Prof Shankar Sahay: Vanishing social skills in Education

Last week an incident reminded me of a quote by Einstein

"I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots."
As I was waiting for my train to arrive, I couldn't help observing a couple along with their 2-year old kid in the waiting room. The only communication which took place between the trio was the stern threat of the mother to the kid "if you will not behave properly, I will take away the game from you." All three were glued to their respective screens- parents to the cell phones and the kid to the video game. Every now and then, when the kid would try to speak to the parents, his mother's warning would be repeated aloud.
The incident forced me to share the thought and wonder how true Einstein's words has come out to be. Just ponder, what would be the level of social skills of this child when he grows up in this environment.

Blogger 
Shankar Sahay - Professor 
IILM UNIVERSITY, GURUGRAM 
shankarsahay7@gmail.com

LFIN Academy Professional Learning Program

LEARNING FORWARD INDIA ACADEMY 
NOW OPEN
FOR THE 
2019 COHORT

Learning Forward Academy Solve your biggest challenges. Transform yourself and your organization. Get results for ALL students.

The Learning Forward India Academy is Learning Forward India's flagship deep-learning experience. With a rich history that spans 5 years, the Academy has supported the problem-based learning of teachers, teacher-leaders, instructional coaches, principals, regional leaders, superintendents, and others whose jobs support the learning of other adults and students. Are you ready to: Construct knowledge and develop strategies to overcome challenges and improve educator practice? Become the professional learning subject-matter expert for your organization? Implement professional learning in your environment that ultimately increases student achievement? Engage fully during learning sessions and do the job-embedded homework? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, Learning Forward India Academy is right for you. Send an email to lf@ebd.in with your experience and contact information. Find out more

Pedagogy Consultant - Job Description

Image: Courtesy https://www.123rf.com

Are you…

§  Passionate about education, particularly school education?

§  Looking to be to part of large scale social transformation in schools?

If yes, we may just have the right opportunity for you…

What are we looking for?  

-          You should be graduate/postgraduate  with at least 5 + years of work experience working in the bottom of the pyramid school settings including at least 1 year of teaching or mentoring experience

-          You are well versed with pedagogies and techniques including but not limited to BaLA, Activity Based Learning, Project-based Learning, Learning by Doing, and experiential learning among others 

-          You are willing to work anywhere in India

-          Having additional specialisation, training or experience of working in large K-12 focussed organisation like Teach for India, Tata Trusts, Teach for India would be an added plus

Remuneration will not be a bar for the right candidate.

Do drop in your CV at lf@ebd.in and we shall get back to you should we find your candidature suitable.

New online course: Effective Coaching to Strengthen Instruction

Learning Forward Special Invitation

New online course: Effective Coaching to Strengthen Instruction Learn the fundamentals of instructional coaching to increase the quality of classroom practice to improve academic success. Learning Forward is pleased to announce that we have launched a new online course in collaboration with Public Consulting Group: Effective Coaching to Strengthen Instruction by Joellen Killion. Develop the essential skills of building relationships, communication, and observation. With these skills as your foundation, learn a coaching cycle for planning, implementation, and debriefing in the context of three different instructional supports—modeling/demonstration, co-teaching/collaboration, and observation. Upon course completion, participants will be able to: Use communication skills to work effectively with others within a coaching relationship; Determine which type of classroom support to implement, depending on the circumstances; Observe, take notes, and debrief a lesson to implement the coaching cycle with teachers; Assess the effectiveness and impact of their own coaching to support the continuous improvement of the coaching program; and Identify actions coaches can take to foster a coaching culture within the school to strengthen teacher performance and student achievement. This course includes a coach to provide personalized feedback, videos of authentic classroom practice, and flexibility to engage with the content on your schedule. Learn more...

Cooperation #22Values

Cooperation is when two or more people work together. For cooperation, everyone has to be an active member of the team and do what they agree to do. It states that to work together towards the same end. 

Cooperation is an important value. It means to respect everyone's talent and work together as a team and showing teamwork as a class or a group to get things done. It is the most important value because it teaches us to work as a team and also to listen which will improve our learning. 

We should listen to each other without interrupting. We should encourage everyone to join and work in a group. People should take responsibility for their task. A task which looks impossible for an individual can be achieved by working together as a team. If we work together in a team we can achieve much more than we could achieve individually.

People should be helpful to each other. They should accept the point of view of others if it is mutually beneficial. Cooperation exists at many levels and takes place between children, individual and an organization as well as between states and countries. People should cooperate with each other by discussing their problems calmly and showing respect for each other. Like in school, cooperation takes place between students and teachers. They may work together to add some more special roles about how they will work together so that everyone in the classroom gets a way to their work.

Educators - Manisha Deora,  Usha Panwar,  Abhay Raj Singh and  Chetna Bhati
The Fabindia School, Bali

Jaffar Khan: भरोसा (TRUST) & सादगी (SIMPLICITY)

 भरोसा  (TRUST)

विश्वास क्या है और यह क्यों महत्वपूर्ण है?                
वंचित लोगों से निपटने के दौरान भरोसा और सम्मान का मौलिक महत्व भी हैं। वे कमजोर और अकसर खो जाते हैं और अकेले होते हैं। उनकी गरिमा के लिए यह महत्वपूर्ण है कि जब आप उन्हें मदद कर रहे हों, तो वे आपको किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति के रूप में देख सकते हैं जिस पर वे निर्भर हो सकते हैं।

रिश्ते में विश्वास क्यों महत्वपूर्ण है?
 भरोसा  एक स्वस्थ रिश्ते का एक महत्वपूर्ण हिस्सा है, लेकिन यह कई अलग-अलग कारणों से कई लोगों के साथ अलग-अलग तरीकों से संघर्ष करता है।  किसी पर भरोसा करना मतलब है कि आपको लगता है कि वे भरोसेमंद हैं, आपको उन पर भरोसा है और आप शारीरिक और भावनात्मक रूप से उनके साथ सुरक्षित महसूस करते हैं।

सादगी (SIMPLICITY)

मेरे जीवन में सादगी का महत्व
आमतौर पर यह कहा जाता है कि 'सादगी' एक गुण है, हम में से कई यह भी मानते हैं कि यह एक सुंदर चीज़ है। लोगों को महात्मा गांधी की सादगी पसंद थी, जिस तरह से उन्होंने कपड़े पहने थे, जिस तरह से वह रहते थे और जिस तरह से उन्होंने खुद को प्रस्तुत किया था। उन्हें वास्तविक जीवन में सादगी के प्रतीकों में से एक माना जाता है। मैं सादगी पसंद करता हूँ लेकिन मैं इसे दिखाने के लिए इसे नहीं करता हूँ लेकिन मुझे वास्तव में  यह जीवन के तरीके के रूप में पसंद है।  सादगी की अधिक सराहना की जाती है यदि यह जीवन का तरीका बन जाए।

Jaffar Khan, The Fabindia School, Email: Zkn4fab@gmail.com

Level 1 Educators: Responsibility

Responsibility is the opportunity or ability to act independently and to take a decision without authorization. 

We all have different jobs to do in school and we are responsible for our own actions. Our behaviour is our responsibility. We can learn from our teachers and parents, but the decision we make should be of our choice. 

First we ourselves should take responsibility because if we do not have the will to change our situation nobody or nothing in the world will do it for you. As a teacher, my responsibility is to teach the children in the best way and work as a team with school staff. We can do much more if we want to. We can take new responsibilities like a new project for the betterment of the school. We can give new projects to the children so that they can learn new things and take responsibility for completing that project. It will help them to develop their self-confidence and motivate them to take responsibilities in future also. 

We all have responsibility to make our world a better place. This can be achieved only by working in a team. If a child takes care of his things and completes his work on time, these little acts show he is responsible towards his work. The teacher should give them little tasks to make them responsible and to feel confident.

Educators: Urmila Rathore, Yagyapal Singh, Kusum Dangi, Sandeep Singh and Nikita Rajpurohit
The Fabindia School, LFIN PLP Level 1 Cohort

Sandeep Dutt: Approach Your Coach

A school coach—sometimes called a school-improvement coach—is typically an individual hired to advise a school on how to improve its academic program, instructional effectiveness, and student performance. While a school coach acts much like a consultant, the use of the term “coach” is usually intentional—i.e., it’s meant to distinguish the school coach’s role from those of other professional educational consultants.

While the specific role and responsibilities of school coaches may vary widely from school to school, there is some degree on consensus on what a school coach is, and is not, within the education community. For example, school coaches are usually mission-driven or expertise driven, as opposed to project driven, in the sense that they bring a particular educational perspective, belief system, instructional expertise, or advocacy role to their job.

School coaches are often hired specifically for this reason: they are committed to helping schools achieve a specific goal, such as increasing educational equity (an ethical or social-justice goal) or expanding and improving the use of new learning technologies in the classroom (an instructional or programmatic goal). #HappyTeachers

Approach your Coach, email Sandeep Dutt lf@ebd.in

RP Devgan: Just Food For Thought

In my experience, communities and societies, free from hierarchy and ambition are in some ways akin to the philosophy of the Happy Teachers and My Good School. The source of happiness is often being happy with what is around you and learning to accept it. In Javanese culture, ambition was looked down. People put their egos in the dustbin and lead a very modest and happy life, living for each other.

An educator’s life too should be in the service of students. Educators who are modest, humble and student centred are the ones who are happy and spread happiness and make a difference.

From my own experience, this is how I started and am still as devoted to the students fifty years later.

It is very important for educators to just do their job and not look for rewards. With sincerity and dedication, things happen. Competence is appreciated and educators make a difference to the students’ life.

I have often seen problems arise when educators become ambitious and eye senior posts and look forward to becoming HODs etc. For a happy school and happy teachers, selflessness is important. Educators have to disassociate themselves from ambition and just do the job at hand, which is to inspire, motivate and inculcate the right values.

Just like in the army, every soldier cannot become a general, similarly, in a school, everyone cannot become a principal. And yet, everyone connected to the school and the students has a very important role to play. It’s not what you are but what you do with your time. Emulate the good around you but do not be jealous of people around you.

To make a difference to a student’s life the educator has to be a happy role model.

The educator must realise the enormity of their job and how important it is, and how blessed they are that they have been entrusted with a job of guiding young lives and making a difference to the community and society at large.

It is a fact that societies like the ones in Java and Bali are happier because there is no hierarchy and they believe in living in harmony and helping each other and take great care of nature around them. In many ways, it explains the philosophy of Happy Teachers and My Good School.

Those of us who have chosen this profession are the blessed ones. We must, as educators be humble, modest and spend our lives in the service of the wonderful children.  

- Rajinder Pal Devgan, Chairman Learning Forward India, rpdevgan@gmail.com
#HappyTeachers #MyGoodSchool #LearningForwardIndia

Call for Proposals, Learning Forward Annual Conference 2019

Gateway To Success: Our Learning. Their Future.

How are you creating and sustaining equity and excellence in teaching and learning every day? Share your expertise with educators from around the world. Submit a proposal to present at Learning Forward’s 2019 Annual Conference in St. Louis, December 7-11, 2019.

Our Annual Conference offers education leaders and policymakers the connections, tools, learning opportunities, and strategies they need to understand and implement effective professional learning in their classrooms, schools, and districts.

Submit your proposal to present a concurrent session and join your colleagues in exploring best practices in professional learning. The proposal deadline is February 4, 2019. Click here to submit your proposal.

The theme for the 2019 Learning Forward Annual Conference, Gateway To Success: Our Learning. Their Future. invites education leaders and policymakers to share expertise focused on creating and sustaining equity and excellence in teaching and learning every day. The conference program offers opportunities to make connections, share and learn about tools and strategies to understand and implement effective professional learning in classrooms, schools, and districts. The Standards for Professional Learning come to life through sessions that highlight successes and challenges.

The 2019 conference will begin with pre-conference sessions on Saturday and Sunday, December 7-8. A Welcome Reception and Affiliate Networking will be held on Sunday, December 8 after Academy Graduation. Content Monday through Wednesday will include 2- and 3-hour concurrent sessions, as well as a general session, networking lunch or brunch and a keynote address each day. Other session types include thought leader lectures and panels, roundtables (45 min), and networking sessions. Monday will once again feature all-day (5-hour) deep engagement sessions.

If you are interested in submitting a concurrent session proposal, please complete the online form at lfp.learningforward.org by February 4, 2019. We will notify you with additional details in early April.

This document  includes the guiding questions for the conference focus areas:

1. Advocacy Efforts/Policy Development
2. Developing and Supporting Leaders
3. Equity
4. Instructional Materials and Curriculum
5. International Perspectives and Emerging Issues
6. Leading Learning Systems
7. Learning Communities and Continuous Improvement
8. Learning Designs and Implementation
9. Leveraging Coaches and Mentors
10. Social & Emotional Learning and Health
11. Using Data and Measure Impact

If you have questions, please reach out to Zach Sherburn, zach.sherburn@learningforward.org or call 972-421-0900.

We look forward to hearing from you and continuing our shared mission together.

#LearnFwd19

Kalpana Jain: हम कौन थे क्या हो गए और क्या होंगे अभी

आपने बचपन में कागज़ के हवाईजहाज़ जरूर बनाए होंगे और उन्हें उड़ाया भी होगा। विद्यालय में भी कुछ शरारती बच्चे कक्षा में कागज़ के हवाईजहाज़ बनाकर उड़ाते हैं। वही शरारती बच्चे अब बड़े हो गए हैं और अब वे संविधान के मंदिर में हवाईजहाज़ उड़ाते हैं। चोर-चोर मौसेरे भाई एक-दूसरे को चोर ठहराते हैं। उनके पास कई बॉटल हैं और उनमें बंद कई जिन्न!! जिन्हें मौकापरस्त लोग अपना मतलब निकालने के लिए बाहर निकालते हैं। कुछ साल पहले बोफ़ोर्स का जिन्न निकला था और कई लोगों को ले डूबा था। आज-कल राफेल का जिन्न हल्ला मचा रहा है। जो कुछ राज्यों की सरकारों को ले डूबा है। ऐसा लगता है!! कुछ लोगों को ऐसा भ्रम है!

आपने एक गड़रिये की कहानी सुनी है? जिसमें वह रोज अपनी भेड़ों को चराने जंगल जाता था और वहाँ पर शेर आया.........शेर आया- चिल्लाता था। गाँववाले भागकर उसकी मदद करने आते। उन्हें देखकर वह जोर-जोर से हँसता और कहता अच्छा बुद्धू बनाया। एक रोज सचमुच शेर आ गया। वह अपनी जान बचाने के लिए जोर-जोर से चिल्लाया पर कोई भी मदद के लिए नहीं आया। आजकल एक पप्पू रोज राफेल-राफेल चिल्ला रहा है। कुछ भोले-भाले लोग बार-बार दौड़कर उसकी मदद को आ रहे हैं। 

विरोधी पक्ष भी पीछे नहीं है। कभी वह विदेशी मामा को खोज लाते हैं, तो कभी अन्य गड़े मुर्दे उखाड़ने लगते हैं। असल बात तो यह है कि सभी एक ही थैली के चट्टे-बट्टे हैं। अवसरवादिता इन सब पर इस कदर हावी है कि घात लगते ही नीचा दिखाने का एक भी मौका नहीं छोड़ते। इनकी तह में जाओ तो सब एक ही डोरी में गुंथे हुए हैं। जिनका एक ही उद्देश्य है, जैसे भी हो अपने छोटे-छोटे व्यक्तिगत हितों के लिए दूसरों के भविष्य को दाँव पर लगा दो। इनके सफेद कपड़ों के अंदर जमाने भर की कालिख छिपी हुई है। सबसे बड़े दुख की बात तो यह है कि ये सारा घालमेल देश के रक्षा सौदों में सालों से हो रहा है। देश के सर्वोच्च पदों पर आसीन व्यक्तियों के लिए अमर्यादित, अभद्र भाषा का प्रयोग, संविधान के मंदिर में रोज हंगामा खड़ा करना इनकी आदत हो गई है। 

कभी आपने सोचा है...किन लोगों के हाथ में हमने अपना भविष्य सौंप दिया है? हम सब इनके हाथ की कठपुतली बन गए हैं, जिन्हें वोट की ताल पर नचाया जा रहा है। अंधभक्तों की फ़ौज इनके पीछे है, जो इनके एक इशारे पर मर-मिटने और मरने-मारने को तैयार है। ज़रा सोचिए...किस खतरनाक मोड़ पर ले आये हैं हम, अपने साथ अपने देश को?

आज जब मैं यह लिख रहीं हूँ तो मुझे राष्ट्रकवि मैथलीशरण गुप्त बहुत याद आ रहे हैं। शायद वे भविष्यदृष्टा रहे होंगे तभी तो कई साल पहले कह गए– "हम कौन थे क्या हो गए और क्या होंगे अभी। आओ विचारें आज मिलकर ये समस्याएँ सभी।"

-कल्पना जैन, The Iconic School, Bhopal

St Louis 2019: My Good School

Learning Forward India is getting set to submit the Proposal for presenting at the Learning Forward Annual Conference 2019. This will be a great opportunity to work with teams across the country, all member of the My Good School Alliance.

My Good School Program for schools helps empower students by creating an environment for the personal and social development of an individual. By subscribing to our philosophy of quality in education, offering an environment where experiential learning is made possible through activities beyond just study, brings to life learning that would otherwise be theoretical and uncoordinated.

 #MyGoodSchool

My Good School Program Partner

David Geurin: Future Driven Newsletter

Dear Educator Happy New Year! We literally get this new beginning just once a year. I want to take the opportunity to cheer you on to the best 2019 ever. Wishing you great health and happiness! Here are five hopeful thoughts for the New Year: 1. Even if the first half of your school year didn't go as well as you'd like, things can get better. 2. Even if you can't change all the circumstances, you can change how you respond to the circumstances. 3. It's never too late to make a change. Your past does not equal your future. 4. Instead of trying to do more this year, simply be more intentional with what you do. 5. Keep giving generously to others. Your efforts are making a difference. I know you're the type of educator who really cares about helping your students succeed. Your commitment to raising hope and shaping futures inspires. Press on in 2019! Here are a few of the best articles I've read recently... 1. 30 Behaviors That Will Make You Unstoppable in 2019 How different is your life, right now, from where you were 12 months ago? If it’s quite similar, then you haven’t been learning very much. To learn, by nature, is to change and evolve. 2. Why Schools Should Teach the Curriculum of the Future, Not the Past The world is changing so fast, even schools who are trying to keep up are falling behind. What is your school teaching? Are you perfecting the past? Or helping create the future? 3. 9 Awesome High School Flexible Seating Classrooms I shared this post from Jennifer Hogan with our entire staff. It's great inspiration for creating a classroom that is designed with learning in mind. It's time to move past desks in rows. Keep pushing those limits! You'll are world changers. All the best, David Geurin #FutureDriven