Kho kho

Today is a school kho kho tournament. The four boys and girls houses are playing it out with full enthusiasm and a lot of noise.

 

Kho Kho is an amazing game which involves three players being chased and tagged by the members of the other team. The team that are the "taggers" crouch in the middle of the field and can only chase and tag one at a time. Any of them can be released when they are tagged by their running teammate who shouts "Kho". When chasing they can only run in one direction and can't cross the centre line although those being chased can go anywhere they like.

I realize that the above is an absolutely hopeless description of what happens but just know....great game, fascinating tactics, good action. If you want to know kho kho come and play in school!!!

The future is bright

 

These girls are our 11th class "stars". There is a group of girls in 11th class who all did extremely well in the 10th class exams. We have never had such a large number of students who had such success in the exams; In 10th class they scored as follows:

Priya Yadav                92% 9th in the District merit

Krishna Rathore         83%

Teenu Jangir 83%

Usha Kiram Charan 82%

Bhumika Rathore 87%

Varsha Sharma          82%

Neha Yadav               90.5% 13th in the District merit

Dashika Sharma        79%

It is quite a group that should spur each other on to great success in 12th class.

Congratulations to them all on their fantastic efforts in tenth class.

Filling up

The rain has been great. Nearly 6 metres of water in the talab and still coming.

For anyone who has been in Jadan you know what this means. It has been raining now for 20 hours. Not heavy but beautiful.

Just a thought - for the teachers of Rajasthan

During the past year whilst talking with many teachers I have heard the same complaint again and again. Teachers are frustrated that the Education board does not allow corporal punishment any more and that they therefore cannot control the class.

Again and again teachers comment that:

• Children do not want to learn
• They don’t want to do their homework and study
• They don’t pay attention
• They don’t know what they want to do with their lives. There is no ambition, no drive, no enthusiasm for the future
• Without punishment there will be no discipline

But:

• What if the students wanted to be in class??
• What would make them want to be in class?
• What would make YOU want to be there?
• What would make you want to learn a subject?
• Interesting classes
• Relevance of the subject to daily life
• Encouragement
• A teacher who also wanted to be there with a passion to be there
• What would give a student direction and motivation?
• Do they have career guidance?
• Do they have a chance to have counselling for their 11^th and 12^th subject choices?
• What would make a student disciplined? Come on time? Do homework?
• A teacher who also turned up on time!!!!
• An interesting, relevant and enjoyable subject, so good it would be a punishment just to miss a class.
• A passion for learning, imbibed from someone who has that same passion
• Look around. There are some great teachers in almost every school. Do the best ones have disciplinary issues? Does the discipline in their classes come through violence or through respect for their quality of teaching??

Just imagine for a moment the following possibility…….

            A classroom can be transformed into a joyous place of learning. A place full of interest and light. A place where the student looks forward to coming to rather than a place they sit passively because of fear.

Please think about the above and then consider…... The Government has not tied your hands by restricting corporal punishment. It has freed your hands to take up a challenge. To bring your enthusiasm to the classroom, enthuse your students and in the process to become even more excellent teacher. To become an ambassador for the subject which you teach. To bring the classroom to life, so that students may flourish and enjoy their education.

When the stick is required it means that the connection with the student is not strong enough. Surely we should do everything possible to establish that connection.

Enjoy

Childhood Awareness

I watched these children the other day as they walked to school. I was the day after a very nice rain. There was puddles on the road, the leaves on the trees were shining and all of the bugs and small creatures that had been waiting for the rain in order to come out were crawling around in the first days of their lives. These three girls took about 45 minutes to walk the last 200 metres to school. They were fascinated by everything. The freshness of the nature combined with their freshness of perspective was beautiful to see.

Of course they were completely late for school. But who cares?

It has been a long time out of the office!

It has really been a while since the last post! So…here is the report.

School is back for the 2013-14 session. There were some amazing results in the last session. For the first time one of our students came in the top 10 in the District. She was studying in 12th Science. Whenever the results of 12th class exams come out the first ten students have their name, school and photo on the front page of the newspapers so it was a big event. Congratulations to all!

All of the other students did exceptionally well. The school's speciality subject seems to be Sanskrit where in 12th class 40% of students got distinction marks. At one stage as we were downloading the marks from the internet it was like a shock when one of the students got below 75%!

Everyone is looking forward to the year ahead. The staff have started their teaching with full speed. Students are preparing for sports tournaments, plays, singing and dancing performances over the next weeks. All students have been allocated their "house" for inter school games and arts competitions which start this week.

And, best of all, in the last weeks it finally rained. Making the atmosphere clean, the temperature a little more bearable and covering the landscape in green. Somehow it doesn't matter how good the building is, how good the teachers are, how interesting the subject may be … it is always more enjoyable when it is no longer 45 degrees!