Launched in 2011, our program EL Play works in low-income and government schools through football to build leadership skills in students. At present, the EL Play program reaches over 4000 children in India across selected schools in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and villages in Dharwad.
Through this story we explore how the EL Play football program helps student learn very important leadership skills to cope with anger, including self-awareness, management of emotions, problem solving and teamwork. In this article, read about how Amalaya, a class teacher from Dharavi Transit Camp (DTC) and Anwar, a football coach with EL Play, teamed up with Arjun from Enabling Leadership to create a unique solution at enabling students to express their anger.
“In August, I noticed an increase in incidents of violent behaviour among my students. The boys were fighting in the classroom, bathroom and in around their homes. Some students were also yelling in class, throwing books in frustration, sulking and unwilling to talk about what was bothering them. I learned that some students were fighting after their football sessions too.
Unless the students had a lot of positive reinforcement, they were rarely on good behaviour. This really took me by surprise, because I had been teaching them for a year and a half, and I thought we had resolved these types of behavioural issues at the beginning of the first year!
The final incident that made our intervention imperative was when two boys beat up a third on their way home from football practice. Following this incident, we sat down with the students to address their violent behaviour towards each other. They said they hit each other if they felt annoyed or irritated.
Repeated probing with the question, “But why do you hit someone?”, revealed that many students felt angry and frustrated most of the time and hit each other when they felt especially angry. The students expressed their own helplessness at being hit by people including their parents, or, after-school tuition teacher classes.” — Amalaya, a class teacher from Dharavi Transit Camp (DTC)
Anwar, a coach with our EL Play program, has been working with the students at DTC since November 2017. He also shares an excellent rapport with Amalaya who brought to his attention this problem with her problems.
“Since I began coaching at DTC, I’ve grown to love the students as my own. Their craze for football is incredible, making it a great medium for them to develop their leadership. Unfortunately, I too observed the students being aggressive and angry. Two of my calmest students, Alisham and Saqlain, had begun fighting and hitting each other at the drop of a hat. This really disappointed me, and made my feel like I had made very little progress in all this time. I was determined to do everything I could to help them cope in the best possible way.
Together with Amalaya and Arjun from the team at Enabling Leadership, we strategised to help the students manage their anger both in the classroom and on the field. We picked a day when Amalaya would play a classroom game, and would deliberately be unfair towards a small group of children. She then made notes about each child’s reactions to this.
Similarly, at the football session that day, I too acted unfairly towards another small group of students, with Amalaya and Arjun watching for the students’ responses. In the de-brief discussion after the session I asked the students why their got angry that day. Each of them referred to every unfair decision that had preceded, both on the pitch and in the classroom, earlier that day.
We then revealed to them that this had all been intentional, sharing what our observations of the students behaviour to these actions by us. We helped the students understand that it may be natural to feel anger and frustration when bothered by a situation, but what matters is how one responds versus reacts to this. We asked them to think about other ways in which they can deal with anger, and together, we came up with a few strategies.” — Anwar, football coach, EL Play program
Across the next few weeks, Amalaya and Anwar introduced reflection journals to the students in an attempt to create a safe space for sharing feelings. Another strategy was the practice of giving and receiving feedback at the end of each school day, focused on appreciating your peers and helping them improve in areas they struggle. During football sessions, Anwar introduced practice tactics such as, “Kick the ball harder!”, running extra laps of the pitch to manage frustration, and longer discussion time for “team talks”.
Amalaya, Anwar and Arjun’s collaborative problem solving is a testament to bridging the gap between the classroom and football pitch. “As soon as I learned about the situation in the classroom from Amalaya. I was keen to work together with her to find a solution. You can try over and over to use words to calm down a child, however, it will never be as effective as just letting them kick a football to release their frustration. That’s how we see the beauty of the sport through the EL Play program.” — Arjun, program manager, EL Play.
Echoing his sentiment, Amalaya said, “While I know I play an important role in the lives of my students, I am one of many influences that they interact with. Working together with Enabling Leadership reminded me of the power of collective action, when we come together with a common goal for the growth of our children.”
