There was a time when school was repetitious and awfully boring
Quite often the kids couldn’t be blamed if they were found snoring
Then cloned to think as if in a packaging factory
Learning stereotypically could never be satisfactory
Today to perceive the delight on young expressive faces
Excitedly exclaim “School is cool” and “engaging with learning will take
my life places”
Education is no longer the old conformist drudge machine
Rather it celebrates uniquely the individual @ PSN in 2017
How education has changed over the
years and each year teachers continue to strive to find new ways of engaging
learners and improving teaching learning practices because it is no longer the
teacher who is the center but the student who must learn for life and apply the
concepts. Therefore, new themes are explored in beyond classroom experiences to
enable education to be truly relevant and meaningful. Transformational
Education is not an end in itself but a process that is as important and worth
celebrating.
I began this piece with my own hand
at a bit of expressional poetry
to celebrate our 3 students who travelled to
Bangalore in February to take part in a Spoken Word Poetry and their
compositions both individual and collective were simply so creative yet simple.
This is a new area this year where we as a school have encouraged our students
to share their deepest thoughts in simple verse or slam poetry.
Our Grade 12 and 10 students have
been busy with their Mock examinations and will commence with their final
examinations from the end of April. Our graduating batch of Grade 12 are on the
threshold of moving out from the school and as they have a few weeks before we
bid farewell to them on the 6th of April, we fondly reflect how they have
matured over the years and shown great promise in every sphere, having contributed
wonderfully to the school life, making a significant impact on the community.
We are confident that they will be truly remarkable young men and women who
will make an impression wherever they go. The world and its wonderful
opportunities await them. We wish them all the very best that life has to
offer.
Our Grade 11 is in Bhutan and this is
a first time event. The idea is to enable our students to get an exposure to
this beautiful land and to learn of the culture and values of the land. This is
a wonderful exposure for our students to travel to a land renowned for being
the one with the highest “Gross National Happiness”.
The students are really
excited about the trip and the possibility to engage with the people in Bhutan
and observe customs and traditions and appreciate the values and richness of
the land. Our CAS Interact Club has been very active with the various fund
raising drives and working with various organizations to raise
awareness on
social issues. It is truly wonderful to see the magnitude of work our students
do in their engagement in collective and individual projects. Our Grade 11
students made a trip to Savda Ghera in North West Delhi on 21 Feb, to paint
houses as part of a co-engagement of our school CAS with Habitat Build.
We also had the Career Day for Our
grades 9-11 students on 2nd February where a few of our parent community shared
from careers ranging from Medicine to Journalism to Computer Animation and
Business and enabled perspectives for our students. As educators we have seen
that when students are able to listen to varying perspectives on the various
career options for them in today’s world they are better prepared for college
and able to make a more aware choice. Over the years our parent community has
been making such a consistent and committed contribution to the community life
at Pathways School Noida.
It was a truly awesome experience to
have Mr. Arjun Puri, Joint Director at O.P. Jindal University come in and speak
to our students and share how to be passionate about career and to go all out
to make an impact and excel in what one is truly passionate about. The
mesmerizing talk was a high impact one and Mr. Puri kept students thoroughly
engaged sharing his unique style of teaching History through food and culture.
There are another ten weeks of this
academic year left to go but each one of them is filled with academics and
activities that make for a real learning atmosphere. There is not a single day
when we as educators do not thrill at how there will be new engagements and new
challenges and through it all something beautiful will make itself manifest and
change of perspective will take place to make an enduring influence.
