Right vs Wrong, how do we handle teenage challenges - Part 1

Learning Forward Saturday

To read and discuss a chapter from “Wanted Back-bencher, Last-ranker Teacher,” chapter 6, Right vs Wrong.

Key Takeaways

• Proactive Intervention: Roma’s calm, immediate rescue of four intoxicated students from a dangerous club prevented harm, demonstrating decisive teacher responsibility.

• Empathetic Guidance: Roma guided the students’ safe exit with clear, empowering instructions (“Hold your head high”) rather than scolding, building trust and respect.

• Collaborative Resolution: The school’s mature response—a private meeting with only Roma and the counsellor—protected the students from intimidation and focused on support.

• AI for Professional Growth: Sandeep introduced an AI assistant to generate summaries and allow teachers to ask questions about their own contributions, promoting self-reflection.

Topics

Teacher Reflections & Context

• The session began with a reflection from Sunita Tripathi on the “Like vs. Unlike” chapter.

• Sunita’s Experience:

  • Problem: Peer pressure led to mocking, causing emotional distress among students.

  • Solution: Sunita used calm dialogue to explain the difference between joking and insulting. A class discussion and group activity on positive words transformed the atmosphere.

  • Lesson: Patience and positive guidance are crucial for helping adolescents learn from mistakes.

• Related Book Session: Sandeep promoted the Thursday 5:30 PM session for “Every Last Girl” by Safina Husain, which covers the “Educate Girls” initiative.

Chapter 6: Right vs. Wrong

• The Incident:

  • Roma received a panicked call from student Rupa.

  • Four girls (Rupa, Simmi, Supriya, Patricia) were at “Club Paradise.”

  • Simmi was heavily intoxicated (“tipsy”) from beer and a neat vodka shot.

• Roma’s Response:

  • Roma immediately drove to the club with her father, Sunil.

  • She entered the smoky, crowded club alone to find the girls.

  • She gave clear, empowering instructions for their exit: “Keep your back straight... Hold your head high.”

  • When a man grabbed Simmi, Roma, a black belt, punched him to create an escape route.

• Aftermath & Resolution:

  • The girls were driven home; Simmi stayed at Roma’s house.

  • Simmi’s home situation (separated parents, caregiver only) was revealed as a potential factor.

  • Roma informed the girls that their parents would be contacted, framing it as support rather than punishment.

  • School’s Mature Handling: The principal arranged a private meeting with only Roma and the counsellor (Uttera) to avoid intimidating the parents.

AI Assistant for Professional Development

• Sandeep introduced an AI assistant to enhance learning and professional growth.

• Functionality:

  • Provides session summaries, key takeaways, and screenshots.

  • Allows teachers to ask questions about their own contributions, promoting self-reflection.

• Purpose: To use AI for genuine learning and skill development, not for academic shortcuts.

Next Steps

• All Participants: Write a reflection on Chapter 6, focusing on how the story influenced your thinking and how you might apply its lessons in your classroom.

• All Participants: Send reflections to Manisha.

• All Participants: Join the Thursday 5:30 PM session for “Every Last Girl” if interested.

• All Participants: Use the AI assistant link (in Zoom chat) for summaries and self-reflection.

• All Participants: Join the “Saturday 3 PM” WhatsApp group via the link in the Zoom chat.

• All Participants: Attend next week’s session to continue reading Chapter 6.

FATHOM AI-generated notes.

Brewing Knowledge Club February 2022 Session

The journey always focuses on learning; there is tea/coffee on a train during the trip, and when the tea is warm, we like it the most. So the trip is on with reading the chapters which contain the enthusiasm and passion for learning. The chapters are as follows:  

Learning From Isolation To Collaboration was read by my English Ms Rishona. We were mesmerized with the voice and contained sentences of the chapter, that what learning is, it's not about isolation. It's about collaboration, and by collaborative learning, we learn more and gain more. 

The second chapter was read by Mr Devgan, Teachers Travel With You All Your Life. When we read this chapter, I also remembered my favourite teacher during the starting years of the learning process, and the role of the teacher is not just the teacher. They are more than the on-screen hero! 

Finally, the third chapter, Personal And Social Development At School, was read by Mr Dutt, about how an individual holistic development can be done by using 4S' Service, Skill, Sports & Study in the learning curriculum. 

And Learning, Listening, Growing our journey is going on every month on the track.  

Stay with us for this joyful journey. 

We have merged the Brewing Knowledge Club hosted by Learning Forward India with the Joy Of Reading Program at My Good School.
https://goodschools.in/joy-of-reading

Video produced by My Good School Interns

Kunal Rajpurohit
Intern at My Good School

K<Kuna120804@fabindiaschools.in>

Brewing Knowledge Club January 22 Meeting.

We returned again with enthusiasm for reading with our passionate teachers who can change the learning process; we read the chapter's Freedom to Perform; What Education Does; School Bell; and Going to School. While reading these chapters, we have come up with lessons that can change learning and the education process.

Reading Freedom to Perform, we discovered we can get an education, we are made independent, why can't children be free to perform and excel at their own speed?

We learned that learning and sky have a similarity, that there are no limits. When we question, we understand. In the new chapter, What Education Does, we answer what well-educated means. Everyone should read it and get the idea 'What education is and Why?' But, my favourite and it could be yours also is the School Bell.

I think MBA would be made after some of this idea and how it gives the management criteria and a bell is not lonely; it is always with its memory. It's captain yeah  A bell has its' bell captain ' every school has, And 'Going to School' is the answer to why we go to school and learning never stops after school or in life.

