Page 10 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL6

Teachers have to know how to teach. It’s not telling children to repeat after you and then write it down. You can put letters on cards, put them in music or write them on your foreheadBuddhism.” I just laughed and told him, “The culprit is here!”Even a few days ago, someone on TV mentioned communist infiltration that happened in religion that same year! That was a misunderstanding. In fact, I was the first person who brought mindfulness to schools and made children practise it. Now it’s fashionable in the West. Western practitioners have applied the concept into something behavioural, which is great. I started introducing children to mindfulness by giving them signals, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, that meant they had to be still wherever they were – in the bath- room, at the lunch table, anywhere. This is the foundation that can be taught from a young age.Teachers are key players in the education system. What is your view on teacher training?Teachers have to know how to teach. It’s not telling children to repeat after you and then write it down. You can put letters on cards, put them in music or write them on your forehead. Do you know where the best place to sense writing is? It’s on your back. Children can feel a character drawn on their back and match it with the one on the board.It takes time to teach, not to mention a lot of gimmicks. But the payoff is that children will pick up the ability to read and understand sentences, and also start guessing by themselves. If there are 10 words, of which a child only knows three, he or she can guess the rest from the way the teacher tells a story, or from the tone of voice. We haven’t capitalized on how humans guess. So we have problems with pedagogy and with literacy.Later on, I stopped teaching8 Elite+