Courage and Patience - Nitin Sharma

1. A fearful student:

“Fear is a fundamental human emotion that can help us protect from danger and prepare us to take action. 

Here I would like to share the story of Sujal, who joined the school three years back. He used to sit at the last desk in the class. He was not very comfortable sharing his response with the teachers. After noticing, I met Sujal’s mother in this context a month later. After meeting them, I learned that in his previous school, in his class, 55 students were there, and no personal attention was paid. Sujal used to sit on the last seat and also had a short vision. His math teacher was very harsh and used to run the syllabus fast. Sujal had never matched his speed, so he kept lagging behind. His work remained incomplete, and he even got corporal punishment from the teacher. He kept telling his parents that he would no longer go to school. So, his parents decided to change his school. His mother burst into tears after narrating this incident, and also, the whole scene of corporal punishment was running before my eyes. I promised to help this child the best I could and requested my colleagues support him in overcoming his fear. 

2. An impatient student: 

Patience is not the ability to wait but to keep the right attitude while waiting. In today’s scenario, students quickly lose their patience in the classroom. Here I would like to share the story of one such student Manya of class VII, a very restless and outspoken girl. Her response in the class was good. Manya was in the habit of passing the comments on to others whenever reading was done in the classroom. She used to intervene by saying that she would do the reading alone and not give a chance to other students. Even though she was in the habit of disturbing the teacher in the class by passing small comments like this boy is saying this and that to me. Thus, the whole teaching environment in the class was disturbed by her. Many students in the class had written a letter regarding her behaviour and requested to take action against her. One day I called Manya and gave chances to others. She was responsible for class monitoring and helping the weak students to come ahead. 

How did/will you deal with the student? If it was a real-life situation, were they successfully helping him/her overcome their problem?

Yes, it was a real-life situation in both cases. To help the fearful children, the following steps were taken:

1. All subject teachers were requested to hand holding, that is, to give sufficient time to complete their work. 

2. Buddy was assigned 

3. More exposure was given (involvement in the activities) 

4. Good appreciation was given even for small response 

To help the impatient child:

1. More responsibilities were assigned, such as helping other students. 

2. Some actions of teamwork were assigned. 

Advice:

Courage and patience are very essential values not only in teachers but in our life also. These two values will help us to attain our teaching goals. As we know, patience usually wins in the end. A student needs to be courageous enough, and a teacher must be patient for effective teaching. 

Ms Nitin Sharma 

Kamla Nehru Public School, 

Phagwara 

JOL Cohort 2022

Draft Development Plan

Aim
Make IAYP a premier youth programme for inclusive social growth.

How we will do this?
1. Set up Open Award Centres – to facilitate build up of Volunteers and encourage the participation of youth in the 18 - 25 age groups.

2. Programme inclusion by enrolling more students from vernacular / government schools, from the current near 375 largely private sector schools.

3. Raise the annual enrollments for the program from 15000 to 500,000 in Year 3 of operation

4. Set in place a mechanism for fund raising; have a Friends of the Award.

5. Partner with other NGOs, Volunteer groups and even look at the PPP Model for build up. Use the CSR approach and the Community outreach.

6. Set up a national centre that can undertake training for volunteers and award leaders from India and the APAC (ASIA PACIFIC) region.

The role out … steps up the ladder!

1. Plan that raises enrollments in the following stages:

Year 1:
70,000 (set forth the seed in model government and vernacular schools; spend time in getting model right for mass implementation; work out sponsorships/ third party funding routes)
Year 2:
200,000 (massive rollout, focus on timely and accurate implementation on a mass scale)
Year 3:
500,000 (massive rollout)

This has to be broad based in terms of geography, mix of students, gender. Should not be heavily biased towards anyone area.

Before connecting with anyone formally, need to have a mapped out visual strategy with names of schools, targeted enrolment in that school, and geographical location of that school. The strategy needs to be that detailed instead of just a large number that the team chases.

2. Set-up volunteer committees that comprise eminent personalities (who actually work!) in the following streams:

A. Industry
Representatives from one or two industry bodies such as CII, TiE etc., banking industry (SBI)

The Industry body will communicate with their member/affiliate network in procuring assignments for the volunteers across different industries/service firms as well as tap on to the CSR initiatives of different business entities across India. You will need to create programs that dovetail into these organizations. For example -- SBI is BIG on rural banking and reaches out to many communities in far off areas. But one will need to come up with a plan specifically for SBI so that they can absorb students in bulk.

B. Brand and Communication
Youthful Brand ambassadors that are publicly known who actually completed the course, Branding and Communication specialists including those in non English streams, one or two large media houses that can provide coverage for free across regional media.

The Brand and Communication team will be responsible for creating brand awareness of IAYP, keeping a strong communication with existing enrollments to further awareness within the student community, work on media coverage across modes of media, create content namely brochures/pamphlets to reach out to government/vernacular schools in the latter language.

C. Educationists
Eminent hardworking educationists; who have the clout / connect with leading government / private education systems.

The Educationists will be people who are well connected to schools across different geographies and can open doors for you. This has to dovetail into the numbers/geographies that you are tapping in the strategy highlighted above.


3. AIESEC and its partners owe their success to the strong affiliate network they have in the form of corporate partners. This is the weak chain in your current set up.

Schools -----> Activities that qualify for IAYP <---------- Corporate Partners

Some potential partners, besides the industrial groups can be: --
Ashoka: www.ashoka.org -- they can easily absorb batches of students for programs across India
Xceed: http://xseed.idiscoveri.com/xseed-schools.html --
FabIndia not for profit wing –
Pratham...www.janaagraha.org. Ramesh Ramanathan is doing an outstanding job.

4. The national centre has to be one fixed place that is needed 365 days a year, but at start could NOT be a fixed place; can be used as and when the need arises for a program.

Would consider approaching a large corporate that might have a large vacant hall that they can lend for these activities.

The option of doing an Open Award Centre at the SACAC (Sri Aurobindo Centre of Arts and Communication) Delhi Campus.

Alternatively have a foundation backed by a large group such as the Azim Premji Foundation (www.azimpremjifoundation.org) to come forward and lend support to the program and take branding as an output for them self in turn.