At the heart of the 22 even years of my teaching career, the most rewarding experience has been building strong relationships and catalysing communication with the staff, students and the families I have served. Reminiscing on the journey of IVWS for more than a decade now, it gives me immense joy and pride to be associated with this institution, right from its inception. I feel delighted to be a part of the IVWS family and uphold the tradition of involvement and collaboration with all its stakeholders, sharing joy and happiness as much as challenges and crises. We at IVWS believe that a school’s formative influence extends beyond the formal education that it is known to provide. To make the best use of the promise evident in our students, it is imperative that we train them to aim for academic excellence as well as cultivate their practical wisdom to function as well-rounded personalities. Life skills awareness and value-oriented learning along with a plethora of co-curricular activities providing opportunities for self – expression are integrated into the curriculum to prevent the pursuit of knowledge being relegated to a mere gathering of information. Aligned to our mission in nurturing the whole child, is our endeavour to instil qualities of empathy and resilience in our students and caring for their social and emotional well-being. Most of all, we see education as a way of life and living. We strive to create opportunities so that every student leaves school well – equipped to achieve individual goals and with a sense of commitment, social responsibility and an undeterred drive for exploration.

ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES

Times are changing now and I see a rainbow blending now…things are changing now’ as we take a leap into the future. From the world of the chalk and blackboard we are now looking at revealing a world to our students where the horizon is limitless.

As a teacher in love with History, I have tried to bring my passion for the subject into every class I have taken in the last 25 years. I cannot claim that it has been a joyride always, more of a roller coaster one. However one thing has remained constant over these years, it is the zeal to soldier on against all odds that the system has thrown up. Whenever challenges have come my way I have taken it head on, as I believe to be a successful teacher one needs to be a lifelong learner.

From my childhood I have been guided by a tremendous zeal and love for the Arts- liberal, literary, performing and the entire gamut put together. I feel strongly that the minds of children should be opened to the endless possibilities of learning. As an educator I need to present a plethora of experiences to students. This in turn will provide adequate opportunities to students to explore their creativity.

Beginning there, as a child steps into the formal system of education, learning should happen from everything that surrounds a young mind. Let us not limit or stunt the growth of young children and imprison them in the pages of subject oriented textbooks. This is where my belief is strongly rooted in helping students, parents and teachers understand the importance of the Arts. A perfect marriage of this can lead to the all round development of children as they explore avenues of learning by looking at a multi disciplinary approach; by establishing connections between their academic subjects and music, dance, mime, theatre, photography and cinema. How better can a child understand geometry than looking at the town planning of the sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation? Wouldn’t it be magical if they made clay seals in their pottery classes to understand more about these unique items? An Odissi dance performance can come alive if we can link it to a study of the magnificent friezes on the bodies of the Odissa temples.

This attempt at integration of the Arts into the mainstream is my passion. Students do not come to school to only study. As our goal is the all round development of students where we cannot undermine or diminish the all importance of Co-curricular Activities. The kind of learning that happens from participating in different programmes could never be measured against anything else. Skill sets that are picked up by students in such endeavours remain with them forever. The ability to share, accommodate, listen, participate and learn from others is things that help students to grow. A child might struggle with Science but he maybe a talented pianist, a child might find it difficult to memorize pages but her forte might be dance.

As an educator I feel it is my mission to help every child explore the tremendous opportunities that a love for the Arts can put forward. My greatest reward would be to come across a student who would be a leading scientist in a world famous laboratory yet would be an avid photographer! Such permutations and combinations are endless and I really wish to discover as many as I can in the years to come.