Many of us have our own fear about snakes and many other animals, we grew up with our fear and unconsciously passing to kids too.When we started talking about snakes at campus we had many reactions
Oh !! snake, It bites, its dangerous, it will run behind you, it will chase me in the night, if you kill snake it will take revenge, ant hills means snakes, snakes at camps means they will bite us….
Hmm………we began with understanding where do they live, how do they behave, what is my role in my safety, what do in case of bite, how does medical help works and so on…
Still the work on ‘beliefs’ was left out. “Snakes bite’ and snake means FEAR still exists and also ‘over confidence about I know about snakes that they are dangerous……needed to work on our beliefs.
We began the session with ‘I do not know’. Initially response of some was ‘ I know snakes bite’. They were questions ‘how do they bite’?One said ‘they bite with tongue’.They were asked ‘how do you know they have tongue’ ? Now the answer was ‘I don’t know, I never thought about it’.
The idea was to understand where is the information about any topic is coming to me…often we say ‘I know’. We do not say , I know I read in the this book. We also question kids watch youtube and see many things in other media and take it a truth without questioning about it.
Next day we found a dead Scorpion – we saw it through magnifying glass, referred to our guide book, and started with “I do not know” 🙂