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Lessons on harmony

Here is a series compiled by educationists for kids that provides invaluable lessons on life

TALKING VALUES Educationists at the event PHOTO: S. THANTHONI

Here are teachers who'll tell you it's not important to score the highest marks. Here are teachers who believe that schooling isn't only about learning your tables by heart, your punctuations and grammar, and winning that race on sports day.

`Living in Harmony, a course on Peace and Value Education' is a series of eight books aimed at children of the primary and middle schools that promotes right values above everything else. The books comprise fascinating stories from the great epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, stories from the life of Christ as well as those of Vidyasagar and Mahatma Gandhi. They are stories that grandmothers made sure we loved and were lessons in humility, simplicity and love for our neighbours.

Some fun too

But the great thing about these 108 lessons is that they are not overtly preachy; they also have place for fun activities. You can draw your family tree or save the `peace puppy', scourging for food from potentially harmful stuff by encircling the broken bottles or the discarded syringe in the dump yard.

Sumathi Sudhakar, Usha Jesudasan, Fathima Muzaffer, Valson Thampu, Malini Seshadri and Prema Raghunath, leading educationists of the city, have compiled the series, which is an Oxford India offering conceptualised by Mini Krishnan.

Recently four of them shared their views about ethical literacy with their fellow teachers. The CSI Bain School auditorium was packed with teachers attending the event, which marked the re-dedication of the CSI Matriculation Higher Secondary Schools' staff.

Sumathi Sudhakar used a recent incident in the life of her young daughter to highlight how it was important to actually live the right values if you wanted your children to imbibe them. "The emphasis these days is on being happy and `comfortable', and `getting things easily' even if it means making little compromises with ethics," she said. "The go-getter, and not the go-giver, is the hero of the hour."

Prema Raghunathan emphasised that although academic achievement is always rewarded with generous newspaper coverage, and a place on illustrious alumni lists, "Nobody writes about the child who is always the first to help or that child who when you ask `Who will get me the register?' is the first to raise his hand and say `Me, miss!'."

Malini Seshadri added "There are enough morally committed people, upholding values to create a social revolution, but there is also too much cynicism."

The Bishop, CSI Madras Diocese, Dr. V Devasahayam, who presided over the event said, "As my friend Valson Thampu so rightly said the real message of life is love." It's probably only natural that it is teachers who are so deeply preoccupied with such concerns, because as Prema Raghunathan pointed out, and as every teacher in that hall knew so well, some of our strongest and oldest values are those imbibed from our teachers.

MEERA MOHANTY

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