Vidyashilp-School Visit

 

Below is directly from their website. I could not have said it better.

 Vidyashilp Academy aspires to provide an educational experience of the highest quality — to advance the frontiers of knowledge and to prepare students for life, work, and leadership.

Our teaching methodology enables our students and graduates to do well for themselves and do good for our world in a manner that authentically reflects the very best in each of them.

Our mission is to enable our students to do well and do good.

Values

Our purpose is to shape individuals with impeccable character so that they may do good and contribute meaningfully to the society globally.

Achieving these aims depend on the efforts of hundreds of faculty, students and parents across the school. Whatever maybe our individual roles, and wherever we are, within Vidyashilp Academy we owe it to one another to uphold the values of the community.

We must RISE to it.

Respectto oneself, others and surroundings

 

Integrityowned responsibility, honesty and authenticity

 

Spiritbe positive and have a never give up attitude

 

Excellencebe the best we can be no matter where we are in the world

During my visit I was able to see their vision, purpose, and values throughout the day. Right from the start I could the warmth. The school is about 2 hours away from where we are staying so the headmaster arranged for me to meet a teacher at a bus stop near my house and we took the school bus. Most kids travel far for school and just sleep on the bus. I am thankful my kids do not need take the bus. When we arrived at the school, the buses enter these two gates and are taken into a educational oasis.

As soon as I arrived, I got to observe a morning assembly. What a great way to start the day.

Then went to a Cultural Revival "Street Play" performance by 7th graders.  Themes presented were: languages, dance, clothes, food, education, and customs.

   
Afterwards I was able to talk to the English Department Chair and how these performance came about. She was very clear to me that the English Department puts on this show annually and the planning happens in the classroom. Teachers and students decide on the theme and integrate it into the classroom. They also asked for feedback from the students and the students have asked to have these performances at least 2 times a year.

It got me thinking? We have an auditorium at New Mission. We should use it more and take advantage of the resources we have and the multiple skills students exhibit. They may not go on stage per say, but they can be part of production.

Afterwards I was whisked away to observe a 10th grade Commerce class (In US terms it is a Business class). The lesson was about how Advertisements are critical to selling a product or service. The next class, they will then take what they learned and create a 30 second TV or radio commercial for shoes or smart phone or packaged juice or a car or an on-line shopping website. Students worked in groups most of the time and without calling it Design Thinking Process (DTP), students were led through the 5 step process--Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

My day was packed and I talked and had lunch with lots of  other faculty and students, but my last highlight is an after-school program, actually a program on Saturdays that is affiliated with WFUNA- World Federation of United Nations Association. This program started in 2015 with only 11 students and now has 60 students. The program is 6 months long. 6 Groups presented to me their projects which for the sake of putting a name to what they did, it was YPAR (Youth Participatory Action Research) in Action. All their projects began with finding a community they wanted to learn more about, then visiting that community and hearing from them their challenges, then working with the community to solve the problem and take action. The projects were aligned to Sustainable Development Goals.

Some examples of the student projects were:

1. Working with a school to get quality education. In this particular school, there is only 1 teacher for 45 students and the students range from Grades 1-5. The students researched and raised money and found an NGO that works to bring education to underprivileged children.

2. Working with an orphanage to provide proper health care. The students they surveyed talked about how they do not know how to take care of themselves even with the common cold. These students researched and rasied money to bring a herbalist on Ayurveda rituals to the orphanage to teach the children and staff on these homeopathic remedies. (Side note--I have been using some of these Ayurveda practices and they really work!)

3. Working with an underprivileged school for the blind. Through surveys they found that they lacked educational tools that promoted their needs. Through research and fundraising and their own ingenuity, they created educational tool kits for the teachers to use in their classroom.

To say the very least, I was humbled by their passion and dedication to make the world a better place for everyone.

In conclusion, my takeaway is that an integrated curriculums that prepares students for standardised tests and  incorporate student centered, project based learning can co-exist and have positive results for the school and the students.