Inspirational Story-courageous Rahul

While most of us loose upon our hopes very soon and start feeling weak during times of distress and uncertainty. Then there are some normal looking individuals, we're getting to know them or spend even some moments, instills such a deep sense of realization, that even though life has been really unfair for a few but then those who are hopeful, those who are determined and for those who have their loved ones along, all get possible for them and they win over all injustice. 

Yes, such a courageous soul is Rahul, the one on the right in the picture, who is visually impaired from birth, but then inspite of his helplessness, he is somebody very knowledgeable, very learned and a much-seasoned music teacher. When he speaks he showers wisdom and when he sings he spreads the magic. In this journey of growing up as a profound vocalist, Rahul has always been supported by his parents, with his mother who is a classical singer and herself has trained Rahul with music. Above in the middle of the picture is Rahul's father, who is 75 years old and had specially come along Rahul to escort him for his training program. It's actually heartening to get to meet such strong people in life and all the more a responsibility to spread such inspirational stories further.

Personality Development Workshop at Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry

In one of the recent two days personality development workshop, facilitated at the Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry on the 8th and 9th April'19, for the BSc (Horticulture) Final Year Students and for MBA (Ist year) students, some really invigorating tasks were lined up to ignite the spark within the young guns so as to unleash the various hidden traits of their personality and ways to enhance one's personality, by developing upon special skills of being patient, courteous, respectful, thoughtful and all the more resourceful.

Managing time well and optimizing one's priorities effectively was explained at a stretch and further the students were made to prepare their own schedule calendars, so as to understand where and how do they invest their time along with what can be more effective ways to enhance one's productivity time so as to feel less stressed up and channelize their energies effectively.

Guided Thinking session in the midst of nature, so as to instill deeper self-realization of one's own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats was a great hit amongst the students and provided them with an opportunity to understand themselves and their situations better.

Apart from the above the students were inculcated with more of sensitivity towards the needs of each gender and develop a stronger realization of how each gender is different from the other and needs to be respected for its differences.

Another the exclusive session was the musical session to provoke one's different emotions and realization of how each emotion affects our thoughts, ideas, way of working and most importantly our productivity. This musical session was a very critical part of emotion management, where students had also evaluated their own responses to their different emotions and have a stronger reflection of how an individual response can be managed well.

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Personality Development Life Skills Capsule

2 days Personality Development Life Skills Capsule Facilitated on 11th and 12th February'19 at NCC OTA, Gwalior for 100 ANO's as part of their pre-commission course.  This group of ANO's were in comparatively in the younger age group of 32 to 34 years, because of which witnessed more active participation along with much more exuberant energies from them.

To make it more practical oriented and to promote maximum experiential learning, the ANO's were actively involved in various outbound learning activities. While the learning outcomes of the same were unleashed and collaborated through dialogue, debate, and discussion.

Activities and Content to be delivered on the Day 1, i.e. 11th February'19 was designed in a way, so as to facilitate the ANO's, with the deeper introspection and stronger realization of their own strengths and traits as "Being an Indian Woman" which was further provoked through a session on "Self Awareness to instill Self Motivation". A session on Self Awareness was further enriched with a session where the ANO's were involved in various tasks and invoke ways to "Collaborate one's Personal Values with the Universal Ethical Values" and finally the Day 1 concluded with a session on the various ways, skills and qualities desired to "Being a NCC Brand Ambassador".

To achieve all the above mentioned within a day, the ANO's were put into various simulative situations and were made to participate in activities like "Draw your Fears", "Unleash your Potential", "Dodge the Ball", "What is Your Egg made up of", "Fill up the Bucket", "Blind Fold Walk". To further strengthen the impact of these activities, the ANO's were involved in brainstorming and open house discussion sessions and were further sensitized with various sensitive video clippings from some of the motivational movies like "Neerja", "Chak de India" and various other short stories and documentaries.

