How can Happy Teachers make a difference?

Learning is a continuous process. CBSE made it mandatory for all teachers to have 50 hours of training in a year. I got a chance to attend a one-day training(Capacity Building Program) on the topic "Happy Classroom" at Sanganabasava International Residential School, Bijapur.

The experts are the Principals from nearby well-reputed schools. I take this opportunity to thank Mr. Jimesh Paul( Principal of Sharada Public School) and Mr. Savari James S( Principal of PBA Central School, Raichur) for mentoring us(More than 50 Teachers)for the whole day.

In this blog post, I will share my takeaway from the training session on the topic "Happy Classroom".

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know. - Albert Einstein

Self Awareness Scale:

The session started with an activity to learn more about ourselves. We need to scale from 1 to 5 for different questions, and they are divided into subcategories like

• Self Awareness
• Self Management
• Self Motivation
• Social Awareness

Reflection on exercise:

In this reflection activity, we need to check where we scored less and what can be done to improve.

Another activity is where we are required to visualize/recall a recent event or any situation and we require to write what kind of emotions and feeling we are undergoing. And we need to check what triggered these emotions and whether emotional reactions match the situation.

Emotional intelligence is the key to personal and professional success

As part of the Teacher's Toolkit, we have learned a few techniques for understanding and controlling emotions:

1. S.T.O.P.P

STOPP stands for:

S- Stop

T - Take a Deep Breath

O - Observe

P - Pull Back( Put in some Perspective)

P - Practice( what works) & Proceed.

2. C.A.R.E

CARE stands for:

C - Code of Professional conduct to be followed

A - Acquired knowledge about your student to be able to cope proactively

R - Reflective Practices & Self Confidence help in difficult situations

E - Engaging with colleagues ensures you are not in it alone

3. PL.E.A.S.E

PLEASE stands for :

PL - Treat Physical Illness

E - Eat Healthily

A - Avoid mood-altering drugs, alcohol, etc

S - Sleep Well

E - Exercise.

In addition to learning about these techniques, we also learned about What is Behavior and Misbehavior and the reasons for it.

Happy Scale:

The Happiness scale activity helped us to know how happy we are and we calculated the Group Happiness Mean too.

The importance of Gratitude, Forgiveness, Optimism, and Empathy, Respecting Diversity, Time Management.

Happiness: Make it a Habit.

Activity on the Gratitude list helped us become positive and optimistic by writing down what we are grateful for.

Then we defined "What is a Happy Classroom?" and we learned what makes a classroom happy, who is responsible for it, and how to do it.

Another key learning from the session is ways to Foster Happiness in Classrooms:

• Mindfulness
• Learning New Things Each Day & Being Challenged Just Enough
• Develop an Effective Pastoral Care Program.

And we learned the importance of the Story Telling Approach and Total Physical Response to make the classroom Happy.

The session was very helpful for every teacher to make our classroom a happy classroom.

A few other things I learned/surprised/motivated/loved in this session are:

• Group Activities
• Sharing the practical problems and their experiences.
• Think, Pair & Share Activity
• Stop Light of Self Regulation
• Children follow the actions and not the words.
• Positive and Negative Comment Survey.
• Law of Attraction
• Believe & Recieve.
• The support and motivation of the Smt. Sharmila Hemant, Principal of SIRS by active participation in the training session.
• The Teamwork of School Management in conducting the training session.
• The teachers made Beautiful handmade folders for all the participants.
• The food is delicious.

Conclusion:

The session was very interactive and helpful, and I got a chance to meet teachers from different schools ( Ashok sir, Nitin sir, Aakash sir, Satish sir, Jores sir, Vijay sir, Geeta mam, and .....( I forgot the names of a few teachers).

I wish every teacher will get a chance to attend training on " Happy Classroom" and the session ends with a simple test, a Vote of thanks, a group photo, and a quote

Happy Teachers Make Happy Classrooms.