Guru.....Cool in Jayanagar

A Gurukul is a type of ancient Hindu school in India with the Kul (domain) sitting around Guru in a vacant place. It also the place where students stay together as equals, irrespective of their social standing. TREND SETTERS too had a more or less similar experience on Saturday (Jan 27). The venue was not an ashram instead a temple-Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Temple.

It all began with a visit to Adarsha Middle school, one of the oldest schools in Jayanagar, established in 1958. As the school premises were too narrow, we requested the headmaster Mr Manohar to provide us a wide space and he took us to the temple. Though the sixth and seventh standard students were sitting under the sun, they were still pretty cool.

The class began with an usual introduction and inspirational speech. The India-Pakistan turned into an Asia cup with addition of Sri Lanka which meant that a student had to jump every time the island nation was called. Then, the newspaper game followed by a skit. Undoubtedly, the student's performance was splendid which attracted the onlookers and temple devotees. This time, we introduced a map game where students had to identify the places.

The guest of the day was Ms Renuka Sharma, a web developer in IT Contractors. She patiently counted each team's score besides analysing the performance. Thanks Ms Sharma.

We were taken aback for a moment when Mr Manohar informed us that most of the school children were slum dwellers. Interestingly, a majority of the girls worked as domestic help before attending school while their male counterparts distributed newspapers.

RESPONSES

•  
• I wanna play Cricket, Kho-Kho and Volleyball-M N Shivashankar Gupta
• India-Pakistan-Sri Lanka game boosted our listening skills-Ayesha
• Teach life skills- P Balaji
• I want to tell a story-Shashikala
• We want quiz programme- V Akshay
• The class should be on weekly basis-P L Nagarjuna
• Get us some info on Science-N Mahadeva
• Next time, add dance and English speaking & writing-Syed
• You did not eat food, I am very upset-Revanna.

INVITATION TO KALAM

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam always has an advice to students-DREAM BIG. TREND SETTERS' Murali too has a dream and it is to invite Kalam to our collaborative learning class. Interestingly, Murali has set a time frame which is two years from now. REASON Kalam would have been relieved of his post and free to join us. 

Good luck Murali

Is learning boring or exciting.

Undoubtedly, it's boring for a majority of them like me. This was the hot issue of debate at the Sunrise English School, Nelamangala which was the forum for TREND SETTERS on Jan 20th. The class originally scheduled for ninth standard had to accomodate eighth standard students were equally eager to join.

The class began with an usual introduction, inspiration speech and a newspaper game. However, the highlight was Prasanna's set diagram which proved that a strong will power was necessary to achieve the goal. This time, we decided to give different topics for the skit. So, the six teams got topics like illiteracy, dowry, bribery, bus stand, conservation of water and cleanliness. The teams did a splendid performance on the dais. For the first time, the other groups were given an opportunity to comment.

The best comment was " The actor in the bribery skit was limping initially but was walking straight subsequently ". To this, the accused actor defended " I was limping in the right leg which was facing you. However, while returning, you could spot only my left leg, hence your are mistaken ".

Srikanth sung the Kannada remake of ' Hum Honge Kamyaab ' to pep up the students. We were open to questions this time and the first question was: Why did you teach all these group activities to us? Prasanna shot back saying everyone has to undergo three phases-dependent, independent and inter-dependent. Team work is crucial in the third phase.

This time the class extended upto 180 minutes with students throroughly enjoying the class. At the end, there was unanimity on one aspect that learning can definitely be exciting provided you enjoy.

RESPONSES

DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S KUMBAKARNA PHILOSOPHY?

You did not provide adequate time for Team 1-Chandan Murthy P N

We got a lot of leg pain-UNKNOWN

Till now, I only believed in myself, but now on, I will mingle and encourage others-Ayesha

Introduce games like quiz and debate etc to enhance knowledge-Abhijit

Hats-off to your team-Sushma

How can we concentrate on our regular studies ? Sushma S

Initially, it was boring but got excited as it progressed-Meghana G Reddy

Working under pressure means becoming more active-Veena

You were friendly with us rather than being strict-Chandana V

Only one man cannot make a nation great-UNKNOWN

Till now, I did not come such a concept-UNKNOWN

I thank you for spending couple of hours with us-M S Kaushik

The skit threw light on division of labour-Pavithra Yadav/ Pammi

I have a suggestion-classes should be only on Sundays while we can take rest from Monday to Saturday-Nasma

India-Pakistan game was wonderful-Rashmi Rekha

Nothing is impossible here-Ramya Shree

The class provided us an opportunity to expose our hidden talents-Shruti H

I learnt about the importance of group work-Madhuri K

This morning, I was wondering how to pass the time anyhow I thank you for providing entertainment-Chethana N

KIDS INSPIRE SRIKANTH

Learning is not only a continuous process but also dual in nature. During each class, a teacher gains as much knowledge as she spends in teaching. Oflate, Srikanth, the ' busy ' techie has turned to be a teacher.

