I Ms. Mansi Gagdhani am in education sector since 20 years and now, am working as a principal at Ujjwalsprouter (An International School) in Jalgaon. For all these years of my working, what I have come through, is, we (as parents) most of the time keep communicating with our children only and only on their one issue: marks they have been securing and what they MUST secure. Parents hardly indulge into any other dialogue with their own children. The premise is that, if a student secures good marks in his entire school life he or she is going to be the most successful person in the future. The biggest irony is that almost all the parents certainly know the futility of this contention. The truth is that, the academics at that age of a student play a very limited role. What is a real foundation for life is the meaningful confidence we give to the children that they really have no limitations in understanding what they need to understand, to acquire knowledge, etc. We all have no hesitation in accepting this but the most difficult obstacle is our actions which do not at all come close to it. Once we accept them as they are, we silently work on enriching their ability to fight their own limitations which can certainly help them to be responsible adults of the future society. Unfortunately, we have been running in the rat race and love to be blind visioned. I know we all know this, but many of us are not clear as to what to do to overcome this situation. Our present day education system, of which schools and private classes are an integral parts now, should be blamed for the deplorable state of affairs. Here, I am talking of the majority of the students and not a blessed few who would “succeed” in any case. I think we need to teach our kids, students, how to stand strong and stand out of the crowd, and more importantly, accept the failures and keep alternatives at hand. This all used to disturb me immensely, to the extend that I used to get dejected, disheartened and disinterested in my job. Initially, I had even come close to draw a conclusion that schools can hardly play any major role in changing the situation. But, somehow, I couldn’t convince myself ! While reading through various books on various subjects, I don’t know when but, I started pondering that most of them mean the essentials of life.
While we now all accept, though the degree varies, that academics have certain limitations as far as life after school is concerned. Let us also accept that all the students are not same though we subject them to uniform education delivery and evaluation systems. So why not something for everyone in the class ? And somewhere in this thought process, I started toying with totally different, exhaustive, and yet very effective and palpable, experimental education initiative in the school.
I thought it must comprise of various intertwined flavours; viz., Neuro Linguistic Programming, Double Doodle Brain Gym, Graphology, Color Therapy, Body Language, Psychology, Fashions, Hair Styling, Dressing Sense and overall presentation, Gender Equality, Cooking, Knitting and stitching, etc. And I just started doing it myself. In this, we started to teach the students all the above essential aspects of life, at a tender age. We are targeting standard 4th to 10th students. We are trying to make them future ready, with this bouquet of required knowledges and soft skills, to lead a confident, happy and a successful life .This has been helping them to come out of their comfort zone.
I, personally as a principal, and the one who designed it and has been delivering it since a few years now, have found lot many positive changes in my students. They have turned out to be a better students and humans. The extra edge the above has been giving them, have made them more confident, inquisitive; rather their questions keep me on my toes to be creative and create a space of their own in these sessions; and something very important even for demanding parents : the students have been scoring far better than their past performances.
Now I can certainly say that we, as a school, really need to think on what is important in life more than scores in academics, and should give our students a little more than the rote learning process. Let’s be a little more creative and let our students come out of the comfort zone and understand the real meaning of life in the school life only. Let’s teach our students the real meaning of life. It’s not in marks but in the word life itself.
So when it came name this bouquet of innovative activities, I contemplated whether I should call it a Life Science on something really meaningful. As is known, Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Many people hear the word “economics” and think it is all about money. Economics is not just about money. It is about weighing different choices or alternatives. Some of those important choices involve money, but most do not. Most of your daily, monthly, or life choices have nothing to do with money, yet they are still the subject of economics. Let’s unfurl the life from the school itself. Let us Make It Solid, Silly !