September 2, 2009
Willingness to learn: Prosocial way
Posted in Mental Health tagged aggression management, attitude, breaking rules, discipline, environmental change, examinations, generation, media literacy, peer moderator, prosocial, risk behavior management, school violence, student community, study skills, train students, youth at 11:30 am by Dr. Samir Parikh
We adults tend to believe that the younger generation doesn’t want to learn, and all it matters to them is frivolous fun, and a lot of us tend to start living this attitude and let it mask our approach to the youth.
I want to share with you, an experience that we have had with the “Prosocial Peer Moderator program”, that is now in its second year running. We started this program last year with the backdrop of increasing school violence and we felt compelled to try and do something about it. More often than not, we feel that what we can do is so much less in front of the problems we face, that we don’t out any effort, we don’t try to go out of the box, and experiment with ideas. It’s these dilemmas and the desire to experiment for the sake of making a change that we started this program. The idea was to train students, make them peer role models of Prosocial behavior and skills so that they can in turn pass these skills to other students and drive a process of environmental change in their schools, and maybe help in reshaping the vies, attitudes and behaviors of some of us adults. .We were not sure if schools would be interested, more so we were not sure if students would get involved with this. And this week as we completed two sessions in our second year of the program, I look back and can honestly say, we were so wrong about the youth.
These children from schools, whom we thought are into breaking rules and discipline and all that they care is fun, and any attempt to train them with serious stuff, would not be welcome, and they proved all of us so wrong. In the last two years, we have had over three hundred students from over fifty schools who have got trained as peer moderators, these students in turn have trained the younger student sin their schools with life skills related to management of aggression and skills related to studies and examinations, and the next batch would be trained in risk behavior management and media literacy. These students have then conducted so many interesting programs ranging from debate competitions to poster competitions and so on in their schools, and we are in the process of making a peer community that would impart Prosocial skills to the student community at large. What has been so gratifying is the response of the children, their eagerness to learn, their eagerness to make a change, and be a part of the solution instead of the problem, and in doing so they have given us, the (so called) experts so many skills in return!
The thought that I wish to share through this blog is that there is hope for the future. Youth seeks direction, and guidance, and if we are willing to put an effort, they would reward us by supporting, directing and activating us to give them more.
Youth is willing to learn, are we adults willing to learn as well?
ashima gupta said,
December 2, 2010 at 5:35 pm
sir
m sorry this is not regarding what u have said but i wanted to contact u
because i’ve heard about the cbt course u do.
i am a final year student of psychology in i.p college.
can u plz come to our college and conduct it?
ashima
Shabnam Bhardwaj Rana said,
September 14, 2009 at 6:06 am
Dear Dr. Parikh,
I congratulate you on this program, the way it has shaped in these two years and benefitted not only those more than three hundred students of 50 schools , yet all their peers /friends/even cousins in coaching classes and neighbourhood as well .
I believe that this effort will go a long way , in providing a platform for dialogue/mediation, honing not only a positive prosocial behaviour but a clear communication, negotiation skills ,which will also help reduce the burden on our judiciary .
mimansa said,
September 10, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Children are indeed active learners and in this process of learning, the kind of questions their curious and inquisitive minds produce inturn helps us to learn from them. However i feel they are like wet clay who mould and take various shapes, we just need to guide them and show them the right direction with the warm and caring touch.
Bharti M. Borah said,
September 7, 2009 at 6:15 am
Dear Dr. Parikh,
I guess the process helped realize that we must remain open minded and optimististic, we don’t know what the youth is thinking and a dialogue helps clear the air and open a dialogue that allows all of us to change, grow and expereince together and apart!!!
Regards,
Bharti
Isha Singh said,
September 4, 2009 at 4:03 am
The experience of the prosocial peer program has been very satisfying, and I do believe there is a lot to learn from students for all of us as well.
Anupama Ahlawat said,
September 3, 2009 at 4:44 am
Dr. Parikh I believe that society needs to come out of this thought that children are not ready to accept even if efforts are made. It is all about taking the first step to correct the behaviors which they have learned by observing the individuals around including their family and friends, by the violence seen in movies and media at large, also by the video games.
Your effort to take this first step by starting this pro social peer moderator program is the beginning of the revolution needed to empower the students with skills to correct these behavioral problems. Also, youth respond best to their peers, so pro social peer program would be great help for the society at large.