Capacity Building Programme on Personality Development

Personality is not inherited rather it is developed and acquired with time. The process starts from the students childhood. Personality is shaped by the various positive and negative factors in life. Undoubtedly one should be aware of one's shortcomings and work on improving upon these to enhance ones personality.

Personality development classes and lectures aim to groom the outer and inner self, as it were, to bring out a positive change. Each person has a distinct character that can be developed and refined. The process includes boosting and confidence, improving communication, expanding the boundaries of thinking and knowledge, developing new hobbies or skills, adding style and elegance to the personality, looks, acquiring etiquette and manners and overall packaging oneself with positivity, vigour, liveliness and peace.

School plays an important role in the personality development of students. Personality development for students is the need of the hour as it is required for the holistic development of children for their survival in this competitive world. On 27th August, 2015, a group of students along with their teacher attended a Capacity Building Programme on Personality Development at the Institute of Mental Health, Moolchand Medcity which was organised by Expressions India. Students from other schools also participated in the workshop. The introductory session of the workshop was taken by Dr. Jitendra Nagpal, noted psychologist, where he showed the students two video clips on Sabla and Anganwadi which are government schemes relating to health awareness among women. This was followed by a discussion on the same.

This was followed by an ice-breaking game in which students had to introduce themselves by using an adjective that started with the first letter of their names. The rider was that there should be no repetition in the use of adjectives! Upon completion of this activity, the students were asked to describe their feelings about the activity. A few students were comfortable introducing themselves while others hesitated. It was observed that most students had used adjectives that matched their personality traits.

The next activity was to formulate three questions that would provide information about others. The students had to ask these questions of at least three people in the room who they were meeting for the first time. The catch here was not to include questions that elicited personal information. They were given fifteen minutes to undertake this activity. The students moved around in the auditorium and interacted with as many people as possible in those fifteen minutes. The second part of the activity was to draw inferences about the people they interacted with, based on their style of talking and other cues and the content of their responses. Post this, a discussion was held on why the students chose specific questions and how they formed an impression of the person they interacted with.

The resource person then listed out the three main categories of life skills i.e. emotional, social and thinking skills along with their subcategories such as critical- thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, creative thinking, interpersonal and effective communication, coping skills, empathy, etc. A video clip from the Bollywood film, Lakshya was played where all the characters were talking their choice of career. The character played by Hrithik Roshan was one, totally undecided on which career to go for as there were a plethora of options available.

The last activity of the day was a role-play exercise in which the students were divided into five groups and each group was a given a specific situation to enact. They were allotted 15-20 minutes to prepare the skit. The students presented the skit and the coordinator pointed out healthy and unhealthy ways of interacting among members.

On 3rd September 2015, another group of students attended a similar workshop on Personality Development at the same venue organised by Expressions India. This time, the workshop was conducted by Dr. Saima of the Institute of Mental Health, Moolchand Medcity, New Delhi.

Apart from a few activities that were different, the workshop mainly comprised of similar activities as the first one. In this session, the students were asked to draw their idea of happiness on a sheet of paper which was followed by a discussion.

To sum up, these opportunities provided a good platform to students for learning in an interactive way. Needless to say the activities were lapped up! The workshops made the students aware of the importance of a good personality and through this medium they got an opportunity to recognise their personality traits.