Strengthening the moral core

Can you imagine being out for a party and not worrying about what your teenage son or daughter may be doing at home, alone? Or would you ever think of allowing your teenagers to spend the night at a friend’s place, confident that they are not experimenting with drugs, sex or alcohol, or can you imagine being able to talk to them about moral issues and have a meaningful and intelligent conversation? Well, may be because of concentrated efforts of a few organisations you can!

“The values we impart to our children today, consciously or unconsciously will have a major impact on society tomorrow. If we leave the teachings of values to chance, we, as a nation risk losing an integral part of our culture altogether.”  Young people around the world are increasingly affected by violence, social problems and a lack of respect for each other and the world around them. Educators around the world are working towards overcoming the challenges and pressures in fostering value education. The growing concern over the erosion of human values and an increasing cynicism in society has brought Bangalore-based Samashtee foundation to focus on the need for value development innovations in schools, colleges, corporate houses, businesses, and governance.

M R Balakrishna, managing trustee of Samashtee foundation says, “Our world has become very mechanical, without the human factor. Our attitude towards friendships, relationships has taken a downturn. Schools do not give as much importance to value education as it does to exams, performance and marks. We at Samashtee foundation are dedicated towards enhancing the quality of life through value development innovation. Our method helps a child to understand more deeply the role values play in his life and to learn skills to create a value-based atmosphere.”

The Samashtee team is highly qualified and trained in the field of education and some are even armed with a doctorate in psychology.  They are trained to understand the sensitivity of a child and to handle his or her innocent questions with tact and charm. The programme for schools has been designed to give an exposure of 80 minutes to each child for Value Education/Knowledge Leadership per week. A class of 30 children would be given two periods per week in the timetable. If possible, block periods could be allotted to facilitate animated film viewing followed by interactive sessions. The school would set the time-table and Samasthee Foundation’s resource team will conduct the sessions. The resource person from Samasthee would visit the school and handle value education classes.

Further, Balakrishna says, “The objective of this intervention is to sensitise children to introspective and reflective thinking through story-telling, reading, role-play, interactivity, writing a diary, social interactions, field trips, and watching animation films on great leaders of ancient wisdom. Values such as truth, kindness, happiness, charity etc. are impressed upon the children in a very lucid and enjoyable manner. We use innovative methods to familiarise a child about the values that one should follow in life. Samashtee believes that animated films can draw the attention of children to the in-built stories and thus result in an immediate positive impact.

Through this methodology the aim is to develop core values and leadership skills with high vision. Positive human values are imbibed and strengthened over a period of time and continuous exposure to good values helps in strengthening the personality of an individual. Therefore, it is critical to influence and impact young minds while the personality is evolving. If we can have several such positively charged individuals evolving as tomorrow’s knowledge leaders, the collective human factor is totally beneficial to humanity at large.”

But the results will not be instant. The change in the children will be visible only over a period of time. Samashtee plans to have pre-tests and pro-tests to measure the outcome through case studies and psychometric tools. The programme evaluation would include feedback from teachers and parents. Any child in need of serious attention would be taken care of, through interactive sessions with the child as well as the parents. Behavioural problems in a child would be dealt with in a careful and sensitive manner.

The main aim is to teach students how to influence public policies. By developing students’ moral reasoning they can be taught to influence public affairs. Youth have the power to change the way society functions and if they are shown the right path from an impressionable age, we can look forward to a peaceful and bright future.