Heart Vs Mind - Sunbeam Suncity

Through the video HEART VS MIND, we have focused that how heart and mind often stand in contrast, representing emotion and reason. The heart symbolizes feelings, intuition, and passion, driving decisions based on love and desire. The mind, on the other hand, represents logic, analysis, and rational thinking, ensuring choices are made with careful consideration. While the heart may lead to impulsive yet fulfilling decisions, the mind focuses on practicality and long-term outcomes. Striking a balance between the two is key to making well-rounded choices in life. Too much reliance on the heart may lead to emotional turmoil, while excessive dependence on the mind can make life feel rigid and uninspired. The best decisions often come when the heart and mind work in harmony.

This will help individuals to manage his/ her work in day to day life and achieve the goal. Being an adult we start dealing things with the mind but being adolescent they use the heart as the frontal lobe of the brain is still in the process, this is the reason for the communication gap and anger issues in adolescents.

Hence, under such situations instead of being stern, rigid , not opening up to the children, we should display soft - power. Means we are supposed to be assertive and deal the situation with patience.

Mohini Rai 

Carol Henrick

Sunbeam Suncity 

Peace and Freedom - Nitin Sharma

Freedom is the ability to make decisions for ourselves. We’re free to think and speak our minds, to choose our own path in life. This allows us to be individuals and create our own unique life. In Fact, Freedom is a fundamental human right.

This pursuit of Freedom begins at home, where we’re taught how to think about ourselves and others – and how to behave if we want to continue to receive love and acceptance from those closest to us.

As children, from an early age, we believe that Freedom means doing what makes other people happy and avoiding anything that makes them unhappy. Here I would like to share my own instances when I was a student. When I had finished my schooling and started college, at that time, my mother used to say not to talk to anyone, especially boys. Not to pass any smile unnecessarily. Even so many restrictions on my way of dressing up. Under all these restrictions, I made myself a hushed girl. I feel its impact even today on my personality. Now being quiet has become my habit, and I put all my best effort into coming out of this zone and actively participating in any conversation.

        1. As a girl, I was not allowed to play outside in the open ground or adopt any game or sport. I was confined to playing inside the house or on nearby streets. So, it was just my dream to be a good player.

        2. Even after my graduation, I was not allowed to choose a degree of my own for this, I had to go to the Southern part of the country, so I had to compromise.

So here I feel that if I had been granted Freedom, I would have been different. Thus The right to liberty is essential because it allows us to have power over our own lives and to strive for a better life. It’s one of the fundamental rights we all deserve as human beings, regardless of where we live or our circumstances.

• Freedom is essential because it allows us to live a life without fear or oppression from those who would seek our enslavement through force or coercion.

Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in which there is no hostility and violence. Fear of failure or of success disturbs our inner Peace. Many factors are responsible for violence in our society, such as bad parenting and genetic or brain injury. Even some Environmental factors are also responsible for it. In our schools, we see some students who cannot express their feelings and become violent. I noticed that after two years of the Pandemic, when students were there for face-to-face learning in the school, their behaviour changed. They are more violent. So we need to promote Peace in our classrooms. I think this is possible through some yoga classes to channel their energy and help students overcome stress through exercises and exploring our students. Our schools should promote some activities to teach students the importance of Peace. For example, in our schools, we preach United Nations Sustainable goals. From Nursery to Twelve, students are familiar with all the SDGs. Goal no. 16, Peace, justice and strong institutions. We promoted this goal three years back when all classes were involved in peace prayers. So, this is a joint effort, and we all need to come ahead to make peaceful societies in this world so that this Earth is a better place to live in.

Nitin Sharma 
Kamla Nehru Public School

Courage is Essential for Life - Monika Vaishnav

Courtesy: Shutterstock.com

Courage is the ability to control fear in a situation that might be dangerous or unpleasant. We all know that we all have some challenges; nobody in the world has a perfect life or happiness all the time. So, courage gives us hope to live and fight for ourselves.  Having courage doesn't mean we can go and hit anyone or we can do whatever we want. Courage is to have a positive energy that gives us the strength to face the challenges we have in life. 

We need courage in many aspects of life. We need the courage to accept the truth and to stand by it, whether it is in our favour or not. A person needs lots of inner strength to accept his or her own mistake in front of others. It requires courage to start again after a failure in life, it is when we feel helpless. Sometimes, we have to decide in life, which can change our lives completely, and we can't do it if we don't have the courage to face further consequences.

Having courage doesn't mean a person is fearless, it means the person is ready to face it. It helps us to start believing in ourselves. It builds confidence in us. If we want to live a respectful life with self-respect, we can't live it without courage. It also helps us to smile and be happy in difficult times. If we take an example of the soldiers, it is their courage and love for their country, which helps them stand in front of our enemy and fight with them even if they know they may die. 

Monika Vaishnav

The Fabindia School

mvv@fabindiaschools.in

Thoughtfulness and Understanding - Prerna Rathod

Thoughtfulness is the ability to think about something carefully so that it is effective.

Whereas understanding is the quality of being sympathetic. This means that being understanding is the quality to be able to step into someone's shoes before judging them. We do so because we have been thoughtful and thought from the person’s point of view. A person should take all the decisions in life is thoughtful and understanding.

 A very relevant quote just crossed my mind: 

"Just because you are right, doesn't mean the other person is wrong, you just haven't seen life from his point of view." So, stop judging and start supporting. 

