Unity and Caring - Welham Boys' School

Unity and Caring amongst students are essential for creating a positive learning environment. When

students feel connected and have a sense of belonging, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated in their studies. It also promotes empathy and compassion, which can help reduce bullying and other negative behaviours. Encouraging students to work together and support one another can foster a spirit of cooperation and teamwork. This can be achieved through peer mentoring, group projects, and community service. By prioritizing unity and caring, students can develop strong relationships with their peers, feel valued and supported, and ultimately thrive academically.

Exercise: Human Knot

Ask students to stand in a circle and hold hands with two people not standing next to them. Instruct the students to move around and untangle the knot without letting go of each other's hands. Encourage them to communicate with each other, work together, and be patient until the knot is

untangled.

Observations:

a) Initial Responses: At the start of the exercise, some students may feel hesitant or unsure about holding hands with people they don't know well. They may also need help approaching the problem of untangling the knot.

b) Contribution: As the teacher or facilitator, you can provide guidance and encouragement throughout the exercise. You can remind the students to communicate effectively, work together, and stay patient. You can also offer suggestions and help to keep the movement moving along.

c) Impact on Students: The Human Knot exercise can positively impact students in several ways. Firstly, it promotes teamwork and collaboration, as students need to work together to solve problems. It also encourages communication and trust-building, as students must rely on each other to untangle the knot. Finally, the exercise can help to build a sense of unity and caring as students come together to achieve a common goal.

d)Takeaways: Some possible takeaways from the Human Knot exercise include:

The importance of communication and teamwork in achieving a goal.
The value of patience and perseverance in difficult situations.
The benefits of building trust and working together towards a common purpose.
The idea is that unity and caring can be fostered through shared experiences and challenges.

Incident: An incident took place amongst the students that can be seen as a learning or takeaway

from this exercise.

While playing soccer, one kid (let's call him kid 1) kicked the ball a little too hard, and another kid (let's call him kid 2) ended up hurting his arm. Kid 1 took Kid 2 to the hospital, and the arm was fractured. Kid 2's grandparents had come to take him for medical leave, and kid 1, along with some other friends, helped him pack, change and carry all his stuff for him. The grandparents were overwhelmed to see his peers' caring, united and helpful nature.

- Neelima Parmar, Monika Gupta and Vandana Sahay

Welham Boys’ School

If I were an Educator - Rishona Chopra

Impatient and fearful, how do we handle the situation?

If I met an impatient and fearful student, situations I can think of with them are like this -

An impatient student - If a question is asked, they can't wait for their turn. They can't wait for other students to finish speaking or working in a team; they don't wait for anyone else and carry on doing their work without any regard that they have to work in a group.

A fearful student -  if they are afraid of being laughed at or are worried that they might fail exams and not do well in their studies.

If I were a teacher, then for the impatient students, I would try to give them a taste of their own medicine - by not being patient with them and then soon tell them that when you are patient and give others a chance, they also feel nice. Still, when you are impatient, it simply shows that you are being disrespectful to them. 

For the fearful students, I would tell them that all their fears are just in their minds. Fear is created in the mind. All you need to do is stop imagining to remove the fear. I would remind them of a Birbal tale - where Birbal was told to imagine that he is in a deep forest surrounded by hungry tigers and lions and has no weapon either, so what would he do? Birbal said in reply, "I would stop imagining". I would tell the fearful student that we were born to live and enjoy, even if they are laughed at, no one cares because you know what you are, and if it's about failing, real success is when you fail and then get back on your feet and try again.

If this were a real-life situation, I think I would be successful in helping the students, but still, I need more experience with children, so it might not really work with the impatient student, but it could with the fearful students. My advice to educators who want to inculcate these values in children is just that the only way is to relate with stories and real-life situations; you can connect with a Birbal tale or a Nassrudin tale; stories with values help to bring about values in children. My earlier class teacher used to tell several unique stories with values in the reflection period. Through her little tales and real-life experiences, understanding values and even Science was much more accessible!

Rishona Chopra
Grade VI
Gyanshree School

Raw Deal for Vocational Studies in DU

NEW DELHI: Despite the emphasis laid on participation in co-curricular activities by exam boards and schools, having one as subject does more harm than good when it comes to Delhi University admissions. Students who count any vocational or non-academic subject in their best-of-fours are either refused admission or discouraged to try via forbiddingly high cutoffs.

"I called about half-a-dozen colleges to ask if they'll allow me to include physical education in my best four subjects but they refused. I was making the cut for some courses at Lakshmi Bai, Bharti and Bhim Rao Ambedkar but only if I counted physical education," said a candidate who finally took admission in English at Sri Aurobindo College.

"Some colleges are accepting such students but by deducting large chunks of marks. One college is deducting 10% from the aggregate for students who've included mass media in their best-of-four," said another student. The university has left it to the colleges to decide.

At Hansraj College, however, only those candidates who have added "informatics practices" are being allowed. Apparently, the decision to allow this subject was taken after candidates who've included it in their aggregates were admitted into one of the courses, possibly due to an "oversight" as one teacher puts it. "How is creative writing a lesser 'vocational subject' for a candidate for English while informatics practices is considered an academic subject?" asks a parent whose daughter was denied admission for this reason.

"The stepmotherly treatment of vocational subjects is an ongoing problem with DU admissions," said a teacher. "The students say if their school or board had made them aware of this, they would never have opted for it. Yet, there is no coordination between DU and CBSE on this and no attempt to redress the problem."

Read more in The Times of India