What are you Giving to your Child!!

Sharing is one of the virtues which I remember as one the earliest things I was made to learn from my childhood. From sharing my chocolates to my toys with my family members or my friends was a norm in our household. One such little incident was about sharing my chocolate bars which some relative would get for us, instead of eating the whole thing by ourselves, somewhere we were always asked to share a piece or two with people who would be sitting in the room. The seed of sharing was slowly but steadily sown in us from our childhood.

In today’s era where nuclear families have become more nuclear among themselves with working hours of parents increasing and children left at the mercy of electronic gadgets, the virtue of making them learn ‘sharing’ is becoming monstrous for us parents . Though our children have more than we had in terms of all kinds of comforts but still its not easy for them to part with their belongings easily and especially when it comes to sharing or giving. Though this phenomenon will keep becoming worse with time, but we as parents can not dare to ignore it, as in the end it will be us who will suffer the most when our children will find it difficult to share their time with us in future.

The right way to make them sensitive to this virtue is by exposing them to small such events or episode where as a parent you feel your child will learn to share and understand the happiness one gets when something shared is appreciated by others.

The Joy of Giving Week (2^nd Oct- 8^th Oct) is one such event where with School participates and children can be made aware of the ‘Real Value’ of sharing with others. The exercise can involve bringing in old clothes to old toys to story books which can be given to an orphanage or interacting with children who are not as privileged like ours so that our children realize the importance of people who got them everything is to be treasured and not taken for granted. The idea is make our children more sensitive to their surroundings and get them out of their virtual world where the human interaction is minimal.

Another way to make children value the gifts bestowed on them is by making them make some toy or art and craft stuff which they in return have to gift it to someone unknown. The apprehensions of gifting to someone unknown always make you give in the best because it’s the first impression which is being made and it has to be the best one.  Secondly, the acknowledgement of getting the gift by the unknown or known person always makes us happy, that’s the reason why we shower and pamper our kids with gifts just to see that smile.

The same applies to our kids too. If we as parents will not encourage them to learn to give then how will they learn to ‘Give’ when they become adults?

Where do you Learn to 'Think differently'

 As a kid, I was a very average student who always liked to look outside the window while teacher taught in class and wondered she not connect, all what she is teaching with the environment beyond our classroom. Why are we being subjected to think only what has been written in the books and not appreciated if we did something beyond what has been written in the books...

 Well the result of all those thoughts in class at that point of time reflected on my grades in throughout my schooling(remarks written in my report cards- were average student who is dreamy, yet intelligent, if she wants she can improve her grades). At home my parents always used to say if you do not make it to good Undergrad/grad school like IITs(Indian Institute of Technology) or IIMs (Indian Institute of Management) then you will never be able to reach those heights which I always dreamt.

 As usual I always wondered whats the difference between IITs and IIMS and other schools, after all they all get us good jobs and eventually I will reach where ever I want to, so why aspire for these schools only. After school, I did try for these school but with reluctance, so made it to schools which were a level or two below the big guns.

After MBA, I started working and that's when it set in that I still have not learnt what I supposed to learn while in school. I was always very energetic and aggressive and fast in doing and getting my work done before time but people somewhere got intimidated by my way of work. Some of the task which would seem herculean for the organization, I would get it executed perfectly within a span of 2 months, targets set for a year which were unreachable were completed by me within 8 months, but still I could not reach the desired heights in my professional world.

Finally after suffering a lot emotionally in my professional life, I decided to go for further studies and somehow managed to get myself enrolled in a course for my MS at Upenn (2006). I remember the excitement in my voice when I made it to Upenn was huge, but now I had to convince my parents and my husband to lemme pursue the same, so I googled on what is the status of Upenn, ( probably a lot was on stake and only thing which would convince them was that it was a good and reputed school where I had got admission). To my surprise they all readily accepted and agreed to lemme go and pursue my dreams with no resistance. Got the emotional and financial support which I needed at that time, even my younger sister who was at that time in US agreed to support me financially. That was the first time I realized the importance of getting enrolled in a good school. This was just the beginning.

 One year at UPenn, was just a roller coaster ride for me. Read, analysed, experimented and researched and wrote papers and got one of those papers published as an international monograph- 'History of Present' Human Resource Crisis at World Food Programme in 2010.
While at Upenn, I never had time to think over on what is the difference between this school and the schools where I did my undergrad and MBA from.

