Why can't students decide what to teach?

We had been taking inputs from educators while creating session plans for skills for life initiative. We asked ourselves, why can't students decide what to teach? Thinking on these lines we reached out to a group of students who had recently left school to enter their college life. We felt this may work out really well as these students have recently faced similar challenges that our skills for life audience is currently undergoing.

These students not only suggested what to teach but also gave a very interesting perspective on how to go about it. We came to know that these young talented students are founding members of 'Invictus: The Film & Photography Society' of Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, DU. 

They decided that the best way to create an impact on young minds is through the medium of short films. Using their talent, they created the following short film on the theme of 'following your dreams':

A picture is worth a thousand words, and an effective high impact video- maybe a million!

We showed the above film to our students of classes IX and X who found an immediate connect with the thought and were eager to discuss more on the same. Many students personally came after the class and based on the video, they discussed the barriers and paths to following their own passion in life.

We thank Team Invictus for this wonderful work and really look forward to more such high impact short films that will be a great teaching asset for this initiative.

Time for some Nautanki!!

As with all young students, the ones at SSMI also love doing a lot of nautanki in the classroomJ. So we said let’s do it some more!

In classrooms we tend to curb expression in the name of discipline. We wanted these kids to express themselves freely. They initially were of the kind that would get cold shivers while speaking anything in front of the whole class for 10 seconds.

We thus introduced the concept of street play or nukkad natak to them. Soon enough they caught on the concept and started working on key social issues that they think are relevant. For the next 2-3 sessions there was a lot of buzz and activity inside the classroom.

Below are some snippets from one such role play(Kindly ignore the shaky recording and poor video quality):

A lot of what we wanted to teach them through our workshops was all coming into practice with these kids showing a lot of teamwork, generating innovative ideas to deliver a social message, expressing themselves with effective body language, coming out of their shells and doing some active thinking.

It was an absolutely fun and enriching experienceJ!

And when they are eventually ready, we will take them out of their school to interact with a live audience and perform a street play. And I am sure the exposure would help them for a lifetime.

Changes..Small but Significant ones..

Saturday workshops at SSMI have resumed since the school re-opened after the summer break. When we first started interacting with these kids (who have now entered classes 9^th and 10^th this year), it was very clear that were very naive. Even the way they think and react was much below the desired level at their age. Their attention span was all of five to ten minutes and it would be fair to say that it was a daunting challenge holding their attention for long on any topic.

It was seemingly difficult to make them understand the whole purpose of these workshops. They had never attended anything beyond their academic classes. For them Saturday workshops were fun time when they would be made to do numerous activities, watch videos etc. So we let them enjoy.

After some consistent session scheduling with great co-operation from the school authorities, we started noticing some impact of these sessions on the students. Gradually they became conscious that they were learning interesting things about life through these activities, stories and videos. And very soon they became eager participantsJ.

They have started eagerly looking forward to these sessions. Saturday workshop has become an important part of their week. It may be a small but in our opinion a significant impact. They have started expressing themselves more freely, talking about their dreams and fears in life. Even to acknowledge this in front of their entire class took a lot of courage. But these kids have surprised us. (We will keep sharing interesting observations from different sessions in future blog posts)

The very fact that these kids are thinking, expressing and participating is a testimony of the thought that when learning is re-packaged, re-structured and designed to create purposeful impact, education happens.

Young minds are starting to open up. Thoughts are starting to pour out. We hope to give the much needed wings to their thoughts. And soon enough they will make their flightJ.