Gurukul’s Global Collaboration

Freyah was a volunteer from New Zealand, who joined out team for a few weeks in March. She taught a range of different grades from grade 1-5, introducing knowledge about her country, her lifestyle and her cultures education systems. Teaching English through a variety of different games, projects and styles of teaching she managed to gain Gurukul students attention and ingrain some positive education. Freyah said, “Volunteering here at Gurukul has been a beautiful oppurtunity. The students have the most amazing energy and determination to learn. As a first time teacher, It was the perfect balance between challenging and rewarding and I am forever greatful for this experience.” Gurkukul loved having Freyah with us and welcome other foreigners to join us for more opportunities like this.

 

Class Leader Election 2016

In July this year we came to the conclusion that the students would benefit from more self-responsibility and decided to hold an official, anonymous and democratic election. We wanted to improve the dialog between students and teachers, make them acquainted to democracy and show its importance. We included standard five to eight.

 

In the first step we held some classes about the positive and negative sides of leadership and made them familiar with the different forms of governments and politics. In the second step we explained what an election is, how it works and made sure that pupils acknowledge the power of their own voice. Each class came up with three candidates after a pre-election. They had a small rally and prepared speeches which were held in front of their classmates and teacher. After this, the main election took place.

Once the leaders were chosen they had to swear an oath and were officially and publicly introduced to their new duty. This happened at morning assembly so everybody could participate. Here is the oath: “I (name) do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of Class Leader of Standard (number), and will to the best of my ability, preserve and protect Equality, Peace and the Constitution of Gurukul Academy.”

Later on the new elected Leaders signed a job description and were committed to their new office. In a long and intense conversation they were prepared for their new duties and rights and got good words and advice on the way from our, in leading very experienced principal Sunita Swar Suri.

We will keep the flame burning and hopefully form a long row of Class Leaders in Gurukul Academy. Next year we are going to include Standard 3 and 4 as well so that the seed of Democracy will be planted even earlier and has more time to grow a strong and healthy tree based on Equality and Justice.

Finally we would like to affiliate to the words of Abraham Lincoln who said: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”

World Day Against Child Labour

July 28, 2016

June 16^th, 2016 was proclaimed World Day Against Child Labour by The International Labour Organization, ILO & Gurukul Academy was more than willing to lend a hand in supporting this global endeavor to end child labour through awareness and artistic expression.

This year’s theme, “End Child Labour in Supply Chains – It’s Everyone’s Business” definitely put an international dimension on a practice that is common to some children here in Nepal.

With 168 million children still in child labour globally, there is so much work to do in raising awareness and making a firm decision to STOP supporting child labour even if it means researching and acknowledging our hand in supporting this vicious cycle through global supply chains.

Full of energy and ready to tell everyone about the dangers of child labor, the children of Gurukul Academy reached into their imaginations and pulled out their pens, paints and markers to write poems and draw detailed pictures showing their disdain for the destructive cycle.

One by one, students from Standard 4 to Standard 8 stood in front of their teachers and peers to state with conviction their stance on child labor. After the poetry and oratory competition, the pictures drawn by the children were displayed and reviewed for judging.

The winners were announced the following day at morning assembly.

We hope the spirit of Gurukul’s children has ignited a flame within you to stop any participation in child labor promoting practices.

Gurukul Academy works hard to inspire you to do a bit of research on global supply chains and think about your daily practices to ensure that you and your family do not contribute to the global child labor epidemic.

Even with such a heavy topic, everyone was all smiles and happy throughout the entire event! This is of utmost importance to note. Although we work hard to educate our children in international dimensions, we at Gurukul Academy ensure that they do so in a joyful and inspiring context.

Keep inspiring!

World environment day

 

With the theme of World Environment Day burning inside them, the children of Gurukul decided not to hand over the ashes of wildlife destructive culture and instead used art and peaceful protest to keep the fire of change burning. By kicking old habits and forming new behaviors they made their beautiful impact on society. In agreement with the United Nations World Environment Day the Gurukul Academy celebrated this special date for the 4^th year. The big topics were environmental problems and their solutions, wildlife conservation and raising awareness for the matter. A whole week was dedicated to it. Every subject was reassembled to discuss the theme in order to its original content. Object was to give the students many different points of view. Through creativity and art the pupils expressed their thoughts, feelings and opinions.