On one fine day, Srikanth's boss asked him to take up an assignment in Israel. The visibly happy techie was already making plans to stay afloat on the Dead Sea. Bang came the tag from his boss, "hey, this is a multi-million project from the Jewish State. You will be responsible for either bagging or losing the project " This sent shivers down the spines and Srikanth began to have a rethink. However, the song which Kolar kids sung in chorus " Hum Honge Kamyaab " made him firm to accept. Meanwhile, the office gossip cofirmed that the project was cancelled due to technical reasons.

Any how, great work kids !

Hi guys,

Congrats to everyone for a successful programme. Anyhow, I spoke to Mr Shashi Kumar today in the evening. He told me that even he has asked for a feedback from students which is expected in a day or two. I have informed him to get us that feedback along with the photographs and video possibly.

So, our schedule for the next two week has been fixed. 

Jan 13-Kolar

Jan 20-Bidadi

Meanwhile, I just want to put up the scores of the teams' performance in Blossom's school.

TEAM 4=2.5

TEAM 3=2.95

TEAM 1 and 5=3.8

Hi TrendSetters,

Excellent Team work coupled with a great desire and persistence is all it takes to achieve the goals.

YES! Today we all should be proud to be a part of this wonderfull team which achieved its initial milestone success at Blossoms School as planned. The good part about this is we all were punctual and met our initial goal of delivering our workshop - Collaborative Learning, as commited.

Great Job Done guys!!

It all started with sridhar giving a ring to all of us on friday night to have a meet and organise things for the next day, Prasanna and srikanth met at srikanth's house and discussed few points on the flow of the workshop. Later Sridhar joined and refined the topics. Kudos to srikanth and sridhar on working late night for the prepared speech.

We all - Sridhar, Srikanth, Prasanna and Lakshmeesha all met at around 10AM next day and had a quick skimm through of the topics and finally decided the workflow.

We all were cordially invited by the Sir SashiKumar, Prinicpal of Blossoms School and mad us the way to students.

Believe it there were over 100 students ( 8th and 9th students) and all were eagerly waiting for the workshop.

Sridhar gave an introduction to our team and stated the objective of our team over there.

Srikanth took over with his speech and attracted all the students with his great speaking skills

This was followed by the Team Formation, we made 5 teams of 25 students each.

The discussion topic - 'Cleanliness' was given to all 100 students to discuss and come up with as many points as they can with a good articulation through some kind of skit.

It was just amazing to see how spontaneously students came on stage and gave the demonstration.

Later it was followed by the feedback from prasanna, lakshmeesha and sridhar and finally the results was announced.

It was then followed by collecting the feedback from students and it was interesting to see the way the students have recieved our workshop.

Finally it was followed by a speech by one of the very respected teacher followed by the felicitaion for sridhar, srikanth, prasanna and lakshmeesha. Good part was the momentos was handed over by students directly and the function was ended with a very unexplainable pleasure for trendsetters.

Later We all met in sridhar's house and we introspected what all things were appreciable and things that has scope for improvement.

Strengths:

• Self Motivated to take up any task within our reach
• Understand students more that teachers and Gave candid feedback that has direct self improvement on students
• Puntual on time
• Organised topics
• Excellent Team work

Scope for improvement:

• Formal Feedback form - Prasanna decided to come up with a feedback form that would help quick circulation and reception from students.
• Specific Soft skill improvement - Next time we can aim at Speakings skills improvment
• Different people take different role - we need to reshuffle the role each one is taking to make sure we all are flexible enough.
• Take Chocolates to encourage students.

Guys Great job done for now. Keep up the spirt and let us plan to celebrate our initial success sometime.Sridhar recommended to go for KOLAR school next saturday we need to get commitment from all of us on this and then we can plan for the topics and refine our skills.

Oveall Today 6th Jan 2006 was a memorable day for our trendsetters.

Have a wonderfull Weekend filled with joy!!!

-prasanna

"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything"

Hi TrendSetters,

Great start for a wonderful chill evening..... Guess what.... Nice churmuri hand prepared by our Muralieee :-)

Made us feel hot to discuss hot topics below ;-)

Agenda of the meeting was simple. Prepare a one day curriculum about 4-5 hours for the kolar school.

