We often hear that it’s a sink-or-swim dog-eat-dog kind of a world. You need to elbow your colleague out of the way; after all it’s survival of the fittest out there. Yet, if we operate with compassion and kindness, we actually get ahead better and farther. We can do also remain happy and fulfilled as well as improve our health and increase our longevity. To quote His Holiness the Dalai Lama, “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
T.M. Patel International School shares such a view where we believe that our young learners should practice and spread messages of empathy in order to make their own world a more humane one. At T.M. Patel, our model of the Innovation Academy plays a crucial role in crafting the minds of our young learners to facilitate their growth as skilled professionals and compassionate leaders. The nurturing of 3 mindsets – the growth mindset, the maker mindset and the team mindset is a central theme of this Innovation Academy model. Many critical attitudes and skills are developed in our learners in order to instil them with these mindsets. Social responsibility and social awareness are two of these key attitudes that we aim to foster in our learners so that they can be adaptable, emotionally mature and independent. Hence, in the month of July 2021 our learners focused on the issue of bullying. We sought to nurture attitudes such as empathy, appreciation of diversity and respect for others and different perspectives by exploring the theme of bullying.
Bullying is a very common, complex and potentially damaging form of violence among children and adolescents. Bullying implies an intention to harm, intimidate or coerce an act when there is an imbalance of power and the act is a cause for distress and provocation. Bullying may be verbal, physical or mental in nature and a whole spectrum of acts can constitute as bullying. It can become a source of trauma for children and young adults and remain with them their whole lives, often leading to mental distress and depression, and in extreme situations, even suicide.
What is central to bullying is an imbalance of power dynamics. Bullies are usually physically stronger than the people they bully. It can be described as a show of strength to undermine or denigrate someone’s dignity to gain sadistic pleasure out of it. What most people don’t know, however, is that many people who show violent behaviour and engage in bullying, themselves have low self esteem and are insecure and anxious.
In an attempt to tackle the issue of bullying head on and confront its many dimensions and facades, some students of T.M. Patel International School participated in activities to raise awareness about bullying. Facilitated by their teachers the young minds were discussed and explored the different aspects of teasing and its transformation into bullying. The learners eagerly shared and debated their views and opinions. Many a misconception was aired and sorted through. Our young learners then created a variety of presentations using various forms of media to express their learnings and understanding. Engaging videos, insightful posters and pithy slogans were designed by students to give a more concrete form to their thoughts and ideas. These student artefacts were then displayed in the school’s social media channels to enable a wider reach.
As we all know bullying is a common phenomenon in schools and universities across the country and the fight to put an end to this harmful social act continues. We hope that our young learners at T.M. Patel continue to wage the good fight and take a firm stand against bullying at school, at home and beyond.
Editor:Ms. Ritu Lohani
Teacher (PRT)
T.M. Patel International School, Surat