On Sunday the 06/05/16 the whole school marched, equipped with animal facemasks, posters, drawings, paint, paintbrushes and a declaration escorted by the police through the main market. Their destination was the Chief District Official Office. The Panchodaya Secondary School joined the parade. Slogans like: “We want one world, clean world, green world” or “Dhangadhi children one and all protecting wildlife big and small” echoed through the streets and straight into the ears of the obviously impressed crowd.

Once arrived at the CDO office the marching messengers of environmental conscience split up into two groups. One part of the troop started to spread word about the declaration and signed it. Their confidence and belief convinced the watching Officials, Policemen, industrialists and bystanders to sign as well. Meanwhile the other part went ahead with painting the around going wall which serves as a fence for the CDO Office. The building is located on the main street of Dhangadhi so that everybody is constantly reminded to be conscious. It got decorated with pictures of endangered Species, their habitat and a tree made out of thumbprints from all the participants. It displays clear messages: “Green up Nepal” and “Wildlife crime just got personal”.

Recorded was the whole activity by local and national Media in Print, Radio and TV. The project was brought to life in cooperation with our partner schools in India, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom and the United States of America. This and more projects are displayed on the presence of British Councils Schools Online. An Organization with the goal to connect schools and classrooms globally and plant the seed of collaboration.

Children, Students and Teachers made a clear stand: Zero tolerance for illegal wildlife trade! The task was a full success and achieved its goals to educate about the environment and raise awareness for it. So that there is only one thing left to say: “We go wild for wildlife!”

A New Nursery Nook for Gurukul Academy

Although Gurukul Academy does not claim the school to be a fully Montessori school, it is always looking for opportunities to update the school as per the need of the rapidly changing world. That being said, the academy is always looking for ways to innovate for children in pre-primary stages to help match them with local and global developmental standards.

One way Gurukul is doing this, is by building a new reading nook in the Nursery classroom! Although we must stick to customary classroom design due to our large number of students, the reading nook will help us move closer to a classroom design and flow that creates a learning environment that accommodates choice.

It is difficult to manage a large number of students in any scenario, but it becomes a bit more challenging when those children are of nursery age. Gurukul wants to create a room that is well organized, inviting and engaging to help children and youth feel calm and at home while learning to love reading and improving their literacy.

Many classrooms for nursery age children often include a place to curl up with a book; where a student can read or be read to. Gurukul wants to provide a space like this for its nursery children as well.

The Nursery Nook will provide a space for the Nursery teacher to instill a love for reading & learning in the small children while giving them a comfortable space where they can adjust to being without their parents at a very young age. It will give them a great start to their education process….a start that every child deserves.

The nook will be filled with items that attract the nursery children’s eyes while also promoting skill development that is expected for their current age.

Each element of the nook will help in some way to encourage development in independent problem solving, creative thinking, understanding behavioral requirements and adjusting to classroom etiquette.

The nook is still under construction & will be completed shortly but we are VERY excited to implement this resource and grateful to everyone who donated for this exciting project!

 

Gurukul Academy Bicycle Distribution Ceremony

The sun shined brightly over Dhanghadi as Gurukal Academy successfully completed the final portion of it’s bicycle donation program.

 

The project, initiated by philanthropists Mr and Mrs Church through Grassroots Education Nepal, has successfully provided bicycles to children all over Dhanghadi, helping many of them get to school much easier than ever before.

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In the presence of Ganesh Bahadur Singh – District Education Official of Kailali ,Mr. Shiva Hari Sharma Mudhbari – Campus Chief of Dhanghadi Engineering College, NAST National Association for Science & Technology, Principals of schools in area, journalists from local media, parents, students, teachers and staff, social workers and members of the community, Gurukul Academy Principal Sunita Suri  shared the amazing international and intercultural collaborative projects that have been completed this year.

One by one, the teachers of Gurukul spoke of their successful project based learning practices, in hopes to let all parents and supporters know exactly how Gurukul is excelling throughout the school term.

While recanting success stories and lessons learned, they connected the project based learning competencies to the existing curriculum and its core content. Even with all their success, the staff still spoke to the challenges they face while looking towards solutions to overcome them in the upcoming year.

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After a series of rousing speeches from the special guests and invitees, the bicycles were given to the eager children, who received them with smiles and happiness. The air of happiness filled the school premise as each of eleven children rode off with their heads held high. This ceremony shows clearly the positive effect of international partnerships and gives a clear indication of how well the relationship is working between Gurukul Academy and Linthicum Elementary School of Maryland.

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As the event came to a close and the last bike was given, Principal Sunita Suri and the teaching staff beamed with pride and determination to make this upcoming year great as well!

Gurukul Academy “Teacher Development Training”

During the holiday break, the teaching staff at Gurukul Academy spent two full weeks focusing on resource library development and international collaboration with volunteer William Jerard Coleman, from Chicago, IL, USA.

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Through this training, Gurukul provides resources to help the teaching staff improve their English speaking abilities,  while also helping them create a cycle of sustainable, engaging and evolving knowledge transfer in its classrooms & labs.

By dissecting the art of teaching as well as the administration of learning in Nepal, the teachers were able to speak candidly about the difficulties they face when searching for new and engaging teaching resources, planning for enlightening classroom activities, working to enhance their performance in content delivery & ensuring growth by implementing innovative knowledge checks.

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The teachers took the time to brainstorm with William Jerard on each topic separately and create multi-faceted solutions that can be introduced to different age groups over this upcoming year.

William Jerard is currently working to provide the teachers with learning resources to improve knowledge transfer in the classroom and at home. The teachers were also given effective & practical resources to help improve planning for the school year, each term and each lesson.

Gurukul Academy hopes to give it’s teaching staff what they need to provide students with multiple & flexible options for ensuring knowledge transfer. For those students who need extra help, we want to be able to provide short term specialized workshops to get them back on a successful learning track as soon as possible.

Finally, over the course of the year, we are working to develop a wide array of one on one and group activities to not only stimulate but verify knowledge transfer. With all of these elements working together, we will be able to produce engaging and easy to read student reports & profiles. This will ensure that even a parent who struggles with literacy or the English language can be involved and an integral part of their child’s educational development.

Gurukul Academy & William Jerard would like to acknowledge all the hard work put in by the teaching staff. Their honest feedback and bravery in developing new methods is commendable and definitely worth noting!

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Gurukul Academy Celebrates Mother’s Day

Here at Gurkulul Academy, we appreciate the hard work put in by our mothers!

We invited the mothers of our Nursery, LKG, UKG & 1^st Standard students to our school for short celebration of their efforts.

Along with songs and handmade gifts, the mothers also received short informational about the importance of revising information at home daily. We also shared with them the different learning styles and preferences of our young pupils.

We offered free English classes to the mothers as an encouraging effort to help them help their students with their homework even in the face of illiteracy.

Overall, the celebration was one of happiness, love and concern for education.

Gurukul Academy would like to thank all parents who attended.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

 

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Share the warmth

 

Gurukul is trying to help Landless people being sheltered  in temporary camps , suffering cold.  Gurukul children helped to collect used clothes from their home and neighborhood to donate them. We teachers and some parents supported to register and manage them. Project goes in this way. 

 30 December, 2015- Students council of Gurukul Academy had a meeting and planned the activities and dates, contacted the partner schools ( 4 more schools including KD’s school), divided the responsibilities etc.

 2 January, 2016- All classes were informed about the project through notice and assembly announcement.

 3 January,2016- Students from each class started bringing the clothes for donation from their homes and neighborhood. Collection procedure remained till that week. Finally, we were success collect more than 2000 piece of used clothes and 500+  new T-shirts with some printing errors.

 7 January,2016- Many teachers, parents and students volunteered sort the donation items size wise/ gender and purpose wise.- We packed 2 pair in each gift pack.

 9 January,2016- We had bus ride to Balchaur. A temporary camp of landless community and Ekta Nagar Freed Kamaiya camp near Lamki Bauniyan.

 You can Google… to know more about  Badhi community and Freed Kamaiya (Kamaiya is Bonded Labour of Tharu community) . I will send you something to read about Badhi You will find it interesting.. !!!

 

 

Share the Warmth…..

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