 A thoughtful person is very considerate and compassionate towards others. He also shows respect, care and love for the other person. On the other hand, an understanding person is very tolerant, helpful and cooperative. He will take any decision in a perceptive way and find all solutions before making a decision. In my class, one new student Gita couldn’t cope with the syllabus as she had language problems. Due to this, she started making excuses for not coming to school. I called her mother to find the reason. I was told that other students made fun of her. So I decided to talk to my class. Next day we had a normal discussion and brought the matter in front of the class. I asked them to think if they were in place of Gita, then how would they feel. All students realized their mistake and said sorry to Gita. Thus, Gita started taking an interest in her studies and scored good marks. She was happy.

Life is too short to judge others. Make this earth a better place to live for everyone. Then you'll find it to be a better place for yourself too.

Prerna Rathod
The Fabindia School
 prd@fabindiaschools.in

Responsibility and Cooperation - Ajay Vijayvargi

Responsibility is one of the attributes that can be considered as one of the `Master

Attributes`, the question is how? If a person is responsible, he will be trusted by more people, a person who can be trusted will be liked and loved more, so he will be respected everywhere, these attributes will, in turn, make him courageous and give him opportunities to lead, which will make him a decision-maker, one who makes the decision for others will be simple and honest, a combination of all this will create an aura around that person i.e. he can be distinguished easily in the society.

 Responsibility means duty which can be towards oneself also along with family, society, country or towards the environment (Earth) and humanity. It can also be defined as an obligation, responsible for your words and action. Responsibility will develop leadership and teamwork, now this teamwork will lead to the other value `Cooperation`.

Cooperation will develop trust and collaboration within his teammates which will yield better learning, output with an increase in work efficiency and results; this will also develop harmony in relations and understanding between stakeholders. The simplest example of cooperation is a family where every member of the family bound by blood relations work together with responsibility  - kids do their studies, lady look after the house and all family members performing household chores happily and of course, the head of the family safeguarding the interests of all members, giving emotional and financial support.

Similarly, the examples of cooperation can be the organisation in which we work, between the leader and the masses and so on. Academicians and Educators cooperate for school betterment.   

  

Ajay Vijayvargi

The Fabindia School

Responsibility and Cooperation - Innovators BHIS

Taking responsibility for oneself is by definition an act of kindness.  -Sharon Salzberg 

Vraj, a student of grade 7, was the most active child in the class. He could not contain his energy and was simply unable to sit anywhere, at a stretch, even for a little while. The teachers were at their wit’s end, as they attempted to make Vraj focus in classwork. It seemed there was nothing that could calm him down during the class hours. The class monitors always had his name in the trouble makers’ list. Despite the warnings, nothing made him behave well in class.

His peer, Rahul, was a complete contrast.

     

Rahul, a specially challenged child was timid, quiet and sat in one corner of the class, the whole day. Other students, including Vraj, often bullied him. Some were not even willing to go near Rahul, leave alone help him cope with the class. A unique idea struck the class teacher and she announced in the class that she knew Vraj to be a responsible child, who could be trusted upon to help Rahul study in class. Saying this, she changed Vraj’s place and made him sit beside Rahul. She gave Vraj the responsibility of helping his buddy Rahul with all the class notes and finishing his work on time. Vraj felt very strange at this decision of the teacher as he had never thought that any teacher could ever find him capable of shouldering responsibility! 

Vraj was determined to put his heart and soul to prove that the teacher had made the right decision! He realised that in order to help Rahul, he too had to focus on the classes. He became very serious about school, dutifully sat beside Rahul every day, and ensured that he had completed his own work before he could begin to help his buddy. Rahul too started co-operating with Vraj and tried his best to grasp how he could work in class. All the teachers noticed the sea change that had come over the boys and appreciated them a lot. This further encouraged them to work harder! On seeing that both Vraj and Rahul were being appreciated for taking up responsibility and co-operating with each other, their classmates unconsciously co-operated with them to do better. The bond between the classmates was enhanced. The teachers were proud of the huge change that they noticed in the class. Responsibility successfully changed the personality of a child for the better and they also learn co-operated with each other in the process.

Innovators @ Billabong High International School, Thane
 - Bhumi Punjabi, Vaishali Phatak, Krishnakshi RaviShankor, Smita Bhobate

Ajay Vijayvargi: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

School kills creativity? It sounds strange, but it is true as our education system and most of the top-rated schools do this and we as parents also become a part of this system. The system emphasises on getting best grades and being successful in competitive exams in any stream with top ranks, the stream can be – U.P.S.C, IIT, NEET and so on, the list is endless.

Nowadays a new pattern has emerged that is getting a government job, for this, the students become a part of the rat race, those who become successful are glorified and the rest are declared unsuccessful in life. The worst part of this is that the system has entered to school level that too from classes VI onward when the individual is not even aware of this and the decision is taken mostly by parents. The schools play an important part in this system as they curb the natural talent and creativity of the child and at a tender age, they are moulded in the way their parents want, when the parents desire and students talents match the result is fruitful but in most of the cases when the creativity and talent of a child is suppressed, the results are alarming, both for the individual and the society.

On the contrary, the schools should nurture the creativity and talent of the child right from primary classes and the progress card should be such designed so as to give an idea of the natural inclination of the child towards any stream, to the parents and help them in directing their child in the right direction.

Thus we see that the role of a school is very important in observing and nurturing the creativity of a child and give the right opinion to the parents for a bright future of the child/individual thereby it will benefit the family society and the nation as a whole.

- Ajay Vijayvargi, Dean Learning Forward at The Fabindia School, email avi4fab@gmail.com