Nurturing the dreams of children by S C Joshi

 This article deals with the guidelines for the teachers who are dedicated to the task of shaping and nurturing children’s dreams.  As a mentor one can win the faith of the child by getting connected with him and giving the direction leading to focus his dreams. Preparing a child in setting and achieving his targets by supporting him at different demoralizing phases of his life has also been discussed with suitable guidelines. Article is concluded by giving points on monitoring child’s activities as an objective viewer and contributing to his grand success.  

Introduction: Teaching is one of the splendid professions where you have the opportunity and responsibility to help in shaping one’s personality and character. It is a great challenge of shaping the future of growing young minds in the present scenario. Most of them possess one or the other own imagined dreams with amateur (may be mature) action plans with them and many may have not. But the problem is how to reach at the inner core of their heart to know whether they have the dreams or not, if yes, what’s that, if no, why not? Building the curiosity to know about one’s dream and wish to nurture it by giving it a deep edge, maybe by means of becoming the most approachable mentor meant for an individual, is the basic requirement for a successful mentor. The topic demands that some fundamental points need to be addressed thoroughly which are the vital nutrients for the healthy growth of children’s dreams. 

Winning the faith of a child: Taking a child into the confidence by structuring a candid bridge with him is the pioneer step of nurturing course of action. Before becoming his teacher mentor you will have to be his reliable ‘buddy’ so that he can be open for sharing his views with you. Once the child starts discussing his strengths and weaknesses, ups and downs related to his studies and begins trying to connect himself with you is the first achievement for a teacher. Talk to him on different issues, take his suggestions, give him the responsibilities and show faith in him. But be alert and non-sentimental. You must draw a thin transparent line of dignity which would act as a boundary during every piece of sharing. Teacher is a facilitator who is going into deep to the heart of a child to identify his dream and to show him the right path to achieve it successfully. You will have to train him to live with his dreams. You can nurture only what you get. So it is up to your willing and concerned endeavours that how much you can explore and inspire the child.

Connect yourself with his dream: Second essential step after exploring the child up to an optimum level, by igniting his mind, is connecting yourself with the child’s dream. We must learn to connect with children, get to know how they see the world around them, what it is they want from life, what their goal is, and then we should equip them to fulfill their aspirations and desires. If the child does not want to do something, there is nothing in the universe that can force him to do it, and still give desirable results in the long run. The inner desire to do well and be good is something we need to develop in children, it is perhaps even more important than normal lessons. After all, how many people use more than ten percent of the factual knowledge taught in schools when they grow up?

Think with them – not for them: There is a phase in every child’s life when his moral is low, we need to support him and also to make the child know that failures and bad times are inevitable, obviously he or she will encounter trouble when he or she grows up. This can be done if we think with the child, not for the child. You have to come down at the level of the child and match your frequency with him so that he would be able to connect himself with you. Once he is fully confident that you are his co-thinker not a supreme-thinker, his mind would be in comfortable state in your presence. Both of you must be thinking on the similar issue at the identical time and moreover coming to the matching conclusions. This is called perfect match of the frequency between a teacher and taught. We have so many live examples of the similar frequency coordination connecting a mentor and a scholar giving outstanding results. Guru Nanak Dev and Bhai Mardana, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Swami Vivekananda, Ramakant Achrekar and Sachin Tendulkar, C.G.K. Bhupathi and Sania Mirza and so many other examples are there in which a perfect harmony between a mentor and scholar, resulted in the great success for scholar.

Helping them to focus their dreams: In today’s world children are incredibly self reliant. As such they do not require any help once their thinking process starts soaring, but decisions taken by them needs to be screened, seconded and supported by us. Listen to their thoughts as an active listener, show your responses with positive attitude and make minor corrections by giving suggestions not by being an authoritarian but by being a friend. At the growing age their dreams may not be clear and their action plans may not be sharp ended but they are strong-minded to do something ‘big’ in their life. How much big and how this ‘big’ is going to be achieved, this they may not know but still they are determined. Use this spurt of determination to identify their dream and inspire them to step in towards its attainment. A teacher can do this with his vast experience and expertise, moreover, willingness to make children realize their dreams and fulfill them. Sharpening their aspirations by playing a catalyzing role as a teacher, you can set the examples as it was done in the past by many great mentors. ‘Inspiring without expecting credit’ is the key mantra which would help you to devote yourself for this divine cause.

Prepare them for setting and achieving goals: It is not possible to prepare someone for any task without knowing about his likes, dislikes and whereabouts. There is a strong need to discuss about his approach towards different situations. Conversation with the child in an open environment leads to the best results towards analysis of his capabilities. Talking to him for a long in different segments will help in recognizing his talents. Give him the exposure for various things by involving him in different responsibilities. You need to spend maximum time with the child. This will help in strengthening scholar – mentor relation on hand and will make him feel sheltered and channelized on the other hand. Your gracious, experienced and concerned presence will shoot his many unstated, unseen and unexpected troubles. Taking part with him in different activities or making him participate and developing learning zeal is the key aspect of ‘setting and achieving goals’. It develops a competitive spirit in the child which helps him at each and every moment of his life. Tell him about his merits, demerits, strengths and weaknesses time to time so that he will take remedial measures for the next course of action. Such rectification process will convert his endeavours into success playing vital role in boosting his confidence manifold.

Be supportive during their demoralization phase: Life is an extensive sequence of opportunities, efforts, cheers and becoming role models. It is a stretched process of happenings. Nothing is there to lose. As a friendly mentor you have to make child confident that in number of life skills he is better than so many others. Tell him that great Almighty has provided him unique talents and outstanding inner powers which he can utilize to optimize his efficiency. Use anecdotes in support of your arguments given as confidence boosting capsule.  Help him in regaining his confidence if he loses it repeatedly. Give examples of distinguished people who have gone through ups and downs of their life and come out from extreme situations with the flying colours. During your conversations try to find out the causes which are demoralizing him. Bring him into the positive frame of mind. Encourage him to make another enthusiastic effort for the preceding defeat. Give him small targets with redefined pathways to achieve previously identified goal. Be his friend, cheerleader, well-wisher and guide.

Stay away and monitor: Now this is the time to monitor the child from a distance, and give direction only when we feel it is needed. After all, in the end, all we can do is show them the right path, it is they who have to progress on it. But in this process of shaping and nurturing a child’s dream, his privacy and self-esteem should not be ignored. Sometimes, showing the right path to follow it, is enough. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.” I may be wrong, but in my opinion what many people think wrongly is that good education is telling a child what to do. Swami Vivekananda once said that the experience of teaching is ruined if the teacher believes that he or she is teaching. No one can force a child to learn or go on the right path. True, we can tell a child what to do, we can either coax the child or give him or her an incentive to do what we wish him to do.

 Wish him luck and celebrate his success: Living with the child’s dream and nurturing it with intensive care leading to a great success, is itself wishing him luck. Equipping him with all skills which he learnt under your kind, caring and promotional guidance and leaving no scope for his failures was your firm duty which you must have completed, if you really believe in great mentorship. Exercise all your expertise once again before wishing him luck for his future endeavors. Since both of you are sailing on the same boat so you wouldn’t stay away from celebrations on his success and off course can’t go away from your accountability on his failures. Keep in mind you are not the creator, it is someone else. Your role is only channelizing the appropriate talent to the precise path. Rest is up to the coincidence of planning, execution at the right time, consistent effort in the right direction, best wishes, blessings and unquestionably the final note – destiny ………………. 

Published in CENBOSEC, CBSE’s Quarterly Bulletin (Jan. – Mar.  2012 issue)