With respect to Ray Parker Jr
If there’s somethin’ strange in your LiS class
Who ya gonna call
Dr. Nandita
If it’s somethin’ woerd an’ it don’t look good
Who ya gonna call
Dr. Nandita
If it need some sense and it is so real
Who ya gonna call
Dr. Nandita
and so we did.
At LiS meetings, ideas and positive ways to work in large ( read 45 – 48 children) strong classrooms was a repeated concern and we need help.
As always it is the rich resource of our community life that sustains and strengthens us and I called on my dear friend and positive parenting guru – Nandu or Dr. Nandita and she heard our class.
A terrific, fun filled interactive session with the LiS team meant that we were all thinking actively about
Nandu whose knowledge and experience is rooted and non pretentious, nurtured our LiS team to thinking about our own pre conceptions and attitudes toward behaviour and attention problems in the classroom and the ways we ‘manage’ behaviours.
We learnt so much but in a wonderful participatory way. She grouped us by colour, set us tasks in magical black envelopes, provided us with note-lets and exciting thinking prompts and kept us engaged for the entire duration of our workshop.
What some of us learnt and articulated at the end of the workshop session was that
1. We will use descriptive praise in our classrooms.
2. We will recognise pro social behaviour
3. We will ask children how they might restitute actions
4. We will stay calm in the face of potential crises
5. We will remain positive and energised, knowing that there is hope
6. We will make eye contact with our students learn their names and recognise them
7. We will reflect on the quality of our interactions at the end of a class
8. We will remember that we are human
We learnt many wonderful strategies to energise, to reinforce , to validate and to enable and as we prepare for Term 2 of LiS we feel strengthened, but most of all we feel loved and recognised. That will sustain us.
Nandita
Bookworm Team – I came to ‘do a workshop’ and I left energized, humbled and elevated by the sincerity, passion and the sense of purpose that you exude. It was a huge leap on my learning curve and heartwarming to be reminded, once again, that Bookworm and Sethu share so much. What a whale of a time, I had! AND a wail of a time too, since you move me in such cell-stirring ways that cannot be articulated except through tears of gratitude.
This blog was delightful to read -there is no end to the innumerable ways you impress and inspire me, with your timeliness, eloquence and creativity. I will go through many days with a skip in my step, an inflated ego and a certain sweet song on my lips…..