Responsibilty and Cooperation - Shalini Solanki

Responsibility is an essential value as it makes us more focused, goal-oriented, confident and accountable. One cannot succeed without having this quality. It makes a person sorted, away from chaos. Even in challenging situations, a responsible person knows how to stay calm and deal with them. They invest more time in finding solutions and fixing mistakes instead of blaming the time, situation and others. Responsible people motivate not only themselves but also everyone around them.

Making students responsible in school:

Students learn values not by reading, listening or talking about them but by experiencing an environment where they get to live them. Teachers are critical in every student’s life; their teachers are always right and know everything. 

I remember an instance in my class from this session. Children used to keep their other subject books/ notebooks every morning on my table in a very casual manner that would scatter the entire table (I sometimes had to remind them to keep the books on my table). I would then bifurcate them according to different subjects and keep them in the designated cupboards. My students observed for a few days and got an idea of being responsible for their own things. They gradually started keeping the books, not on my table but in the cupboard in the most organised manner without reminding them. Now, they clean their own table before each period or go out of the class for any activity. They saw, they learned.

Cooperation Culture:

Shalini Solanki

Gyanshree School
Happy Teachers JOL Cohort 2022

Simplicity and Trust - Penta BHIS

Experience 1
Of course, I know I am a slow learner! You think I have been blind to the little nudges, whispers and jokes around me? Or the frustration in the eyes of the adults in my life? But I do not give it much thought. It would make my life too complicated to handle. I live one day at a time, observing everyone. I also love it when the achievers get applauded in class! You must believe me if I tell you that I clap the loudest!

To a 15-year-old, like me, the Commerce Fest at School felt like a Carnival. The teachers made me realise that this would be no fun and games if I were to man a stall. I would have to be responsible! I did not think of all this. I love eating pizza; so, we had to have a pizza stall, whatever may be the teacher’s plan! 

My teacher did not try to dissuade me from my dream of having a pizza stall. But she did try to work out the costing with me. How could I buy these and sell them to make profits? Why would anybody want to buy pizzas that were more expensive than the shops? I had to make a profit so that the proceeds could be given to the village school, in Dahanu, I had visited a couple of months ago. I really liked that school. I had even made friends with some of the village boys there. Now, I truly wanted to help them. So, no pizza stall.

I spoke to some of the friends in class and then to the school cafeteria manager. I knew what I had to do. It was very simple. To make a profit, don’t do what you want; do what your customers might want! My food stall was in place. I would sell mineral water! I bought the bottles for Rs.12 each and sold them for Rs.15. So, returning change was not a problem. Another friend made lemonade and sold glass for Rs.10 each. All that I had learnt in class about cost price, selling price and profit margin – made so much sense! I ran to my teacher and asked her to check if I was making profits!

By the end of the day, I had to arrange for numerous supplies of chilled mineral water and my friend had to organise more lemonade. When the profits were calculated, my teacher incredibly, yet happily, declared, “Aman has made the highest profit for the school! Congratulations!” I knew I had her trust.

I also know that the nudges and whispers will now be about Aman’s strong common sense! Let’s call it business sense, shall we?

……………………………………………………………

                                      

Experience 2

In a classroom of 30 students, each child is acknowledged to be unique in his/her special way. On one hand, there is Karthik, filled with the need for attention, flashing his expensive watch and earning the popular vote with his witty repartees. Contrarily, there is the naïve, humble and caring Dhyan. Since opposite values are complementary, one recognizes and appreciates both for their individual charisma and what they stand for.

On a busy Monday morning, Karthik was asked to distribute worksheets to all. He, deliberately, choose not to give Dhyan’s class worksheet as he wanted to copy down the assignments and complete his own patchy work. Dhyan, a sincere student, brought it to the notice of the teacher that he had not received his worksheet. The teacher, troubled that the worksheet might have been misplaced, replied that she would check for it as soon as she was free to do so. This was necessary as the date for assessments was close. After the dispersal, the teacher looked everywhere for Dhyan’s worksheet, but in vain. Karthik had flawlessly planned to return the worksheet the very next day, after photocopying it and then quietly keeping it on the teacher's table. He was successful in carrying out his plan.

The next day, surprisingly, the teacher found the worksheet on her table. She sensed that something was amiss and wanted to catch the mischief-maker. She asked the class if any of them, even as an honest mistake, had kept the worksheet on her table. There was no answer from the class.

Deciding not to raise a hue and cry over it, the teacher began to teach. She pretended as though nothing had happened, despite her suspicions. Fortunately, Karthik’s plan of deceit was flawless, as was his little heart. By the end of the day, he could no longer conceal the guilt he felt. He confessed to his misdemeanour to his teacher and profusely apologized to Dhyan. Karthik chose integrity, took the simpler path and gained the teacher’s trust in return.

                         

In the classroom what can be more fulfilling for the mentor-teacher than nurturing the little saplings – that will surely and steadily grow into shade-giving trees?

Penta @ Billabong International High School, Thane
-Jeeji Sanjeev, Sanika Joshi, Arpita M.G., Muskaan Menda, Radhika Anand, Supriya Naravankar & Bhavani Swamy.

Self Organised Learning Environments - SOLE

A MUST WATCH VIDEO - one peaceful hour!

The Future Of Learning Sugata Mitra
Published on Jan 17, 2018

Since the 1990s, experiments with children's education takes us through a series of startling results – children, in groups, can form 'self organising systems' that results in emergent learning, they can achieve educational objectives on their own, can read by themselves. Finally, the most startling of them all: Groups of children with access to the Internet can learn anything by themselves. The mechanism of this kind of learning seems similar to the appearance of spontaneous order, or 'emergent phenomena' in chaotic systems. 

From the slums of India, to the villages of India and Cambodia, to poor schools in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, the USA and Italy, to the schools of Gateshead and the rich international schools of Washington and Hong Kong, Sugata's experimental results show a strange new future for learning. 

Using the 2013 TED Prize, he has built seven 'Schools in the Cloud', where Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) and a 'Granny Cloud' of mediators over the Internet, interact with unsupervised children. The results of this three-year study are not yet fully analysed but Sugata will present some of the preliminary findings. 

We begin to see some glimpses of what schools should be for and what curricular, pedagogic and assessment changes will be required in the future.

Speaker:
Sugata Mitra
Professor and Principal Research Investigator at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, UK

#HappyTeachers #MyGoodSchool #SOLE #LEARNINGFORWARD#BrewingKnowledge #SchoolsCanChange Gaurav Bhalla Debashis Chatterjee Dilip Chenoy Meenakshi Uberoi Ravi Santlani Rajeshree Shihag and all the change makers who share with us a mission to take Learning Forward 

Learning Forward...your partner for school improvement

Transforming professional learning, 

increasing educator capacity, 

and improved student achievement.

Better teaching

Stronger leadership

Improved systems

www.LearningForward.IN