Classroom-Snippets

Some things are just worth fighting for. Some are just worth dying for. More so when legends need to be told and champions honed. This championship is what we believe is the beginning of the end of a school of thought. THE CHAMPIONSHIP: A day long intra-class athletic championship. Just sports. No books. No gyan - Just before the examinations. WHO’S INVOLVED: The Pegasus, the Dragons and the Unicorns from the mysterious land of the epiphany dynasty-each with 15 members chosen to handle their intra-team dynamics while fighting it out on the ground for their team’s honour. ...

Most of this term, we’ve been making a conscious effort to get the kids down to the playground and smell some dust. Early this month as we were trying to infuse the elements of team work in them, we decided to get them to do the ‘Amoeba race’. After a brief description of ‘Amoeba’ we got the kids down to the ground and flagged the race. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/36854058] Later the next day, when asked to recollect the name- One kid pops up and innocently transliterates it as Ammi Abba! ...

Was it the impeccable sound system? Was it the unwavering emotions in the song? Was it the crowd or was it the realization of the importance of the whole event. Some days are just worth living. Today is one of those. The kids had their annual day showcase today and as I walked out after their performance, the immense gratification of being a teacher of 45 little brats peaked to the top. If anything could come anywhere close to the feeling of jumping off a flight and free falling It had to be this. ...

This is it. We now have the data. We now have the proof. Two more units and we should be all set to perform in front of an audience 15000 strong. THIS is the tipping point.

[Pun intended] The Event management team in the Epiphany Dynasty decided to raise funds for their third unit projects. Besides organizing a movie showcase they also ran a sale of important commodities. Through these activities - under the hood- they formulated and exhibited the three doctrines of Transitional Leadership. Readers are advised to read through the doctrines first and then watch the videos for a comprehensive understanding.These are extremely profound and intellectual thoughts and are being shared by the rulers with nothing but a humble gesture to levitate humanity to the next level. ...

Tomorrow as the dawn cracks in, we’d be introducing our kids to their new projects for this unit. We plan to make this units showcase much better organised than the last one and give them a better support structure. We consciously decided to make do with their extra classes and just give them time to work with their teams on their projects. Yesterday we had a roundup with the Kings and Queens and formulated an Event Management committee. The President and Secretary were elected, Various committees [ Logistics, Finance, Invite and Advt. and Marketing] were formed and tasks delegated. The kids are overwhelmed but I guess that’s where we really want to push them to. Project execution would begin from Tuesday onwards and they have just about 12 days to comprehend, execute, document and showcase their work. ...

Couple of hours back I opened my student tracker, just sat back and started mulling over how each of my kids have changed over the past few months. As I went through the list reading each of the kids names, images of the kid kept flashing in and out of my mind and most of them, so turned out to be of those moments when they were being ecstatic or really happy. This made me wonder how we as humans tend to capture/remember only the positives or the cheerful part in our relationships. But as a teacher, am I not failing my kids in not noticing their negative behaviour and working to get them back to their normal self? Am I doing justice to them by not stopping what I’m doing and not taking that extra time to pay attention to that minuscule behavioral change? How many times have I swept a behavioral change under the blanket and continued with my class/session? How many times have I ‘neglected’ a kid in the rush to finish off a topic/objective? ...

As I take one last gulp of hot tea from a roadside stall, Ronnie wickedly smiles and brings his hand forward with a congratulatory gesture. He just says – ‘One month’ and grins wildly! I wink back, pay for the tea and walk back towards the school gate. As we quickly make our way through the puddles and pits in the slight Pune drizzle, my mind wanders out in search of those small moments that I could call ‘achievements’ of the month thats been from my one month of teachers life. Sadly I get to recollect just a couple of them. And then it looms on me again how important it is to appreciate minuscule milestones in this journey – Something which I’ve been working hard on ever since the summer school. ...

It’s just about a month that the second academic year has started. The past four weeks have been really hectic juggling the plethora of tasks left on the table. The kids have slowly started getting back to the regular schedules and attendance is almost touching 100 percent. The much needed break that I took hiking up the Himalayas and the internship at the TFI Summer institute gave a fresh perspective to the second academic year that I would be spending with the kids. Back in the holidays I was both optimistic and jittery about the maturity factor that I was expecting to see in the kids. Compared to last year they now seem to be much more on their toes and have got quite restless.It takes much more patience and effort to get their attention and even more a challenge to retain it. Wondering why, I could corner upon a couple of reasons - They’ve just not yet got out of their holiday mood, the afternoon summer camp is taxing them out or the more worrying concern - something is just not working in the classroom properly. The second year, at least the first quarter seems to be much more demanding in terms of investment and classroom management. ...

Yet another day was coming to an end and the people of the land were tending their chores. It was all one peaceful ambiance with just minor disruptions here and there. To help manage the affairs, the architect of the land decided to pull up a few responsible men and women and give them the authority to administer sections of the land..Well, ‘Decentralization of power’ as they call it. And then, things changed. With just one word, rose eleven kingdoms all powerful and energetic. And within minutes, the Kings and Queens swore at the altar to uprise their just formed kingdoms. Ministers, Treasurers and Soldiers were deputed and responsibilities bestowed. ...