Unraveling the sources and remedies of examination stress among Indian school children

Unraveling the sources and remedies of examination stress among Indian school children.

In the year 1600 Robert Hooke conceptualized stress according to mechanical principals of load (external force) stress (area upon which the force exerted and strain (damage or deformation as a result of the load and stress). Hans’s selye known as the father of stress defined it as a stimulus that produces feelings of tension. Stress is also understood as a process involving an interaction between the person and his or her environment. The perception of stress is dependent upon individual’s cognitive appraisal of the events and the resources available to deal with them (Cohen and lazarus1983).Threat is a key concept in the understanding of the stress and it is the subjective appraisal of the potential negative effects of astressor. Whenever threat is perceived it mobilizes the individual into action. The perception of an event as threatening depends upon its appraisal through perception expectation or memory. While exploring and evaluating student’s examination burden one must explore and focus upon other relevant and more powerful contributors to this situation.

Those who cannot should not be teaching: Who, When given the honor and the  privilege to  teach, bore rather than inspire, settle for the lowest common denominator rather than aspire  to the highest possible numerator, take the job for granted than being continuously amazed at the blessing- sins against all the minds they have closed, misinformed and alienated from education(zimbardo2005,p-12).Research shows that quality of teachers is crucial to better learning related outcomes.(Monk&king1994,Rowanetal 997,,Rice2003).Schools with poor infrastructure facilities and lack of high quality teachers is a major impediment to growth and development of children.

As a fine book is a window to an amazing tale a good teacher is a door to a wondrous journey. Theorists like Bronfenbrenner, 1979 Ford and Lerner1992, Sameroff,

 1983 have emphasized the context of schooling as one that bridges between macro levels of society and culture that shape the practice of education from afar and micro levels of the school as an organizations, its class-room and the people that inhabit these setting whose daily acts of leadership, teaching and social interaction affect children’s learning and development in immediate ways. (Cole - 1996).

The context of schooling involves multiple layers of structures and organizations engaged in the job of imparting leadership, teaching and learning.

                                                          

                                                           Home School Connectivity

                                            Organizational Culture School Culture Leadership

Level of

Organization

                                                              

                                              Teacher/ Class Room/ Academic Activities

                                                        Social Relation around Learning

                                                       

                                                                        Student

                                                                          

                                                                           

                                                                            

                                                                   Developmental Time

Different layers of organization in the school system in an interdisciplinary manner and these are the factors that may add or minimize stress among the learners.

It also requires the measurement of both “etic” and “emic” features of the context of schooling to capture both the tacit and tangible dimensions of these nested levels (Roser, Urdan&Stephens2009).Another important dimension that requires attention is the pedagogical techniques and its application at the class room situation. If teachers are not well prepared to apply a new technique of pedagogy it could harm the teachers as well as the students and consequently harm their self efficacy. It is no wonder that political regimes their own value and ideological preferences despite claims to value neutrality.

What seems to be an objective syllabi or curriculum is a cloak that masks implicit values. As social theorist jurgen Habermas proposed in his influential volume Knowledge and Human interests (1971), any search for knowledge favors certain political and economic goals over others.  In Indian context changes in curriculum is mired with controversy with the change in political power that hardly connects to objective reality at the grass root level which ultimately fails to establish motivational connect with the teachers and students. It is also important to examine interactional aspects of school education system as a critical component for wellbeing of our children. Some of our school acquires premium brand status irrespective of any scientific criteria .The concept of equity of school education is negatively distributed across the country and mass education is badly affected in this process. Other important aspects of demographic diversity, native language, and cultural diversity are not placed adequate attention which has far reaching impact on the well being and future development of our children.

Acts of teaching and learning are inherently social, emotional, moral, behavioral and cognitive affairs simultaneously (Noddings2005a, Shulman2005).our school education system is largely focused toward scoring marks or grades in the examination ignoring other important facets such as sports activities or engagement in music or recreational acts of humor so important for overall development of the child.

Our school education system is narrowed to achieve the goal of singular acts of scoring marks or grades in the examinations. Other holistic domains of development namely social, moral, emotional are mostly ignored in majority of our schools. Major expectation holders such as parents, teachers, and significant others also create strain in the minds of students by merely recognizing the marks criteria and badly ignoring other important achievements of them .Teachers training institutions all across the country lack in terms infrastructure. Other crucial dimensions of aptitude interest, social skills and interpersonal skills are not a consideration for the appointment of teachers. It is indeed surprising and contrary that future of our children is in the hands of people who are themselves neither motivated nor capable to perform the job.

