It is great fun interacting with the young students, understanding their mind, their aspirations, concerns and fears. Most of them prefer to speak in small groups. Such small group discussions also encourage critical thinking and articulation. I love the insightfulness with which these kids talk. In one of the recent such encounters, I posed three questions to a group of class six students. What are you good at? What is one thing you would like to be good at? Given the principal's position for a day, what one change you will bring? One of them agreed to put the deliberations on paper. Given below is what he wrote. Impressive indeed!
Today, me and my friends, namely Abheek, Amar, Videsh and Aman ( names changed) were called to the room of Principal Sir. We all were very nervous, as one might be when they are called by the Principal of their school, out of the blue. As we stood in the reception area trying to figure out if we had done something wrong or broken any rules, our discussion has to stop abruptly as our Headmistress called us inside the principal's office.
Turns out that we had only been called as the Principal, wanted to interact with some students of 6th standard. Then we breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God, we had not done anything wrong. Interactions began. He first asked us to share one extraordinary quality we possess, as of what I remember, Aman’s condition was Arts & Craft, and Videsh mentioned his proficiency in sports. Amar and Abheek said that their extraordinary qualities were reading books and studies respectively. I declared my extra-ordinary qualities as love for books and dogs.
The principal then asked us about one quality that we would like to enhance in ourselves. Amar, Videsh and Aman said they would all like to know how to manage their time. Ashok sir gave an excellent suggestion to this and said that if we are feeling distracted or not feeling good for some reason, there is no harm in taking a little break and coming back to the assigned work. Lack of focus suggests the presence of diverted attention. That needs to be checked, he said. I said that I would want to develop my capabilities to avoid distractions, especially when I am reading. Abheek said he would improve his studies as he aspires to be an IFS officer in the future.
Then he asked us about a change we would like to bring in our school! I was a little passive, but now I was getting excited then. I said that I would want to introduce an extra reading period as I love reading books. Abheek told that he would like to make an extra game period every day as nowadays children are getting obese. Amar had a similar idea, but he felt that the parents should encourage children to join the stay back games classes. Aman wanted to give more importance to value education classes while Videsh wished to introduce a newspaper period. I think all the ideas were good.
Then we were asked some more questions which were like what do we want to become? And who is our role model? All of the children answered very suitably, and I noticed that all of them were very ambitious. Sir then encouraged us to excel in academics, one extracurricular activity and one sport. He emphasised the importance of hard work, consistent work and taking pride in our abilities. All of us were happy-Bhavya Kubba Class VI
Thank you Bhavya for your excellent write-up. I am proudly sharing it with the world.
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