Guru.....Cool in Jayanagar

A Gurukul is a type of ancient Hindu school in India with the Kul (domain) sitting around Guru in a vacant place. It also the place where students stay together as equals, irrespective of their social standing. TREND SETTERS too had a more or less similar experience on Saturday (Jan 27). The venue was not an ashram instead a temple-Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Temple.

It all began with a visit to Adarsha Middle school, one of the oldest schools in Jayanagar, established in 1958. As the school premises were too narrow, we requested the headmaster Mr Manohar to provide us a wide space and he took us to the temple. Though the sixth and seventh standard students were sitting under the sun, they were still pretty cool.

The class began with an usual introduction and inspirational speech. The India-Pakistan turned into an Asia cup with addition of Sri Lanka which meant that a student had to jump every time the island nation was called. Then, the newspaper game followed by a skit. Undoubtedly, the student's performance was splendid which attracted the onlookers and temple devotees. This time, we introduced a map game where students had to identify the places.

The guest of the day was Ms Renuka Sharma, a web developer in IT Contractors. She patiently counted each team's score besides analysing the performance. Thanks Ms Sharma.

We were taken aback for a moment when Mr Manohar informed us that most of the school children were slum dwellers. Interestingly, a majority of the girls worked as domestic help before attending school while their male counterparts distributed newspapers.

RESPONSES

•  
• I wanna play Cricket, Kho-Kho and Volleyball-M N Shivashankar Gupta
• India-Pakistan-Sri Lanka game boosted our listening skills-Ayesha
• Teach life skills- P Balaji
• I want to tell a story-Shashikala
• We want quiz programme- V Akshay
• The class should be on weekly basis-P L Nagarjuna
• Get us some info on Science-N Mahadeva
• Next time, add dance and English speaking & writing-Syed
• You did not eat food, I am very upset-Revanna.

INVITATION TO KALAM

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam always has an advice to students-DREAM BIG. TREND SETTERS' Murali too has a dream and it is to invite Kalam to our collaborative learning class. Interestingly, Murali has set a time frame which is two years from now. REASON Kalam would have been relieved of his post and free to join us. 

Good luck Murali

Is learning boring or exciting.

Undoubtedly, it's boring for a majority of them like me. This was the hot issue of debate at the Sunrise English School, Nelamangala which was the forum for TREND SETTERS on Jan 20th. The class originally scheduled for ninth standard had to accomodate eighth standard students were equally eager to join.

The class began with an usual introduction, inspiration speech and a newspaper game. However, the highlight was Prasanna's set diagram which proved that a strong will power was necessary to achieve the goal. This time, we decided to give different topics for the skit. So, the six teams got topics like illiteracy, dowry, bribery, bus stand, conservation of water and cleanliness. The teams did a splendid performance on the dais. For the first time, the other groups were given an opportunity to comment.

The best comment was " The actor in the bribery skit was limping initially but was walking straight subsequently ". To this, the accused actor defended " I was limping in the right leg which was facing you. However, while returning, you could spot only my left leg, hence your are mistaken ".

Srikanth sung the Kannada remake of ' Hum Honge Kamyaab ' to pep up the students. We were open to questions this time and the first question was: Why did you teach all these group activities to us? Prasanna shot back saying everyone has to undergo three phases-dependent, independent and inter-dependent. Team work is crucial in the third phase.

This time the class extended upto 180 minutes with students throroughly enjoying the class. At the end, there was unanimity on one aspect that learning can definitely be exciting provided you enjoy.

RESPONSES

DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S KUMBAKARNA PHILOSOPHY?

You did not provide adequate time for Team 1-Chandan Murthy P N

We got a lot of leg pain-UNKNOWN

Till now, I only believed in myself, but now on, I will mingle and encourage others-Ayesha

Introduce games like quiz and debate etc to enhance knowledge-Abhijit

Hats-off to your team-Sushma

How can we concentrate on our regular studies ? Sushma S

Initially, it was boring but got excited as it progressed-Meghana G Reddy

Working under pressure means becoming more active-Veena

You were friendly with us rather than being strict-Chandana V

Only one man cannot make a nation great-UNKNOWN

Till now, I did not come such a concept-UNKNOWN

I thank you for spending couple of hours with us-M S Kaushik

The skit threw light on division of labour-Pavithra Yadav/ Pammi

I have a suggestion-classes should be only on Sundays while we can take rest from Monday to Saturday-Nasma

India-Pakistan game was wonderful-Rashmi Rekha

Nothing is impossible here-Ramya Shree

The class provided us an opportunity to expose our hidden talents-Shruti H

I learnt about the importance of group work-Madhuri K

This morning, I was wondering how to pass the time anyhow I thank you for providing entertainment-Chethana N

KIDS INSPIRE SRIKANTH

Learning is not only a continuous process but also dual in nature. During each class, a teacher gains as much knowledge as she spends in teaching. Oflate, Srikanth, the ' busy ' techie has turned to be a teacher.

