25th Sept 2021
Mr Nitin, our Committee Member based in Hyderabad, visited school to welcome our children back to school and motivate them.
He conducted a workshop with our teachers and children.
The children got tips on exam handling and how to handle themselves post covid
In Nitin's own words:
As school re-opens after pandemic, it was great feeling to visit school and interact with students. I have been associated with Gurulam school since inception days from 2004. This time I visited with a friend, Pravin Bavankule, who was equally excited. I was told that what students now need is motivation to get back to the rigor of physical education and prepare for the upcoming exams. So I posed the question to the batch of students from grade 9 - 12 "What meal did you have same time last week?". With some giggles and embarrassment, students and teachers both realized that human memory is designed to retain for short term, and only way to beat that was "constant revision". Now the logical question to follow was how can revise all subjects everyday with such a demanding course-content? On that note, we agreed that most important questions were the ones that were asked in question papers from the last 5 years, and there is a high probability that these would be most likely questions for the upcoming exams. With such reduced but focussed sylabus to begin with, we can possibly focus on one subject each day of the week, and complete the entire revision within the week! I could see the excitement in their eyes as we discussed such possibilities to help them with their exams. Finally I reminded them again that given how human brain works, they will forget everything that we discussed today in a week's time! So one homework for them is to make a note of takeaways from today on a piece of paper, and paste it on their desk for "constant reminder"!
Pravin rounded up the session beautifully by motivating students to Think Big! His anecdotes from history were spot on and resonated well with students.
Finally, we had a separate session with teachers to brainstorm how best we can help students follow through with the above plan of action.
I believe we can exponentially learn from each others experience. Was humbling to see the students aspiring to be IAS and doctors, specially after coming from economically underprivileged background and being first generation English learners. As I left, I secretly wished that I get more such opportunities to interact with Gurukulam students! ;-)