 Its only after I came back and was working towards developing my format ' Experiential Learning via Nature Based Activity'(ELNA) which is  meant to integrate the learning of an environmental based activity with all the subjects being taught in Grade 1-12 and connect every subject with each other, that I realized what Upenn had done to me.

It had made me learn to ' Think differently'. It taught me how should I convert my dreams into reality in an effective manner so that they actually work towards the betterment of society. One word for this is 'Innovate' the methods as per the requirements of the society. Today I have realized that all the good schools around the world make you learn think differently and become leaders in such a way that you become 'changemakers' while the other schools just teach you to follow these 'Changemakers'.

Experiential learning via nature Based activity: Redefining the meaning of Tricolors on 65th Indepe...

Experiential learning via nature Based activity: Redefining the meaning of Tricolors on 65th Indepe...: For last 3-4 days I have been working on some props for my 4yrs old son who has fancy dress show in his school on the occasion of India's 65...

Redefining the meaning of Tricolors on 65th Independence Day

For last 3-4 days I have been working on some props for my 4yrs old son who has fancy dress show in his school on the occasion of India's 65th Independence Day. Theme given to their class was Shining India (English) or Mera Bharat Mahan (Hindi). When I read this topic the only thing that came to my mind was how do I make my son understand the concept of 'Shining India'. Telling him about the past was of no use because he is too young to understand the history and present is again of no use because the maladies with which today's India has been plagued with are too depressing and we as present India are already fighting it, so what I do tell him... I asked this question to myself, and the answer was, make him visualize the future India.

So the idea now had to be converted into what my son had to say, something which he could relate to and not some fancy words, whose meaning I too as an adult Indian sometime fail to understand like- Safforn color stands for Patriotism through its diverse culture- but how often do I follow it. I have been brought up with concept caste system deeply rooted in my head. White is for purity- that's again an illusion for me, as I am still grappling to understand what do I mean by purity when corruption is running in the blood of every Indian. Lastly green, which is for prosperity- with half of the Indian population still struggling to get its complete meals and some others like me reeling under high inflation trying to maintain our basic standard of living.

So the biggest question we are facing now is, how to educate our children on what India do we want them to be make and live in. The props which I made for my son was a life-size cutout map of India which he hung on his shoulders symbolizing-' I am India', a tricolor shield which he would hold in front  and say his three lines symbolizing the three colors on the Indian flag- I am Strong India- Safforn; I am clean India- White and I am healthy India- Green.
I think my son understood these lines well, because he could connect with these words and reconnect it with what India is supposed to be. I hope with these words ingrained in his mind he will now grow up and educate himself to make India a Shining India!!

Jai Hind!! Happy Independence Day!!

Experiential learning via nature Based activity: Connecting and Reconnecting threads of an old less...

Experiential learning via nature Based activity: Connecting and Reconnecting threads of an old less...: In the morning I had written on how we are leading a compartmentalized education system, though reams have been written on critiquing the cu...

Experiential learning via nature Based activity: How civil society when integrated with Education c...

Experiential learning via nature Based activity: How civil society when integrated with Education c...: When I had decided to come back to India after completing my Non Profit Leadership prog at Upenn five years back, I had a dream that I will ...

How civil society when integrated with Education can actually bring a change in the mindset!

When I had decided to come back to India after completing my Non Profit Leadership prog at Upenn five years back, I had a dream that I will begin some social enterprise which will bring a change in the minds of people to the social problems they are facing. For couple of years I struggled myself, on how to bring this thought into reality. Finally one day my mother, who is a primary teacher and the backbone of my thought process, told me "my dear, if you really want to bring in a change in the mindset of people then you have to enter in the field of education, enter schools and catch these young minds and sow the seeds of change in their minds itself. The magic will just begin to unfold in front of your eyes".

Those words led me towards working on developing this format of 'Experiential Learning via Nature based Activities', where in all the stakeholders of society(Individuals, Government agencies, civil societies and pvt institutions)  will some way or the other be introduced to children and then all the activities which these children are doing will be integrated back with all the subjects being taught to them. I remember when I explained this idea to my mentors Biz Divas- Sarika GuptaBhattacharya at the beginning of this year, she was excited to work with me only because of my passion but had no clue what I was talking about and how nature activities can be integrated with academics.

