WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Self-Mastery In Teachers

The students talk so much in the class that I have to scold them often.

It is not with severity but with self-mastery that children are controlled.

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I must tell you that if a teacher wants to be respected, he must be respectable. X is not the only one to say that you use violence to make yourself obeyed; nothing is less respectable. You must first control yourself and never use brute force to impose your will.

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I have always thought that something in the teacher's character was responsible for the indiscipline of his students.

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I hope you will give me precise instructions which will help me keep order in my classes.

The most important is to master yourself and never lose your temper. If you don't have control over yourself, how can you expect to control others, above all, children, who feel it immediately when someone is not master of himself?

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The students cannot learn their lessons even when they have their books.

One must have a lot of patience with young children, and repeat the same thing to them several times, explaining it to them in various ways. It is only gradually that it enters their mind.