Date not yet decided. Should be finalized in couple of days.

Meeting started in the evening as most of us were not free in the morning. Myself, Murali, Sridhar, Prasanna started our discussion around 5.30 PM and later Hari (Srinivasan) ( a new joinee to TrendSetters !!!! ) from SES joined us.

Infact, had a wireless talk with Shashi. He suggested if we can think of any Sanskrit name equivalent to TrendSetters which would have some masala to our Vision to change activity ;-)

Reached Prashant but he was in office :-( Hard worker !!!!

Invisible Lakshmi..... Dont worry, wont steel lakshmi from u ;-)

Jagdish, I think Sridhar tried to reach u but were on top, Himalaya (Jaga Disha).. ;-)

Below points summarizes the activities.

1. Initially we will kick off our curriculum with a group activity, which would be an icebreaker to the students. We will form a group of 5-6 children. The icebreaker is yet to be decided.

2. Small story from one of us before the icebreaker. This is to see how good they have listened to our story.

3. Small story is followed by an icebreaker could either be a small presentation or skit or any such contribution from each of the group.

4. Now when once they are comfortable after the icebreaker, we would ask those teams to come up with the skit which relates to the story we initially described. Idea.... Is to observe their listening skills, and the way they communicate. Story is yet to be decided. It should contain 5-6 key points and we have to see how the children depicts these points.

5. We need to describe the importance of listening after this and how important it is for their individual development.

6. Following this would be a simple 5 minutes game for them to relax, probably a coffee break to us !!! We have couple of games in mind, and let us discuss during next week meeting. Please do come up with some games if u have in mind.

7. This would be followed by a skit by us, where in we come up with the importance of oral communication. As Prasanna described, we can initially come up with a bad way of communication and then shows how the same can be made good. The concept is yet to be decided. Please do come up with the same by next week.

8. Time Management Skills - Story is ready, will be presented by us and letz listen from the group what they understand about the story and how it relates to Time management. We need to make the students understand how it really improves them if they manage their time properly.

9. If time persists, we can give a small topic like Making Area Garbage Free, Bus Stand Scenario etc and ask each team to present a skit or a general presentation of how to improve the same. Key learning... What all we taught above, their oral communication, Time management, collaborative learning where each student listens to the other and improve their listening skills.

10. A loo break after couple of good learnings..

11. Exam Taking Skills -- Lot of techniques are available on net, but it is very difficult to make students understand it. We need to see how best we can convey our message to the group. Please browse the net and come up with some different way of making students feel how to improve their exam taking skills.

12. End with a nice game... ;-)

13. A small intro about us and motivational message from all of us.

Yeah, requires some polishing for sure (Cherry polish on this !!!!). But me confident that it would be a successs... !!!

Srikanth

The best way to be happy is to keep others happy

Hi trendsetters,

I just read srikanth's minutes on 17thDec, to be frank it was terrific, Anyone reading that would definitely get energised to get involved in the activity we are doing.
Let me quickly brief about the minutes on previous week i,e 10th Dec.

The discussion started at around 11 AM with myself, lakshmeesha, sridhar, srikanth and prashanth.
To say the least everyone was on their toes with bunch of ideas, so we did a brain storming session on how we can take the ideas forward.
We all agreed to come up with a 8 week workshop curriculum which could be implemented in high school, preferably 10th std.
As sridhar recommended Blossom's school, Lakshmeesha gave the idea of talking to his uncle on how we can contribute.
and Prasanna took up the creation of blog.
Following were the items discussed to build up on our curriculum
Prasanna-

1. Quality Improvement
2. Communication Skills
3. Stage Fear
4. Lakshmeesha-
5. Personality Development
6. Positive Attitude
7. Mental Block - Gender Diff removal
8. Encouragement through gifts
9. Listening Skills
10. Out of Box Thinking
11. Prashanth-
12. Team Building.
13. Icebreaking Techniques
14. Creative Ideas
15. Innovative learning.

When it came to the group name following were the names thought of
v7, trendsetters,B-Catalyst.

Finally TrendSetters was choosen by popular choice.

We all understand this is a challenge we need to take it forward.

As we have only 2 weekends left to start our workshop, I would suggest everyone to elaborate the points given by each one of us and come up with an implementable strategy.
We will meet again at 11 AM Sunday and finalise on the topics

Wish you all a great time.
Thanks for your time. Lets us plan something for partying out as well :)
-prasanna