Activities and the content for Day 2, i.e. on the 12th February'19 was primarily designed in a way, so as to invoke the essential skills and ways to develop "Rapport building with the NCC Cadets", "Promote Socio-Emotional learning amongst the Cadets" and finally "Promote the role of Youth in Nation Building".  All these crucial learnings were imparted and invoked by involving various ways to enhance one's emotional intelligence.

Primarily to sensitize and to create awareness  about the various essential socio-emotional skills of "Self Awareness", "Social Awareness", "Self Management", "Responsible Decision Making" along with "Relationship Skills" the ANO's were once again made to participate in various outbound activities like, "Follow the Sequence", "The 3 Islands", "Forming the Balloon Train". 

To further enrich the experience gained from participation in all these activities, the ANO's were made to see various short clippings, from some inspirational movies like "The 3 Idiots" along with some other self-created videos to enforce the purpose of these games, activities and fun sessions.

Lastly, the ANO's formally presented their 2 days of learnings in front of the Commandant Sir, Brig. Shah and their respective training officers along with other senior officials at the NCC OTA Academy, in some of the more creative and stimulating ways in form of songs, poetry, role play and even as dance performances.

All in all, due to the wholehearted participation, involvement, and receptivity of almost all the ANO's, along with the utmost support and best of facilitation and hospitality extended by the Officials and other staff members at the NCC OTA, Gwalior, it was an enriching and enthralling experience for all of us.

Workshop on Character Building for 500+ NCC Cadets.

The first half of the workshop primarily focused upon, self motivation through self awareness along with deeper self analysis and self realization of understanding of one's own worth and areas of improvement. Along with the same, more emphasis was laid upon taking up the self responsibility and ways to control and manage one's anger and emotions, along with more rational and thoughtful approach to life.

To give a kick start to the workshop, a motivational video was played at the start to instil deeper realization of the need of hard work, patience, persistence along with resilience to be successful in life.

Thereafter the cadets were given a task where they had to depict themselves by correlating themselves with any form of nature and along with it also had to give a justification for the same. This task primarily promotes self introspection along with stronger self realization.

After the above, the cadets were told to choose their personality type from the following 5 broad categories of personalities i.e. courageous, extrovert, introvert, emotional, thoughtful. Accordingly individuals from each type of personality were made to do a task, so as to have a stronger realization of the peculiar traits of each type of personality and the related strengths along with areas of improvement.

Further the cadets were elaborated the various factors shaping one's personality along with differentiation between personality and character, where it was realized that too have an enhanced personality, one needs to have a stronger character.

Thereafter another activity was done, which involved the participation of all the cadets, to illustrate the impact of difference of receiving and perceiving information, which primarily differentiates one's attitude towards life and its situations.

Thereafter another activity was done, which involved the participation of all the cadets, to illustrate the impact of difference of receiving and perceiving information, which primarily differentiates one's attitude towards life and its situations.

The cadets were then asked to narrate a few instances where they did something jokingly but it eventually turned out to be more aggressive form of teasing or bullying. To make this concept

more revealing the senior cadets were asked not to bully the younger cadets, but rather encourage them in their little initiatives and guide them throughout.

In the second half of the workshop after the lunch, the cadets were shown different videos emphasizing upon the aspect of not being addicted to technology and gadgets but rather working on ways to control their adolescent emotions and managing anger.  The cadets were elaborated the concept of 'Prioritizing' and undertaking tasks based upon their intensity of urgency and importance.

Thereafter with the help of another video, the cadets were instilled the sensitivity towards the opposite gender and the need for both the genders to be respectful towards each other and to be all the more responsible towards the growth and progress of the opposite gender.

Lastly through different pictorial slides along with voluntary participation of the cadets to sing, dance or enact, the importance of being organized or better managed was conveyed to unleash one's own potential and harness it all the more.

Thereafter the cadets were told to be more curious in lives and try to find out an answer to all the ‘WHY's’, so as to have a more confidence and clarity in life. Lastly an open house interaction was facilitated, where the cadets expressed themselves for why this workshop was organized and why it was important for them.

