“Your heart does not answer to your mind; your heart reveals the deepest  wishes of your soul. No amount of clever justifications or smart excuses alters your heart’s wish, it just delays the richly fulfilling life you truly seek“.  – ROBERT BENO

Being an educator I wish to impart knowledge not only to my students but to all the people in society, by which one can make their life worthwhile, happy, and peaceful in every situation. For this, one needs to work only on the 4 Quotients:

• Intelligence
• Emotional
• Social
• Adversity  

Parents and teachers have a major role in teaching children these 4 quotients. We give importance to a child’s cognitive capabilities, which is their Intelligence Quotient(IQ), but the other quotients are ignored. I believe if we wish to inculcate  the values, which can strengthen these quotients, then these values must be ‘Caught’ and ‘Taught’. Our kids catch whatever we do, so if we want our kids to respect others, then we must see that we follow this ourselves. At one stage, those values can be further taught also. These values help a child balance their Emotional Quotient(EQ) and with balanced emotional quotient, one can have a good social and spiritual quotient as well.

Educationists have the power to shape minds of upcoming generations; it is the responsibility of teachers and parents to train these minds for life, to give them an education for life, and not merely education for a living. If you have high emotional intelligence, you are able to recognize your own emotional state, the emotional states of others, and engage with people in a way that draws them to you. You can use this understanding of emotions to relate better to other people, form healthier relationships, achieve greater success at work, and lead a fulfilling life. People with high EI (emotional intelligence) are usually successful in most of the things they do. Because they make others feel good, they go through life easier, as compared to people who are easily angered or upset.  Research has proven that children with higher EQ are more responsible, less lonely, happy, healthy, and have better academic performance.  

But if I talk about a time which is not favourable for a person, then which quotient works? And how does it affect life? In such a time, only the Adversity Quotient(AQ) works, which is the measure of our ability to go through a rough patch in life and come out without losing our mind. AQ determines who will give up in the face of troubles. An AQ can be developed in the same manner as we work to improve our IQs. We all are seeing the effects of this pandemic and the thoughts which people are having about this topic are the result of AQ. A view on the brighter side of COVID-19 is the result of high adversity quotient. It’s the combined efforts of parents and teacher to improve the AQ of kids. Self-dependency, critical thinking and problem-solving approaches are the key components which can be adopted by the teacher to cover the curriculum. The sharing of one’s own life experiences is the best way to improve a child’s AQ. This strategy requires adults to recall their past experiences which indirectly gives motivation and the way to improve a child’s own AQ.

We need to remind ourselves that our education apparatus can’t be one that produces robots; that can only happen in laboratories. There has to be overall development. 

Dr. Yogesh Gambhir

Principal
DRV DAV Centenary Public School, Phillaur, Punjab

USOs 59th General Conference and All-India Schools Festival was conducted at DRV DAV Centenary Public School in October 2019. Check out the photos and videos here.