Depending on how well the instructional and interpersonal features of school contexts fit with ‘’or are mismatched’’ with the needs of students at various ages and to the extent that student perceive such fits or mismatches with fundamental biological, psychological and social needs the theory predicts either positive or negative changes in motivation, well being and behavior [Eccles,s  , Roeser 2009].  .

Social ,cognitive and cultural approaches to teaching and learning have demonstrated the important role that teachers beliefs play in shaping their pedagogical decisions and strategies  in the class room.(Calderhead1996,shulman 2005).more recent studies have examined how teachers social emotional competencies are also key determiners of their behavior in the class-room.(Jennings andGreenberg2009).

Teacher’s efficacy beliefs are positively related to their investment in teaching. Teachers have two primary roles one is that of “academic instructor” oriented toward addressing teaching content and the other role of socialize oriented toward addressing children’s socio-emotional and behavioral needs, fosterer of the good citizen.

However in reality the situation in Indian schools is far from satisfactory in terms of teacher –taught ratio and quality educators as well as allowing innovative practices at school level is not encouraged. School resources such as school –size, teacher –student ratio, books in the library, per pupil expenditures, continuous evaluation of the teachers are not given adequate attention.

One of the very important aspects that need closer scrutiny is the people running school organizations and their value system. There seems to be a huge gap in the manifest objectives and hidden objectives of such people whose major goal is to earn money and academic& social objectives are relegated to the background.

The process of decision making in the school system particularly in the private schools is mostly one sided with maximum representation of  its promoters and the owners .Hence the collective and participative  modes of decision making are not a preferred mode in the policies and plans for the school level. Although we have broader similarities in the Board i.e. ICSE and CBSE but education being a state subject a lot differences exists at the level of state boards. The sense of belongingness, mutual support is very low among the school students where interaction between teacher’s students and staff is not encouraged at informal levels. The role of parents as caregivers is very important but over indulgence in crafting and charting future paths of their children actually impedes exploration and inquisitiveness ability of the children. There are majority number of parents in India who view their own success in life to the success of their children and the vice versa and it also contains stereotypical religious sanction .It is indeed an irony that instead of allowing more space for emotional sharing students appearing in the examinations are segregated from the rest of the family, social functions, withdrawal of recreational opportunities and an undeclared house arrest situation is created centered around the examinee. The number of counselor in a school with large number of students is either one or two in a few schools and none in the majority of the schools. It is also important to assess the quality of our counselors. The factors of neighborhood and influences of relatives play a very important role In the career choice of the children and some of them also set their target score points to be achieved by the children ignoring the ability and potential of the child. Brofenbrenners articulation of an ecological view of development is an amplification of the role of near and dear ones in the future of children. In the Indian context sociologists like A.R .Desai (1974) S.C.Dube (1971) m.S.  Gore (1971) and K Ahmad (1979) have questioned the existing practices in education and its limitation to overcome and uplift the future of our children and youth.

          Changes in children’s use of leisure time have increased significantly watching television, doing internet browsing, and playing videogames. Current media use studies report that almost 4 to 6 hours a day is spent on using various media for example- television, computer and mobile phones. Now television’s density and mobile usage density has risen to a staggering majority and multi-set household are also a reality in many households. With the increase in multi-set households the perceived benefit of using television to bring more interaction in the family has reduced. Although in one set households the families coverage physically to watch television but they remain psychologically separated due to dominant attention to the program me.

Nowadays children and adolescent live and grow in world dominated by media and lack of parental expertise and maturity and absence of well documented long term effects children are exposed to media contents without neutralizing its harmful effects. Even during examination time leading newspapers and channels come out with suggestions by an expert which is much generalized in nature. Therefore trying to examine the sources of possible stressors we keep distancing ourselves from the real issues.

Just as negative teachers can damage the growth and development of our children, positive teacher’s can unleash the enthusiasm and joy of learning for the students. A calling is defined as a strong motivation in which a person takes a course of action that is intrinsically satisfying.(Buskist,Benson&Sikorski2005).Excess emphasis on grades or marks increases the anxiety hence this should be minimized and meaningfully  diverse ways  of learning be encouraged. The importance of student’s feelings that the teacher, parents & society at large care about their learning and about them as an individual is very important. Long back in 1859 James said the great thing in all education should be to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. Each student can construct a positive reservoir of knowledge provided they get a context to do so. What we need is a curriculum designed on native language and nativistic social –cultural contexts. A sustainable approach to a positive environment should focus on sports, music, traditional methods of yoga, meditation and optimistic approach toward life. This attitude that one particular job is a success guarantee to our success in lives must be demystified. Similarly stereotyped and prejudiced premiums placed on certain streams and certain institutions must not govern the mindset of our students and parents. Approaching this problem as a continuous process of evolving and coevolving interactional and context specific factors can bring us closer to deal with reality of examinations.