S. Indira Narayan is an educationist with more than 35 years of rich experience in the teaching field. She has held multiple portfolios. She has been associated with St. Ann’s High School, ICSE, ISC, Secunderabad, for over three decades, teaching English language and English literature for classes 10, 11 and 12. The last portfolio she held was as Academic Coordinator, St. Ann's High School, at Kompally Hyderabad, under the same management.
Indira Narayan has conducted numerous workshops for school teachers and continues to do so. She is also interested in writing and blogs regularly on http://vinplaksha.wordpress.com/
Etiquette and good manners are very important for a person to live in grace and dignity in a society. Two words mostly associated with this are Please and Thank you. Home is the best place to teach such values. An example is better than a precept; easy to say but effective only when used the way it should be used. No amount of explaining and instructing that Please be used in polite conversations; in making requests; asking for something, can teach this. Children learn by watching their parents and elders; there cannot be a better medium than this; a better social cueing than this.
I used the word etiquette- what does this mean? Etiquette is a code of polite conduct; a set of rules or customs that control accepted behaviour in particular social groups or social situations.
Digressing? Not really, because I feel that saying please is a vital component of etiquette. Apart from our body language our verbal one is more observed by others.
Saying Please goes beyond being polite and proper. Saying please is as important as is saying thank you and both these words can make a world of difference; they can calm troubled waters and soothe fluttering wings.
A glimpse:
A Departmental; you have completed your purchasing and joined a queue at the billing counter. You may have bought some 10 to 12 items. A youngster/person comes from behind and asks the billing clerk to make his bill as he has only two items. This liberty would surely get you irritated if not angry as you would have patiently waited for your turn. I would look askance at such an action.
On the flip side if this person asked you politely if he could please get his bill done with a certain respect in his tone, then I am sure you would smile and allow him to bypass you. Why? The emotional state for both these are different. The first one gets you worked up and the second leaves you with a lighter mood. Each of these moods would have their reactions on other people.
In his essay ‘On Saying Please,’ A G Gardiner has this to say:
(some excerpts)
“The young lift-man in a City office who threw a passenger out of his lift the other morning and was fined for the offence was undoubtedly in the wrong. It was a question of 'Please'. The complainant entering the lift, said, 'Top'. The lift-man demanded 'Top-please' and this concession being refused he not only declined to comply with the instruction but hurled the passenger out of the lift. This, of course, was carrying a comment on manner too far. Discourtesy is not a legal offence, and it does not excuse assault and battery…"
“It would never do if we were at liberty to box people's ears because we did not like their behaviour, or the tone of their voices, or the scowl on their faces. Our fists would never be idle, and the gutters of the City would run with blood all day…” “While it is true that there is no law that compels us to say ‘Please’, there is a social practice much older and much more sacred than any law which enjoins us to be civil. And the first requirement of civility is that we should acknowledge a service. ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ are the small change with which we pay our way as social beings. They are the little courtesies by which we keep the machine of life oiled and running sweetly…”
“If bad manners are infectious, so also are good manners. If we encounter incivility most of us are apt to become uncivil, but it is an unusually uncouth person who can be disagreeable with sunny people. It is with manners as with the weather. ‘Nothing clears up my spirits like a fine day’, said Keats, and a cheerful person descends on even the gloomiest of us with something of the benediction of a fine day.”
It is not what you say but how you say it that matters.
We get what we give and sometimes we get more than we deserve just by saying please. It takes just one word to transform a command into a request. One syllable ‘Please,’ can do magic and transform a working atmosphere from a tense dictatorship to a pleasantly organized haven for all. Saying please is one way of showing respect; an effective one at that! Saying please is a sign that someone is recognizing another person’s worth as a fellow human being, no matter what his or her station in life is. A teacher can bring this point across, irrespective of the subject she is teaching, to her students when an occasion arises
In schools, good manners and right conduct were given ratings and grades by teachers. This is reflected in the Progress Card and carries a lot of value for future use. Parents may not give their children any rating but would surely remind and reprimand them when they out-step their bounds. It pays to choose kindness over hostility. And since it won’t cost time or effort to do so, say please the next time the situation calls for it.
May I come in Please, can I please borrow your eraser, will you please lend me your notes sounds better than Can I come in? pass me your eraser! give me your notes! Don’t you think so? In most schools, these little etiquettes are taught from the initial stages. Teaching these is different from seeing to it that they are incorporated. Small niceties like please and thank you are not just a part of a syllabus/ curriculum to be taught like any other lesson. They should be made a part of every child’s life.
“ There is no excuse for not teaching your kids to say please and thank you. Manners are free!” ( unknown) Please and Thank you are magic words. So let’s say abracadabara…pleaaase !