A good school is not merely a passport to a good college and to a handsomely paid and glamorous job. In the mindless pursuit of what is perceived as success, the education system generally fails to adequately empower young citizens with life skills.
In November 2010, The Indian School took on an initiative to engender awareness about the students rights and responsibilities as future citizens of the country. The Citizenship Programme of The Indian School firmly believes that the aim of education is not only to prepare children for a career but also to prepare them to face all the challenges of life.
At the Indian School, we like to look beyond academic milestones and work on the overall personality of a child, which can be more easily developed into a positive one in the formative years. A good character is learnt at home and at school. A robust moral and ethical foundation supports the development of compassion, integrity, commitment, selflessness, respect, responsibility and resourcefulness to constitute making a child into a GOOD CITIZEN.
The Curriculum in the classroom includes discussions on various topics like:- I AM AN INDIAN CARING FOR MYSELF VALUES AND CARING ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES CONTEMPORARY EVENTS OUTREACH PROJECTS These are supported with a databank of inspirational and motivational talks from platforms like TED talks and INK talks which are shown to students at frequent intervals so that they can learn from the experiences of prominent personalities. Success stories and biographies of prominent personalities and international companies are also included in our databank. Our dedicated teachers with the guidance of our Principal select current national and international topics from sports, environment and politics to stir up the minds of the students into animated discussion. We also have frequent workshops by prominent organisations on Female Foeticide and Gender Equality for the students and workshops on Democratic and Positive Parenting for parents. As a part of our Outreach Projects, we struck a very creative idea when the children were asked to experiment with making soap as a Chemistry Project. The result was that the soap produced was so appreciated that we decided to take it one step forward. We invited trained professionals to conduct a workshop to teach our children/teachers how to make fragranced, natural soap and candles. After some intense training, we devised some in-house packaging and introduced the product to the parents for sale as a sense of motivation to the children. Soon, we had made a small amount of money and started a project called Shram Daan defined below:- SHRAM DAAN is an invaluable learning we seek to instill in our children. The value of offering a little bit of one's own time and effort for helping to alleviate the misery of another, is something our students are continuously taught. We are delighted that they come forward to participate spontaneously each time and brainstorm on how else to help those less lucky. ITEMS MADE BY THE CHILDREN INCLUDE SOAPS, RANGOLI/HOLI COLORS, PAINTINGS AND POTTED PLANTS . They make hand-made items at School, the collections from which, they personally handover to a variety of charities and the most impressive one is adopting Defence Colony Market for a Cleanliness Campaign. The strategy was very clear. Our aim would not be the physical cleaning of areas as many organisations were doing as a corollary of the Swachcha Bharat Abhiyan, but to educate the general public on the importance of cleanliness and how it can lead to a better, cleaner and healthier society. The students put together a script which was written and enacted by them as a Nukkad Natak on Cleanliness. After approaching and gaining the support of the of RWA Defence Colony Market, the Defence Colony Market Association and the local leaders, on November 14th 2015, the students of The Indian School officially adopted the Market by staging the Nukkad Natak in the heart of the Market, and announcing their objectives. This was followed by frequent visits to the market to interact with the paan-walas, parking attendants, shopkeepers and staff to understand why there was so much garbage in such a posh market of South Delhi. It came to light that the only dustbins in the market were the big ones in the back lane and nothing within the market. In an effort to resolve this bottleneck, The Citizenship Programme installed 4 dustbins in the market ( funded through Shram Daan), and the MCD was quick to install a few more. In addition to this, we gave over 20 small dustbins to the owners of the kiosks in the market with the idea that the general public that buys smaller things like ice-cream, gum, paan masala, cigarettes and soft drinks from these kiosks create the maximum litter. This exercise did clean up the market to an extent but the journey is on. Our next aim is to meet the owners of the restaurants and florists to work out a better way to dispose their wastage and water. We are constantly looking for new and sustainable ideas on how we can create a litter-free market. We realise we have a long way to go but what is important is the type of exposure the students are getting at this early age in the form on interacting with local leaders, how to work around the hurdles of red tape, the invaluable life-skills picked up by interacting with diverse elements of society and how easy it is to point fingers as compared to actually getting down to ground level and achieving a target! Around the same time, another set of our students got together and joined hands with a group called 'New Delhi Rising', inspired by an organisation called The Ugly Indian. Here, an anonymous group of citizens get together over weekends and clean up/beautify/paint a particular decrepit spot. Areas are targetted where walls have been vandalised with posters or graffiti and students clean up those areas in their free time, and paint them with graffiti or plant trees so that they can sustain themselves. Several weekends were also spent at Defence Colony Market to paint the boundary walls of the park in the centre and along the footpath to give the market a fresh, clean and new look. We, at The Indian School, firmly believe that with the increasing participation of students, support by the parents and focused guidance by the teachers, the students of our school will be a cut above the rest. Sangeeta Aswani Citizenship Co-ordinator The Indian School J B Tito Marg New Delhi 110049. Tel :- 9818144760
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