Concept to Creation - Masterclass 25th January 2025

Q1. Life rarely moves in a straight line. How can teachers support students in adapting to new environments or systems, drawing parallels to the resilience demonstrated by the founders in navigating different cultural contexts?

Q2. The situation where "all that mattered was how to crack the test, and learning was secondary" has been described. Does this still prevail today? How can educators balance the focus on exam preparation with fostering a genuine love for learning?

Q3. "You are a respected teacher, but everybody makes fun of you. Still, you have always remained cheerful." As a unique teacher, how do you maintain positivity and resilience in the face of criticism or challenges? What strategies do you use to stay focused on your purpose as an educator despite external opinions, and how can this help you inspire your students?

Q4. Like the founders of Vikas Junior Residential College, you strive to create a unique environment in your classroom. How do you differentiate your teaching to inspire critical thinking and creativity in your students?

Humility - Nikita Rajpurohit

Humility is the quality of being humble. It also means putting the needs of others before your own and thinking of others before yourself. This quality has to be a part of one’s character. It begins with accepting who we are and what makes us human. It has to start with the recognition that we are not always right, we can be wrong at some point in time, and we need to learn from others.

A humble person is an eye-catcher in this era of selflessness, where everybody screams for themselves and avoid others completely. A humble person is always loved, appreciated and respected by others. 

We often see that it is easy to be humble when we are at the low stage, but many of us lose this quality when we progress and achieve something in life. A person should not make others feel inferior and consider himself superior. Otherwise, we will start feeling avoided by the people around us. We can often notice the difference in the size of a friend circle of a humble person v/s a selfish or rude person. 

Being a teacher, we need to inculcate this value among our children, but this only happens when we are humble towards others; children always learn by doing and seeing the people around them. We can also share some examples of great leaders (Mother Teresa) who were admired and respected only because of this humbleness. 

Let me put an end by saying that 'Always be like the bamboo. The higher you grow, the deeper you bow.'

Nikita Rajpurohit

The Fabindia School

nra@fabindiaschools.in

Humility and Appreciation - Byju Joseph

Humility is a humble nature to be possessed by everyone. It is one of the personality

traits. A humble person will always be loved and respected by others. He never expects any reward from others for doing any favour. We can observe this virtue in all great people.  Humility has its own attractive power. Humility in a person can make several changes in others. There was a real incident in Mother Teresa’s life. When she was serving in the slums of Calcutta she had some orphan children with her.

One day it happened that they did not have anything to eat. Mother Teresa called the children and told them, “We have nothing to eat today. So let’s pray to God, He will give something to us.’ After a while, she told them, “Come let us go and start to beg. The children followed her. She saw a shopkeeper and humbly asked him to give something to eat. But the shopkeeper hated Mother Teresa and he angrily spits saliva on her palm. She slowly wiped the saliva with her sari and said, “Thank you for what you have given for me. Will you give something to my children?” The shopkeeper was astonished at these words. He was shocked at the humility of Mother Teresa. He apologized for his misbehaviour. At that time onward he changed entirely and started helping the orphan children and it continued regularly. This is one of the most heart-touching real examples of humility.

Humility is a golden value which always entitles appreciation. The person who is humble will be appreciated everywhere. When we appreciate anyone, we value him and respect him. Appreciation is a beautiful gift that we can give to others for their service. It provides happiness and satisfaction to them and the same effect will be there towards us.

Being educators it is our duty to inculcate these values in our children. But these cannot be taught by lecturing. Teachers are role models for them. They are copying the behaviour, attitude and personality of teachers. So it is very important to be humble enough for them. For their minute contributions and humble acts, appreciation is important. We should appreciate them and make them aware that they are precious in their life.  Then they also will learn to appreciate others. These attempts will surely motivate them and that will inspire them to do many useful things in their life.

Byju P. Joseph

The Fabindia School

bjh@fabindiaschools.in

Courage and Patience - Sharmila Vijayvargi

Fear is natural in human beings and even adults sometimes get this feeling. But we should all understand that fear is nothing to be ashamed of. The same should also be explained to young students who have various kinds of fear like the fear of scolding, fear of losing friends etc. This will encourage them to confide their fears to someone and to find ways of overcoming and dealing with them. 

Stories prove to be very effective when trying to rid students of their fears. Anecdotes of how successful people overcome their fear of public speaking or meeting new people are both entertaining and inspiring. Students should be told about our personal examples relating to things we, as teachers were afraid to do and how we overcome those fears. This will help them understand that it's not shameful to be afraid. 

Students should also be told that: *There is a difference between good and bad fears. *Everyone has fears, they are nothing to be ashamed of. *Fears can stop us from having fun. *If we try, we can get over our fears. *People who love us can help us get over our fears. *We make ourselves and our families proud when we overcome our fears. While courage is an important trait, patience also goes along.

Plato was one of the greatest philosophers the world has ever known. He was famous for his learning. People respected his wisdom. When Plato was told that the boys in the street were making fun at his singing, he said, "Ay, then I must learn to sing better! That was patience. He did not get angry at the Street boys who made fun of him, nor, did he react badly to the action. Rather he tried to improve himself, accepting his limitations, in spite of what he was.

Patience is the ability to bear sufferings, troubles, hardships, tools, etc. calmly. It helps us to achieve self-control and enables us to stand up to people troubling or upsetting us. It is strength in difficult and trying conditions.

Patience is reflected through calmness, bearing up and firmness. Patience makes no expectations; it greets all, speaks to all, serves all and is kind to all. It forgives, is generous in all giving and kind in fraternal corrections. We have to practice patience with everyone. Both courage and patience go hand in hand and are very important traits in an individual and as educators while we have demonstrated these traits, we should also try to inculcate these in our students. Sharmila Vijayvargi

The Fabindia School

Honesty: Direct Proportional to Respect - Jitendra Suthar

Honesty means having moral principles, to which a person sticks forever. When a person is honest, the first principle is not to compromise with anything happening wrong. Being honest means keeping truth on top of everything.  

As per Human tendency, we all love the feeling of getting respect. Respect itself is a great value of kindness everyone should learn. Respect will bring a lot of change in one's life. A polite, kind & helpful person gets respected.

An incident of class, where there was a child who was always shy to express himself in front of the whole class. There were times when a teacher forced that kid to answer and express himself in front of everyone. The teacher observed that child for two weeks. After that, she decided to bring out the best of that child.

Later on, she started making him speak, read and explain whichever topic he felt was easy. She practised this for a week and every time he answered something, the teacher appreciated him. With this, that child started taking more and more part in-class activities. This built his confidence and made him respected more in class.

Kids in class are honest in any situation, only thing is we, as a teacher, should try to make them express themselves to get respect also and when these kids start getting respect, they automatically start building honesty. No one will be dishonest with others because gaining respect is not easy and once we get that respect and appreciation for our work, we always try to keep things going on.

Jitendra Suthar
The Fabindia School