become more alert and used to complete 50 per cent of writing in classroom. Similarly, so many learning blocks can be detected at early age by teachers if they are bit attentive and empathetic towards students and understand what a particular child needs rather that feeding them with designed standard curriculum.

The two subjects you teach ie maths and value education (moral science) demand opposite approach in teaching. Which one's your favourite?

I have a similar approach in teaching both the subjects. I feel that the adjective 'tough' is wrong to be used for mathematics as it's a subject in which one can have fun and learn at the same time. One has to teach with examples and understanding the concept first. Similarly, moral education can only be taught by understanding the concept first.

What do you think of shift towards digital education for primary classes?

This generation of kids is quite technologically aware and digital classes have only increased their interest. For younger kids, the novelty of the entire online classroom is exciting and keeping them engaged. We have moved over the early challenges and I feel that even for primary school teachers, to have the opportunity to become technologically educated and empowered is very encouraging. But I still feel that revival of offline school education would be the best move, though with caution.