Teacher Workshop on Discipline without Tears

Teacher Workshop on Discipline without Tears at GVM's College of EducationIn an era where the individual emotions of children need to accommodated, the Extension Service of GVMʼs College of Education, Ponda, organized a day's workshop entitled "Discipline without Tears". The workshop was in view of the need felt to enable the teachers in equipping themselves with the skills of classroom discipline. Dr. Nandita de Sousa, from Sethu Centre for Child Development  and Family Guidance, Altinho, was the resource person for the day and the programme could see the light of dawn, thanks to the wholehearted support and assistance of Goa Sudharop which sponsored the programme. The inaugural session commenced with the lighting of the lamp by members on the dais as well as teacher participants. Mr. Ibonio D'Souza welcomed the gathering and highlighted the role of Goa Sudharop in its mission for developing Goa; this year in particular its focus being on 'education'.  The chief guest was Dr. Louis Vernal, principal of GVM college, addressed the teaching fraternity on the need for teachers to play appropriate roles in behaviour modification and to think divergently. Mrs. Maria Goretti Falcao, the coordinator of GVM's extension services proposed the vote of thanks and called upon the teachers to derive maximum advantage of the experience and expertise of the resource person. The inaugural session was compered by Ms. Soraya Menezes, a teacher from Loyola High School, Margao. The session was conducted in a very interactive manner and involved group discussions on various case studies, which enabled the teachers to concretely visualize strategies for each of the situations that were understudy. Besides, related situations as brought forth by the teachers from time to time were also attended to by Dr. Nandita. The innate, as well as, external factors as causes for misbehavior were reflected upon, and themanner in which a child responds to his environment were explained, to enable teachers to understand the child's behavior appropriately and to handle them with logical consequences. As such, Dr. Nandita proposed that punishment should be replaced by consequence which is governed by the three Rs: to imply that the consequence to a wrong doing should be Respectful, Reasonable and Related to the problem. It was suggested that teachers look for and focus on any areas of positive behaviour as well as incremental improvements shown and encourage the children to further enhance the desired behaviour.