One fine morning
I had woken up in the middle of my sleep the night before. I checked the time and went back to sleep. My eyes opened once again when the clock struck six in the morning, and as usual, I wanted to do so much. I needed to plan for the class and check the rest of the test papers. But due to sleep disturbance, I could not get myself up. Finally, when I woke up for real, I only had thirty minutes left for my first coaching class of the day. I rushed myself to get dressed and with only fifteen minutes left to spare I was trying to think of a plan to have a productive lesson. Luckily, I remembered the time when our LDM Jalan dai had mentioned that I could take the same motivational lesson I did in my practice teaching to my actual class. Yes! I had saved that folder, full of the plan for a very special motivational, ‘You can do it too’ lesson. All I did that morning was carry that yellow folder and replicate the lesson in both my coaching classes.
I was in such a phase that I needed some motivation. I did the same lesson in both class 9 and 10 and it was very effective. It did not just help the students, it also helped me. After the lesson, my students wanted to stay a bit longer in the school. They wanted to finish that math homework. The shy ones wanted to get up and practice the remaining part of the play right away. One of them even did a great yell during one of the scenes while we were practicing.
Me: Okay, so footballers in the scene say “Goal…, and clap your hands”
When I gave the command, the usually soft spoken Man Maya stood out. She kicked the little red brick being used as football so hard sending it wobbling a few meters ahead and clapped her hands and yelled, “Yes…, it’s a goal!” She laughed hard, amazed at her own voice and action.
It was a pure delight to see her like that. The theme of the motivational session was the power of determination. Among other activities, I showed students pictures of people who came ahead with a ‘can do attitude’ despite the circumstances. The main idea of the lesson was that if one is determined, even their current fate, circumstances and time will help achieve what they really want. People like Jhamak Kumari Ghimire, Mira Rai, Maggie Doyne and Min Bahadur Gurung have shown that circumstances and physical barriers cannot stop a person if they have the determination. Some people have wonderful health but they don’t have a ‘can do’ attitude. So, I shared these thoughts with them and asked them to reflect for a bit if there was a time when they had a ‘can do’ attitude and determination.
To make it fun and involve the Tamang students, I asked the students what determination meant in their language? They answered “Ngai Hamla” which translates to ‘Can do’. We spent the rest of the class practicing the phrase. They saw me clumsily follow the Tamang dialect and roared in laughter when I said “Ngai Hamla” repeatedly trying to get it right.
Another great idea I had come across in my lesson was showing the students, how our mind works. Inspirational people like Stephen Hawking and Mira Rai said to their mind, ‘You can do it’ despite their circumstances and the mind agreed. But the mind is such a powerful thing that if you say to your mind ‘You can’t do it’ then the mind will agree and stop you from doing it. So, it is important to always remind your mind that you can do it. The students loved this explanation. I helped demonstrate it by saying, “if there is something you feel like you cannot do, just pat yourself above your ears to tell your brain that you can.” While delivering this idea during the lesson, I was getting motivated myself.
Mindset is indeed a powerful tool to overcome dark times.
In the end, I asked them to think about what I had said and add it to their learning to continue the essay about “My Aim in Life” that they had been working on the day before.
It was a great morning!
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The reading titled ‘You too can do it’ that I used for this lesson can be found on the book ‘The Joy of Living for Class 8’ by Francis Fanthome and Dorothy Fanthome. These are the pictures I found online that I printed on A4 size papers and displayed in the class.
