|
|
| A
Day at Anand Niketan |
| |
"Anand Niketan is it
a name of a school?" It
seems to be a activity center. A school inspector remarked.
We are in fact,  overwhelmed
to take these remarks as compliments rather a Complaint.
Anand Niketan is not just a School, an activity center,
it is much more than that, looking behind and beyond obvious.
Are you Hesitant and Surprised? Please come, observe and
experience!!! Be ready to be a part of Anand Niketan,
you won't feel to go back!
12 noon! It's a Hallagulla time. Kindergarten students
going out and preprimary and primary students hurrying
to get into the school, excited, bursting with vitality
and energy need to be channelised! 12.00 - 12.30 prayer
and exercises.
This is 1st Std. class. Mathematics class is going on.
You remembered your mathematics class! Isn't it, don't
worry and go away. Here, students do hands at attractive
material objects, to learn mathematics. Students handle
Jodo blocks, Math's-mat (coloured rubber mat with holes
and rectangular, triangular blocks), going beyond notebooks
and pencils. In fact, they play with Math's.
Oh! Nobody is in the class?
Empty? This is a second Std. class. Students are going
out in surrounding to learn environment. They have already
seen bushes, shrubs, and flowers. Still they are to see
slab casting of a nearby building, under construction,
listening to raving, shouting of labours and their hurry
in carrying metal, sand and cement for concrete mixing
and like that.
 Mouth
watering smell! What is going on here? Students of 3rd
Std are in kitchen. Today, it is their "Snack /eatables/
vitriol's preparation' period.
What are they preparing? Vegetable soup! Knives in the
hands of children, hurrying for cutting vegetables. Are
you worried that knives will cut their hands and they
will be wounded? In fact, they will learn from this, to
handle knife. Is it not easy and better to allow them
to handle such sharp things than keeping them away from
these? Children are after us to be with them for some
time to taste soup and then proceed further.
 This
is fourth std class, period of 'Marathi'. Period is of
'Marathi' and what these students are doing. Drawing pictures
/ sketches. Yeah! Teacher has given them a poem and asked
them to draw and Colour, as they perceive. Twenty students
drawing/sketches of same poem! Awakening their creativity
and responding to that. So, what else is education other
than this?
Recess after fourth period, of course, for eating Tiffin,
getting together and exchanging eatables, and continuous
talking! Till that, let's have our lunch. Vegetable soup
has already aroused our appetite.
Students of fifth std preparing to go out. Ask, them where
are they going? They are on their way to 'Nirmal Gram
Nirman Kendra', Gangapur, Garbage management is one chapter
lesson in science but how can you learn / understand by
just sitting in class and going through chapter / lesson?
So, they are going to 'Nirmal Gram Nirman Kendra', Gangapur
an institute, which is expert and doing work in this field.
They prepare . They differentiate / Categorize / and separate
the wet and dry garbage. They construct low cost toilet.
It becomes easy to understand and remember all there by
seeing, observing and discussing. They carry this information
/ knowledge with them. |
|
|
|
