Keekli Reporter, 11th April, 2015, Chakkar, Shimla
An orientation programme was organized for students of BSN School, Chakkar — Classes VII, VIII and IX — here today to enlighten them about looking at things from a new perspective. Brother Kevin Ward shared his experiences and said that over a period of time he has seen a changing trend in the education system in schools. Rather than being a service it has now grown into a business, which was now affecting the students and the way they looked at things around them and in life general. School Principal Kalpana Sharma said, that such workshops were organized regularly in the school and prior to this event, four workshops were organized for teachers and three for students. The idea is ‘see the unseen’ things and open our the eyes students as well as teachers to adopt innovative and new skills while teaching and learning.
Principal Sharma further said that we need to groom children in a way so that they look at life from a different outlook, while quoting a metaphor, to see with “an eagles’ eye and not chicken eyes”. She added, “We have had a long association with Brother Kevin, and have a learnt a lot through his workshops and teachings. Due to the growing need to adopt innovative ways to wider our horizons, we have organized a workshop for teachers and parents on 13th April, 2015 at Gaiety Theatre titled ‘Seeing the Unseen’. More than 50 teachers from various schools of Shimla have already registered and on that day a Special Education Cell will be launched”.
While talking to KEEKLI, Brother Kevin said, “Education used to be a service but with changing times it has now become a business. Everything has changed and the old values and dedication are missing, because of which I feel that children are suffering. What I have tried to do is open the eyes of children to look at life, studies, books, commitment and nature etc., in a very different way. I try to conduct these workshops to give them those values. The Gita and Upnashid both speak about ‘seeing the unseen’, ‘hearing the unheard’, ‘knowing the unknown’, but our education system is limited and hence, the real meaning is lost amidst the race to achieve good grades. We need to look at things with our inner eyes, to better understand them and look at them differently”.
He further add, “I see less commitment towards educating children, and I don’t blame the teachers or the principals, but the society in general and those who wish to explore education only as a medium of making profit. India was once the leading country in the world for its Gurukul system, but now it is lagging behind and the education system has changed”.
While talking about his workshop with the students, he said, “I experimented with an idea of giving them eyes through the medium of a game. I gave them a challenge to find a beautiful English word with four letters. I give them the first two letters ‘lo’ and they had to finish with the last two letters. The idea is to open up and divert from the obvious choices. The most common being ‘love’, ‘lord’, ‘long’, but the ideal word that I was searching for was ‘look’. If you learn to look at things more carefully you can completely re-analyze the same situation with a person, life or any challenges faced henceforth”.
The children were also shown a movie titled The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, in which an orphan girl who suffers grave tragedy and discovers in her alone nest another way of looking at life. During her journey she touches the lives of three adults and two kids and turns their life upside down. The movie ends on the note that if you look with the right eyes the whole world becomes a garden. Brother Kevin said that my job is to train children to look at life in different ways.
The workshop ended with an interactive session with the students as they discussed the movie and learnt something new.
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