Extracurricular activities and a little appreciation can go a long a way
While reading about five concurrent curricula which include official curriculum, operational curriculum, hidden curriculum, null curriculum and extra curriculum, I suddenly had a strong argument in my mind that in today’s world it is important for the educators to put equal stress on the planning of extra curriculum as they do on the official curriculum. I also found myself questioning as to why I was thinking that this should be done.
After some thought, I got few pertinent reasons behind this argument. These reasons include the expectations of the parents and educational institutes, and the environment in which we live in today.
Firstly, I feel that today education has become very expensive and with this the expectations of the parents have also gone higher. They want their children to perform well in their studies. On the other hand, the educational institutes also have greater expectations from the students. Importantly, the grading systems at most of the national institutes have been raised to match the international levels, like at AKU the international cut-off criteria are used to grade the students’ academic performance. These factors are the major stressors for the students as they have to fulfil the expectations of the parents and meet the standards of the educational institutes. It is claimed that academic factors are greater perceived causes of stress in the students and if this stress remains unnoticed, this can have negative impact on the physical and psychological health of the students.
Moreover, it is important to understand that the environment in which we live today has many demands on our minds. Why is this so? The possible reasons are the technological developments, and the fast growing knowledge. I strongly feel that education has become more challenging because of the unlimited knowledge that is available to the children through various technological resources. This requires students to remain updated with the recent knowledge on the given subject to perform well in the class and to compete with other classmates. Thus the students have to spend much time studying and working on the computer to fulfil the parents’ expectations and the academic and environmental demands. Not surprisingly, the national research by Suhail and Bargees (2006) has reported the adverse effect of technology on the physical, psychological and interpersonal wellbeing of the students.
In my personal experience, students who are high achievers get appreciation from the parents and the teachers; but the average students may not get the similar response. I still remember my school teacher who used to give me the example of one brilliant student and kept telling me to become like her. Now when I reflect back on those days, I remember I used to feel very bad for being compared to that other student. Sometimes, I used to feel useless and incomplete. However, the positive learning experience in a professional nursing school broadened my thinking about the role the educational institutes play in building positive self-esteem of an individual.
Keeping in view my current role as an instructor at a university and the observations from the surrounding faculty, I feel that even though we the educators claim to have humanistic approach. And we do try to treat every student as a unique individual but we also expect every student to perform academically well. Sometimes we do not appreciate those students who are outstanding in sports, drama, arts, music etc. I feel that high expectations from parents, teachers and educational institutes are not only the major source of stress in students’ life but they also give students a very narrow perception of education, life and their possible destination in this world.
It is vital for the educators and educational institutions to pay extra attention in planning extracurricular activities in schools, colleges and universities. Educators must do every effort to engage students in these activities. Extra curriculum may act as a buffer to neutralize the academic stressors of the students. Extracurricular activities can enhance self-esteem of those students who may be average but may hold different talents in them. This will not only allow students to be relieved of stress and enhance their self-esteem but will also allow maintaining good physical, psychological and social health.