Just before concluding the whole workshop a guided thinking session was facilitated, where the cadets had to listen along with instrumental music in the background, during which recapitulation of all the key concepts and prime learnings' of the workshop was done.

Lastly, the male cadets and the female cadets were separately made to take a pledge to be responsible in their words and actions as a "Caring Son/ Daughter, Loving Brother/Sister, Affectionate Friend and a Responsible Citizen of India".

A DAY SPENT WITH THE NCC CADETS.

In the recent past we have been privileged to conduct a workshop for the NCC Cadets at the NCC Headquarters in sector 31. This hald day workshop was a part of NCC camp going on at the Air Force Station in Chandigarh which had cadets from both Junior and Senior Wing.

The prime purpose of our workshop was to instil and provoke those important values much desired and really crucial for a NCC cadet to pursue his NCC trainings effectively along with assurance of retention and fulfillment of roles and responsibilities of a true cadet. 

We initiated our workshop with the involvement of the cadets in various daring activities so as to make then realize and promote within them the attributes desired to be a promising NCC cadet and practice it with all sincerity and dedication in all facets of life.

The cadets were also shown clippings from some movies like Lakshaya and Chak de India along with some other inspirational audio visuals, to encourage them for a progressive future with defence services along with more commitment and devotion towards one’s nation.

Some other exciting outdoor games and simulative exercises were done with the cadets to promote experiential learning and instil stronger sensitivity within them to be more self responsible, self disciplined and ways to behave and operate as more responsible citizen of India.

Personality Development and Life Skills(PDLS) Capsule for NCC officers

  

Personality Development and Life Skills(PDLS) Capsule for NCC Officers

 In one of our recent workshop held at the Officers Training Academy in Gwalior in which the team "The Transformers Value Creators" had facilitated a 2 days PDLS (Personality Development and Life Skills) capsule for the NCC Officers as a part of their refresher course.

This 2 days workshop included a group of 118 NCC officers in the average age group of 43 years and with an experience ranging from 10 to 25 years. Hence it was all together a very senior group of some of the most seasoned professionals.

Accordingly the PDLS workshop was planned in a way to add more value to the rich experience and technical expertise of these senior NCC Officers.

Day 1 was primarily all about self introspection along with self realization about one's potential, strengths and areas of improvement as a woman, as a NCC Officer and then being the ambassador of NCC.

Through number of interactive sessions, brainstorming, group discussions and many other simulative exercises and fun games some very crucial aspects and essential thoughts were provoked and promoted inclusive of :

• Role of women in all spheres of life.
• Sensitization on importance of Indian women and their significant contributions.
•  Sensitization on the crucial aspect of the need for the girls to be educated.
•   Involve the participants in some daring acts so as to help them reflect deeper in their lives from being a girl to growing up as a woman.

• Boost the morale of the ANO's by making them believe that can do everything and  excel in any sphere.
• Self reflections and self introspection to understand their strengths as an ANO.
• Sensitize the ANO's with their responsibilities along with mutual understanding of  other's point of view.
• Work on the ways for how to promote and instil the real essence of NCC.
• Practical ways to work in the direction of promoting NCC principles and work as per the guidelines.
• Have a deeper understanding of the essentials of being more planned, organized, proactive and well managed.

Day 2 was more about the connect between the NCC Officers and their cadets so as to facilitate them working together in harmony for the nations 'progress. 

In the same direction, through some more of experiential learning and outdoor sessions, sense of responsibility was instilled deeper amongst the NCC officers towards their cadets, respective educational institute, relevant army unit and all together towards the nation, based upon the following objectives:

• Sensitization of the gap existing in one's personality or way of dealing with people and situations due to lack of emotional intelligence.
• Why emotionally intelligent people are always preferred over others and highlight the very aspect of "conduct is more important than capability"

• Practical ways of instilling socio emotional learning amongst the ANO's and further within their cadets.
• Through different fun exercises help individuals work on the essential skills of self awareness, self management, decision making skills, relationship skills and social awareness.
• Sensitization of the need and the ways to promote the spirit of Nationalism amongst the youth and ways of working for the progress and development of the nation.