That's how we have completed our journey in the first month of January.

Coming soon, on the last Sunday of February, we read:

- Learning: From Isolation to Collaboration

- Teachers Travel With You All Your Life

- Personal and Social Development At School

Kunal Rajpurohit <kuna120804@fabindiaschools.in>

Brewing Knowledge Club meets on the last Sunday of the month.

See you on Sunday the 26th December 2021. We will have a good learning experience through the chapters:

Liberal Arts and Education 

We will be experiencing liberal arts education and how it's gonna work in this. 

Humanity must learn humanities.

We're going to develop a long-running debate and answers vital for us to understand. 

New Teaching and Learning Approach

Here we get an essential opportunity to understand how to make an action plan to solve common problems among the learning experience. 

So, be there on the day. We never break the learning chain with passionate learners. Let's come together for a better learning experience. 

Let's grow together,

Kunal Rajpurohit

The Fabindia School Intern @GSA

The Brewing Knowledge Club - October Reflections

The sound of the train of the Brewing Knowledge Club shows that we are back to our old routine at school!

"An eager child or Enthusiastic teacher" was covered by Ms Veena Solanki. The students in the teacher's class are eager to learn something if the teacher is eager to share.  To make learning better, teachers can add enthusiasm, fun, and other elements as well, but that doesn't mean learning should stop. The teacher needs to make a good relationship with their students to give motivation, and the ‘boring' teacher is the one who is not able to recognize the eager child.

We see that if we want to change, we first need to change ourselves and Ms Monisha Datta made this more graceful by covering "Why Teachers are averse to change" when she boarded the train and shared her voice! Because teachers are playing a key role as changemakers they must update their methodology. As teachers are comfortable with their old teaching process, first they should change or update themselves, then they can change others. Why aren't teachers willing to change? Only a few people are interested in it, and they are doing it as a profession of chance and not of choice. They have lost their high place in history and culture, were stood long ago. 

And our trip into the 2nd Section...

Redefining Education and Learning.

The first station of the second section is called "Reading at the Heart of Education", we've seen a life-long passing in the command of Mrs Bharti Rao. It is possible to make the spark of reading come alive with more logic and relevance.

The energetic and very enthusiastic Ms Nibbrati Rathore took us to the next station “Innovation and Design” shared the pressing need for innovation by students.  The reason why 'Jugaad' is working during a running class is that the system focuses on marks or students doesn't feel safe, it can be changed by some motivation.

The best part of the reading club is reflections. Today's reading left me pondering for a while after the session and I can put my thoughts in the following 4 points.

1) Educators need to have fun while teaching while being at school, else they'll go mental; this rule is fundamental! 

But on a more serious note, we all need to remember the word fundamental begins with fun and includes mental stimulation and that's the key to being a good educator!

2) Educators are effective only when reflective

3) Reading is like Oxygen, we cannot survive without it!  Children and Educators need to read together, to grow together. Children are like seeds, they grow as per the soil, water and air provided to them and that soil, air, and water are their parents, community, and teachers. Their books are the sunlight that everyone needs! Encourage basking in the sun as this stimulates growth.

4) Finally, if the educator knows how to stimulate the students' minds, if they know how to have fun, if they are continuously researching and reading, nothing stops them from innovating. That's what Education is all about. Empowering our students to think differently and making it happen

It was a wonderful session. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Stay here for the endless learning experience, the club’s journey this month was passionate and we say, "Picture Abhi Baaki Hai Mere Dost".

We will return soon with more graceful stations.

- Kunal Rajpurohit and Sukhpreet Kaur

The Book Loot At Book Cafe!

The English Book Depot has been India's premier bookstore since 1923, stands tall now as Book Cafe, in association with Barista Coffee. Celebrating six years association with Booknerds.

The Bookshop offers an outstanding shopping experience and hosts a Barista Coffee Shop on Rajpur Road, opposite Gandhi Park in Dehradun. In 2010, EBD acquired the brand BookCafe. For news about books and new arrivals, follow the bookstore's blog.

https://www.bookspro.com/

The Booknerds is a book club based in Dehradun, India. Established by husband and wife team Rohan and Neha Raj, the Booknerds is dedicated to "quenching the thirst for literature".

https://www.bookbrowse.com/

Find out more about the iconic bookstore:

https://englishbookdepot.com/

#BrewingKnowledge #BookCafe

Dhruvtara powered by Slooh

Soumyajeet Solanki of Grade 5 at The Fabindia School has been ranked 1st in Asia. He has earned 3080 Gravity points and 5 Badges.

 

Slooh is designed to empower students in class as a part of the curriculum, and also in a co-curricular or extracurricular manner so students can explore space on their own with direct support from our astronomy educators. It offers astronomy engaging and affordable for schools without the requisite equipment or expertise on staff by providing direct access to astronomy educators and real-time viewing and control of robotic telescopes, including seven telescopes situated at one of the world’s top observatory sites.

Since 2003, Slooh has enabled people to explore the universe together through its global network of telescopes. Slooh’s automated observatories develop celestial images in real-time for broadcast to the Internet. Slooh members have taken over 5 million photos/150,000 FITS of over 50,000 celestial objects, participated in numerous discoveries with leading astronomical institutions and made over 3,000 submissions to the Minor Planet Center. By the end of 2020, Slooh has 17 online telescopes on three continents covering 20+ hours per day.

Learn to explore space https://slooh.com/

Michael Paolucci <mike@slooh.com>

Post courtesy Rajeshree Shihag, The Fabindia School