Art of Teaching to Art of Giving

0
446

ENARADA, Bengaluru, September 4, 2015

It was a special teacher’s day at Government High School, Police Colony, Magadi Road, Bengaluru, as students reunited after a gap of 31years!

It is not just a mere reunion as the alumni kick-started an innovative project-Art of Giving at the Government High School, Police colony, off Magadi road. Art of Giving is an innovative project conceptualised by Mr Achyuta Samantha (founder of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) and KIIT, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha) which inspires and encourages people to give back to the society.

Motivated by the Art of Giving project, the alumni will felicitate their faculty to thank them personally for moulding their personality.

The alumni felicitated 23 teachers (7 from 84-85 Batch and 16 present teachers) on the occasion of the Teacher’s Day.

The alumni said out of 23 teachers, they literally had no contact with three teachers for more than three decades. Paramashivan (who was also music teacher to legendary Kannada actor Dr Raj Kumar), 85, a music teacher said, “It is a wonderful feeling to meet these students after a gap of 31 years. I used to teach music to these students but speaking to these ex-students today was definitely music to ears.”

Another teacher Manjula said, “Today, I feel that they were once my students but over a period of time, they have become so close to me that they are literally like my children.”

The teachers and students later watched a video on importance of Art of Giving.

1

Basavaraj said, “We have heard a lot of reunions but this one promises to be special. We were literally lost for the last 31 years. We casually thought of meeting up but soon realised it was an exciting idea of reuniting all the batch mates. However, tracking the missing batch mates was not an easy job. We passed out of our school at a time when we neither had mobile phones nor landlines at homes. Secondly, it was an age when social media was still not born. In toto, we didn’t have contacts or whereabouts of most of the friends. So, tracking was not just tough but proved out to be a challenging project. So, we decided that each member of the group will find at least three friends and those three would be asked to find three each. This led to a chain reaction of tracking and we could soon track 29 friends of our batch.”

Mohan Kumar, said though the first task of tracing batch mates were completed, the next task was to find the teachers (most of them had retired by now. With the help of the current faculty, we could somehow connect to our teachers. So, with the alumni and alma mater ready, we were wondering what could be done? This was when we decided to follow the model set out by Mr Achyuta Samantha. We thought the Art of Giving was the best model as teachers had given us good education which was instrumental in shaping our characters. So, why not we give back something to the teachers and hence conceptualised the unique teachers’ day programme.” The unique teachers’ day programme was witness to cultural activities, motivational talks, felicitation to the teachers as well as kick-starting a number of personality development and extra-curricular classes.

Ambareesh said the reunion was also a morale booster for the students who were currently studying in the Government school. “There was a time when people would queue up to enrol into the government schools. However, these days, people are hesitant. It is not because schools lack quality of teaching but more to do with the mind-set. If we look at our batch, almost all of us have succeeded in life by studying in a government school. So, we need to spread this message in the society that the government schools are equally good compared to the private schools and what they lack is the branding. Hence, we have started a number of initiatives in our schools like personality development and extracurricular activities. For example, we have started a unique craft class. One of our batch mates Mamata is conducting free classes as to how one can make art out of waste. In days to come, we plan to conduct more such classes and improve the school’s branding and teaching.

School teacher Anekal Lakshmi said, “We are really overwhelmed by the Art of Giving project launched by our ex-students. It gives immense pleasure to see how much love is showered by the former students. I wish every school replicates this model which can transform into a revolution of sorts and bring back the glory of the government schools. After witnessing today’s programme, I now feel that this was the true teacher’s day gift to a teacher.”

 

 DSC_5319 copy

DSC_5360 copy

Art of Teaching to Art of Giving - Bengaluru (September 4, 2015)

Art of Teaching to Art of Giving - Bengaluru (September 4, 2015)

MNG_4597 copy

MNG_4600 copy

MNG_4606 copy

MNG_4610 copy

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

*

code