Finally the 2 days of the PDLS capsule concluded with some of the most enticing and captivating performances by the very versatile and multitalented NCC Officers in forms of poetry, songs, role plays and even dance performances to present their 2 days of learning in more creative and impressive ways. All together it was a great learning and absolutely enriching experience for all the NCC Officers and their facilitators which could be felt and realized stronger in the enthusiasm and wholehearted participation of all the very experienced and most competent Officers.

Teachers As Lifelong Learners!!!

Teachers As Lifelong Learners!!

Teaching is one of those rare professions’ that keeps one’s brain young, allows continuing one’s own journey as a student and a lifelong learner. 

Teaching is a job that encourages one’s own growth because to do it well requires one’s own continuous enhancement. Teaching provides that environment where one encounters people of different ethnicity and religions with different philosophies, learning styles and backgrounds which in turn helps one to grow as a person.

 Being a teacher allows learning something new; immerse oneself in a distinct universe with each project and so much more as-

-Each school year brings new people into one’s life.

-Each unit and lesson brings new perspectives.

-Each failure, when looked at formatively, can help solve new problems.
-Each success, when used reflectively, can be even greater, the next time.

The eight features which impact the effectiveness of teacher learning:

Life and career experience

Teachers are influenced by what goes on in their lives, both on a daily basis and over time. Their priorities and lives are therefore important. Each teacher also experiences their own individual career pattern that influences their desire and readiness to engage in improvement activities.

Beliefs

Individuals’ perceptions and actions about changing and developing their teaching are highly influenced by what they believe, as well as by their knowledge. 

Emotional well-being

Daniel Goleman (1996) has argued that emotional intelligence influences students’ self-concepts and motivation. But teaching is also full of emotions. A school’s readiness for change is influenced by teachers’ psychological state. As valuing individuals as people and valuing their contributions enhances teachers’ self-esteem and builds trust.

Knowledge

Another influence is the detailed and deep knowledge a teacher has on general pedagogy( style of teaching)  and pedagogical content, as well as their subject discipline(s). This incorporates knowledge about each students’ strengths, weaknesses, home background, cultural experiences, and learning styles. It also includes teachers’ understanding of how their “deep knowledge” interacts with the classroom context; and a self-awareness, that enables them to be conscious of their own thoughts, feelings, intentions and behaviours, and of other’s values.

Skills

As Bob Garmston and Bruce Wellman (1998) note, “Like the queen on a chessboard, the teacher with the most moves has the most options and the greatest degree of influence.” Individual teachers are influenced by the extent of their repertoire of teaching strategies and their ability to experiment with their own practice, by working through a learning cycle of: activity, reflection and evaluation, extracting meaning from a review and planning how to use the learning in future. In particular, when teachers plan for students’ learning, their “bag of tricks” includes tasks and processes to promote active learning, collaborative learning, learner responsibility and learning about learning, and skills related to handling relationships.

Motivation to learn

Motivation is the starting point for learning. For a busy and often overworked teacher to devote effort to change and new learning, there has to be a good reason for the change: some sort of catalyst or urgency – a sense that “what I’m doing doesn’t seem to be working”. Also, faced with a new teaching strategy, the teacher needs to know it is practical and useful - “relevant to me in my classroom with the students”.

Confidence that (s)he can make a real difference

Confident teachers believe that what they do and can makes a significant difference to their students’ progress and development at school and lives beyond school.

Sense of interdependence

Teaching has been described as the second most private activity, and yet the majority of humans are social animals with a need for connections, relationships, and social support. While many teachers may express individuality and choose, at times, to work and learn alone, some also see the potential within groups, and know they are their work benefit from collaboration.