A new aspect of doing things...

A new way of doing things or is this the way of doing things?

In all the things that is happening here as I am getting to set in the environment here, there are so many questions that come up every now and then. I always knew that this school was and is going to be different but then I also needed to reflect on what ways is it different. And in due course maybe also analyze how these differences contribute in the making of an individual and an institution.

In this post I am going to discuss three new things that I have come across:

1. Shape of the Day 
2. Tutor groups
3. Monday morning assemblies

Shape of the day..

I so much fell into love with this phrase without even knowing what it was? For those of who are wondering what it is , well it is actually the time schedule of the day which starts with an early breakfast at 7:15 a.m, would incorporate a set of two classes followed by short coffee breaks, a lunch of 45 mins followed by after school activities between 2 to 4. I felt the planning was really nice giving a lot of breathing space for the teachers and students.

Tutor groups...

The word tutor in India is actually associated with those teachers or people,giving personalized or group tutions ,after school hours merely assumed to be responsible for the academic results of a student . But this word and the presence of the turor group had a completely different meaning here. In this school we do not have the concept of classrooms or homerooms and so no classroom or homeroom teacher either. Whole school students are divided into groups under a pair of teachers who are the tutor teachers. The students necessarily do not belong to the same grade. They come as a mixture of various grades.The tutor teacher is responsible for the overall welfare and holistic development of each member of the group and they all work as a team in various activities of the school.   I felt this gave the younger group to interact more and learn from the elder group of students.

Monday morning assemblies

Suddenly one must be thinking why am I blogging about Monday morning assemblies.Every school has it.

But if you see the pictures above what do you notice ? What is the focus ? Not the background as to how it has been decorated or what Charts have been out up or what color has been used. The focus is the students and their thought process. As Mr. Regan had announced that the them of the assembly was LOVE ...we had all the tutor groups presenting on the same theme. But what made it different is that every group had a unique concept behind the representation of LOVE. 

It was so interesting to note that the students when left to themselves can come up with so many different approaches and perception to one theme. One group delved into explaining LOVE as perceived by various subject areas, whereas some went in to depict it as a sweet existence between a married couple. One group along with its tutors went for a song which was just an amazing way of hitting the critical thinking skills. Through the song the group meant to ask ,
"Do we actually practice what we preach? Do our words and action reflect on the LOVE?". .

And trust me the effort was on all from the students. Quite contrary in all the other schools an Assembly meant a teacher had to do all the running and if the assembly was not up to the "MARK", the students were called and told about it for not keeping up to the benchmark. I always wondered what was the benchmark? Something which was predetermined, dictated and had no scope of incorporating fresh ideas, probably.And forget about critical thinking as it was always suppressed by loud phrases of dominance. 

To sum it all the wealth of good practices is just getting uncovered everyday which makes me feel to blog even more of everything....So what new things do you discover in your school everyday? Instead of criticizing are you critically analyzing? Are you reflecting..?