On one fine day, Srikanth's boss asked him to take up an assignment in Israel. The visibly happy techie was already making plans to stay afloat on the Dead Sea. Bang came the tag from his boss, "hey, this is a multi-million project from the Jewish State. You will be responsible for either bagging or losing the project " This sent shivers down the spines and Srikanth began to have a rethink. However, the song which Kolar kids sung in chorus " Hum Honge Kamyaab " made him firm to accept. Meanwhile, the office gossip cofirmed that the project was cancelled due to technical reasons.

Any how, great work kids !

Hi guys,

Congrats to everyone for a successful programme. Anyhow, I spoke to Mr Shashi Kumar today in the evening. He told me that even he has asked for a feedback from students which is expected in a day or two. I have informed him to get us that feedback along with the photographs and video possibly.

So, our schedule for the next two week has been fixed. 

Jan 13-Kolar

Jan 20-Bidadi

Meanwhile, I just want to put up the scores of the teams' performance in Blossom's school.

TEAM 4=2.5

TEAM 3=2.95

TEAM 1 and 5=3.8

Hi TrendSetters,

Excellent Team work coupled with a great desire and persistence is all it takes to achieve the goals.

YES! Today we all should be proud to be a part of this wonderfull team which achieved its initial milestone success at Blossoms School as planned. The good part about this is we all were punctual and met our initial goal of delivering our workshop - Collaborative Learning, as commited.

Great Job Done guys!!

It all started with sridhar giving a ring to all of us on friday night to have a meet and organise things for the next day, Prasanna and srikanth met at srikanth's house and discussed few points on the flow of the workshop. Later Sridhar joined and refined the topics. Kudos to srikanth and sridhar on working late night for the prepared speech.

We all - Sridhar, Srikanth, Prasanna and Lakshmeesha all met at around 10AM next day and had a quick skimm through of the topics and finally decided the workflow.

We all were cordially invited by the Sir SashiKumar, Prinicpal of Blossoms School and mad us the way to students.

Believe it there were over 100 students ( 8th and 9th students) and all were eagerly waiting for the workshop.

Sridhar gave an introduction to our team and stated the objective of our team over there.

Srikanth took over with his speech and attracted all the students with his great speaking skills

This was followed by the Team Formation, we made 5 teams of 25 students each.

The discussion topic - 'Cleanliness' was given to all 100 students to discuss and come up with as many points as they can with a good articulation through some kind of skit.

It was just amazing to see how spontaneously students came on stage and gave the demonstration.

Later it was followed by the feedback from prasanna, lakshmeesha and sridhar and finally the results was announced.

It was then followed by collecting the feedback from students and it was interesting to see the way the students have recieved our workshop.

Finally it was followed by a speech by one of the very respected teacher followed by the felicitaion for sridhar, srikanth, prasanna and lakshmeesha. Good part was the momentos was handed over by students directly and the function was ended with a very unexplainable pleasure for trendsetters.

Later We all met in sridhar's house and we introspected what all things were appreciable and things that has scope for improvement.

Strengths:

• Self Motivated to take up any task within our reach
• Understand students more that teachers and Gave candid feedback that has direct self improvement on students
• Puntual on time
• Organised topics
• Excellent Team work

Scope for improvement:

• Formal Feedback form - Prasanna decided to come up with a feedback form that would help quick circulation and reception from students.
• Specific Soft skill improvement - Next time we can aim at Speakings skills improvment
• Different people take different role - we need to reshuffle the role each one is taking to make sure we all are flexible enough.
• Take Chocolates to encourage students.

Guys Great job done for now. Keep up the spirt and let us plan to celebrate our initial success sometime.Sridhar recommended to go for KOLAR school next saturday we need to get commitment from all of us on this and then we can plan for the topics and refine our skills.

Oveall Today 6th Jan 2006 was a memorable day for our trendsetters.

Have a wonderfull Weekend filled with joy!!!

-prasanna

"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything"