TURA: A two-day orientation programme for the teaching staff of Don Bosco College Tura was held on Friday and Saturday with Fr. George Palamattam, SDB, Director of SILOAM in Umiam participating as the resource person taking the teachers on an interesting journey on the broad theme of “Extending Teaching beyond Textbooks”.
Quoting the late President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, who wished to be remembered as a teacher, he recalled that Dr Kalam had said that education is transformation from ‘I can get’ to ‘what I can give’. However, ‘’giving’’ has to be preceded by a store of “something” so that one is in a position to give, said Fr Pallatam.
Through a video show, the teachers were reminded about going beyond the textbook and “seeing something” in the students.
The need to go beyond class-room teaching and being able to ‘touch’ at least one or more students was emphasized.
The teachers were introduced to three types of people, namely, the leaf people, branch people and root people. They were then asked to introspect as to ‘who are the roots in my life?’.
Other examples were also given to show that education is not all about degree but realizing that one needs to give a part of themselves to the society.
The resource person also outlined the habits of confident persons to the teachers.
The two-day orientation programme was a compact “take-away” sprinkled with a little bit of spirituality and laced with a lot of do-able pointers.
The focus did not shift from the students throughout the training.
The student-centric programme saw teachers deliberating on very pertinent yet rarely talked about issue such as, “How can I create my class-room where they feel safe to commit mistake and bounce back…? A little reminder of how legends make children comfortable around them was given through a clipping of “Little Big Shots” of the video of little Nathan and Steve Harvey.