Today, the idea of ELNA has become a format and is being implemented in a school in Gurgaon under their Student Community Interface program as Project SAVE- with theme Understanding the 3Rs of waste management- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

All 3 Rs require children to do extensive surveys among various households, then interact with the NGOs who are working in that field, which would then be followed by an RWA Awareness Campaign where children will be promoting the solutions they have found. Then all this will culminate in the form of a seminar where children present the paper on what all they did in last 3-4 months and how it has helped them in widening their horizons and approaching towards finding a solution.

Yesterday under the Project SAVE we began our interaction week of children connecting with NGOs. One of the first NGOs we had invited is Ashish Foundation for the Differently Abled. The founder of Ashish Foundation, Geeta Mondol, came to school and explained children about the How old clothes and other stuff which is 'my' junk can actually become 'another' person's treasure!

The excitement among children was overwhelming and one could see the joy in their eyes about how their work will actually culminate into something nice and beautiful and help someone in need. A virtue which they had been reading till now in books only but were clueless on how it to do it!!

ELNA has been able to show them the way to do it!! That's exactly what Education is all about, how to bring the out what has been preached via books in the real life.

Project SAVE is an initiative being run in The Banyan Tree World School, Gurgaon by PotsLuck , a small organization which believes in integrating experiential learning via nature based activities with the curriculum. 

Connecting and Reconnecting threads of an old lesson with the new lesson

In the morning I had written on how we are leading a compartmentalized education system, though reams have been written on critiquing the current methodology and I did nothing new, A simple thought passed my mind, lemme just analyze myself today and evaluate my teaching skills. I am spearheading the campaign on how to integrate nature activities with the School curriculum, then why should I not connect it in this School where ELNA is being implemented currently.

So,today I had to take a lesson on Carbon Footprint for class 1-3...made a PPT on carbon footprint, had done a survey last week among the kids to understand 'Self waste Generation Questionnaire' and what their carbon footprint will total out to be etc and explain those numbers which were collected via that survey.  I was a little nervous as I did not know how to introduce this concept to these kids, who just understand waste and CO2 but have not yet been exposed to bigger jargons like Carbon footprints etc.

So I thought lemme simply go back to last week's session of ' Self Waste generation Observation Sheets' and ask them what they were able to decipher out of those observation sheets. Kept probing them on whether there was a change in any of their actions at home wrt HOW NOT TO GENERATE WASTE. The results were astonishing. Most of them said they were cautious of their actions when it came to using water, electricity, paper etc. That's exactly what I had wanted from last week's session but was not still not sure how do I connect it with Carbon Footprint.
Then one of my colleague simply asked them about whether they know CO2 & what it is? One child answered, yes, its a bad gas and causes pollution.. Bingo!!! I had got my break through and the key to explain them what is Carbon Footprint in a simple way. The job was done... But to ensure it went home with them, I gave an assignment where they would write a story on how 'a thing went to garbage bin when it was not meant to be', using the words, recycle, reuse, waste, reduce , carbon footprint etc.
Finally I learnt, to make children understand any concept we have to go back to and fro and keep connecting and reconnecting them with their surroundings then only they will learn how to integrate.
We need to integrate our lessons with our experiences and then children will follow us!!

Why is it difficult to study under tree shades and still be an achiever

I have always wondered how Nature when connected with studies will make an impact on children's ability to learn!! As a kid I always used to look outside the window of my class room and wondered why my teacher did not take us outside for nature walks and connect the subjects with our surroundings...
I remember being taught in our history classes that until the beginning of the last century schools in India were held under tree shades and children were taught things which were related to their day to day life... As the child progressed to higher realms of studies, he was introduced to bigger and more complex ideologies of life and nature... The end result of this form of education was that every kid who attended School was clear and strong in his basics.

But today, the scenario is totally different. I am conducting a workshop in school under a Format developed by on Experiential Learning Via Nature based Activities (ELNA) where children will be doing a series of activities under a theme related to nature and be evaluated under the Observation, Exploration and Expression format as prescribed by CCE (NCERT), the results are astonishing.

In the first week of this activity, approximately 60% of the children from the whole school who filled in a questionnaire and then totaled their scores, got their totals wrong. I am not saying that they are poor in Maths or they can't read but it just shows that their ability to concentrate and observe simple things has still not been developed, no matter which ever class they are in. The ability to apply the basics of Maths have not been developed when it comes beyond the so called MATHS CLASS...

Is this what we call education, a COMPARTMENTALIZED EDUCATION? Then I suppose we need to re-look at what our ancestors did, I will not say they were wrong, at least those who studied were clear in thier basics unlike today's children.