Things to know in School

Memories from school are perhaps our best childhood memories. The innocence and naïveté and the silly things we did can never be brought back. It is also the most crucial phase of a person’s life, the time when they are away from family mingling with various kinds of people of different age, gender, class and religious groups. School is where they interact, learn and imbibe a lot of different things that they cannot possibly learn from being at home and things and values that will help them grow into better human beings in the future. 

Therefore, it comes as a great responsibility for the school authorities to make sure that the school environment and the syllabi is well rounded to cover every aspect of a child’s growth to help them grow into mature, responsible and honest individuals. There a few things that are very important those school faculties most often miss and I shall highlight a couple of areas which I feel schools should include in their syllabi.

1     Basic Life Skills– School syllabi should include basic laws like the rights and duties of a citizen to ensure the students grow up as responsible people. They should also be taught how to seek help in case of emergencies and how to take proper action during some critical situations. Also schools should give information regarding things like how to open the bank account and the importance of votes and the do-how’s of the same.

2     Sex Education – Most school syllabi have made sex education a compulsory subject in the co-curricular section but the objective of getting students acquainted with the necessary amount of information is far from being achieved. These sex education classes end up being an embarrassment for the teachers explaining and a muffled giggling and whispering fest for the students while no important safety precautions and issues are relayed to the students.

3    Self Defense- While a lot of schools pay attention to enabling students with skills in sports, very few give out lessons on self defense. Considering the increasing rate of attacks and crimes in today’s world, it is very important for schools to teach children skills to enable them to fight for themselves, to save themselves from predators and dangerous criminals.

4     Relationships – School is the first place when we get to know people from outside our family zone. It is a sort of practice arena before going to face the real world when we grow up as adults. It is therefore important for schools to teach their pupils to interact properly with their peers and others around them. Also an awareness about the opposite gender and healthy interaction between the same should be encouraged and paid attention to. Students must also be made to understand that they are always more than what their marks tell, there are other important areas of social development that make for a good person.

5      Personal Hygiene - Of all things that I think schools haven’t taught us, I think personal hygiene should be on top. I know a lot of schools which conduct yearly health check-ups to ensure the students are healthy and have received their doses of vaccinations and other similar requirements. But sadly, most schools do not pay attention to this section. Regular health camps and interactive sessions should be held at schools to spread awareness regarding the importance of brushing daily, exercising, and eating healthy meals which make a major part of a person. Also personality classes should be included where information regarding good posture and body language should be imparted.