so many things went through my mind during class today. today's lesson was on "right action". and the text book focused very very narrowly by only framing 4 of the precepts. that was it. it was rather disappointing. and to me, unaceptable. and although four of the precepts were framed under "right action", the book did not go on to explain that this does not mean that "right action" is restricted to only observing these precepts. to bring this point across, i went into the whole concept of intentionality. and after the fiasco last week, i thought today's class went very well... that particular student made some disturbances but in general behaved reasonably ok. nonetheless, the lesson went on with lots of things going through my mind. and many of these were caused by a particular teacher. these include:
- as teachers, we need to have a certain level of system-thinking. let me elaborate. in the past few lessons, i see teachers keeping specifically to the text and asking the students to read through the text, para-by-para, word-by-word and then considered the lesson as taught. to me, it was a pure waste of time. given the nature of the topic (noble eight-fold path), it was important to keep iterating that they are all inter-connected. every questions asked provide us with an opportunity to bring up and relate them to previous lessons.
- as teachers, we need to hold our thoughts, suspend judgments and give our students the space to express themselves. and after that, we can clarify and put their thoughts in the right context. let me elaborate on this. to illustrate the importance of "intentionality" behind every actions, i asked the class to write an action on thier notepad. any action would do i said. that particular teacher quickly added and insisted that that the actions must be something related to the dharma. so i went along. and the class obediently scribbled something on their notepad. one of the boy wrote "running". and next thing i knew, that particular teacher went up to him and chided him for being not serious and insisted that he write something about dharma practise. sighs... i later went on to ask him to elaborate about why he wrote "running". to me, "running" is a perfect example for what i want to bring across - the concept of "intentionality". if one's intention for running is vanity, it is not gonna help the individual advance further in his practise. but if a person runs becos he wants to be healthy so that in a healthy state, he could better concentrate on practising the dharma, then "running" is a "right action"! this boy's answer was a perfect example for my lesson! too often we make all sorts of assumptions at the action-level and fail to clarify the intent. and in this case, i quietly taught the lesson and i guessed the teacher learned later and kept quiet about it.
- as teachers, we must know how to and draw clear lines between personal views and teaching a specific content/ concept. and this was where i had some tensions. we were on the topic of "right action" and discussed about refraining from sexual misconduct. of cos, with a group of teenagers in front of me, i was deeply aware that this topic would raise some very interesting questions. so what i did was to frame the whole discussion first. the ring i created was from the angle of having a clear conscience/ calm and not hurting or creating suffering in the people you love (be it your husband or your wife). and from this perspective, it was easy to bring in issues of sexual misconduct, ie, no adultery, not cheating, and so on. but again, that particular teacher stepped in and started telling the class that to refrain from sexual misconduct, they should also use the right organ for the right purpose, homosexuals are wrong, good buddhist can only make love at a fixed time of the day, to have sex only in the bedroom and no where else, and so on... to me, i could buy certain parts. but for many others certainly, they sounded really dodgy! well, to give that teacher the benefit of doubt, i should perhaps go and read up more about it, but at that point in time, i kept quiet. the students listened in amazement but thank goodness, did not ask further. perhaps they were just stunt by what all the illogical things she said! i had tensions for i did not know how to tell the teacher off or to stop her. i left it was it was, quickly ended the topic and moved to the next topic.
- this brought me to the next point - that as teachers, we need to act responsibly and be skillful in guiding our students. these are teenagers. we must recognise that we should partake in the education process with them as learning partners. we need to balance between telling and sharing. in certain aspects, we tell. and in certain aspects, we share and that the students need to go further to search for the truth themselves. our perceptions and understandings of certain concepts are based on our exposure to the world and our experiences. but whether it is the truth is something that we ourselves cannot verify given our limited experience. and for that, we want the students to also think about it, to reflect on it, and to research into it before they are finally convinced of it themselves and internalizing it. and the last thing our students need is to have a whole load of stuff unloaded onto them! sighs...
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