BRINGING MYSELF UNDER THE SCOPE.

Once upon a time, I heard doctors aren't encouraged to treat themselves nor their loved ones. One of the reasons advanced by the proponent of this view is that the doctor in question may not be objective enough. His judgements can be or may be clouded by emotion. 

As a teacher, I believe this can be our lot to an extent but sometimes confronting ourselves with the truth can be the best antidote man will ever invent. 

What is the essence of finishing one's scheme, delivering well packaged lessons and somewhere within the ranks of your student, there is a child who is not comfortable with your subject and can't voice out his/her problems to you? 

He or she doesn't trust you enough to handle the situation with the courtesy it deserves. He/she goes about brooding, of course incapable of solving his/her problem, carrying  such burden on their shoulders. 

I fear for myself and what I do. I fear I may have such student in my class and I wouldn't be able to offer a helping hand. 

I fear for the fate of such student in any life defining exams. 

How do I find out such students? How do I get them to master their fear, trust me enough to come forward and speak their mind. 

I need to find ways of making them place their cards on the table. They must have their views and opinions sorted out and I believe I am in a better position to fix it. 

But I must be able to command their trust. They must implicitly trust me with their views on life. Of course without compromising the ethics of my profession. 

But how do I achieve this? 

WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW CAN(NOT) KILL YOU.

Whenever suicide bombers blow up a location in Europe or in the United States of America, one of the questions security agencies are posited with is what they know about such person. This results in what is popularly called background check. 

At the end of the exercise, everybody, everything associated with the bomber is probably known to them. His itinerary since he stepped into the country is not left out as well. Nothing bits a good background check. 

Background check requires human resources and ICT resources, and can be expensive to conduct. When properly done, one can argue that apart from God no one has much information about the targeted person than the agency in question. 

As a teacher, this is one unique tool I wish I am extremely good at - knowing my students, where they come from, their experience in other schools, parental influence etc. 

Not only that, I also need to know how developed their imagination is, their assimilation rate, how they experience learning personally and lots more. 

It may be difficult but the last Open Day taught me the immense gains of a harmless conversation with their parents. I had also discovered that students are willing to share if you sincerely ask some fact finding questions. 

The reason for a background check is simple, the more I know about them, the more I understand their unique learning pattern and most importantly answer the question how imaginative are they. 

It would be time consuming for a school to find out all these. So this may be how I can be of help to my school too. 

Genuinely trying to know someone engenders trust. It is a win win situation. The child believes I care enough and the quality of what and how I teach gets better.