STAFF ENRICHMENT WORKSHOP – SWAYAM SE VYAYAM
(JUNE 26 & 27, 2019)
Best teams are created when the leader’s vision is translated into a reality by the team members.
The two-days Staff Workshop conducted for the Goenkan staff was much more than a conventional faculty development programme. Planned and executed under the aegis of the school Principal, Ms. Anuradha Handa, it became an empowerment conduit pulsating with enriching content, intellectual charge and emotional current. The success of the workshop owed itself to principal’s compelling and clear vision that the teachers should experience ‘a cathartic journey’ of participation, empowerment and transformation. To give authentic shape to this vision, there was intense intellectual brainstorming between the principal and the core team throughout summer vacations. What emerged out of the high-voltage deliberations was ‘Swayam se Vayam’ (‘I’ to ‘We’) – a workshop that took the teachers through a journey of self-discovery, collaborative engagement ending with the ultimate purpose of the workshop – team development.
Ms. Anuradha Handa herself shared the vision and purpose behind the workshop – to effect a perfect balance between one’s mind and soul that would help one to pool in one’s individual strengths for the collective good. Through her measured and inspirational examples, she guided the teachers about the need to retain the innocence of their super conscious mind while at the same time, nourishing the collective conscious mind and giving free rein to the spontaneous mind in-order to acquire the ultimate stage of mind (punya). She also emphasized the need for a value system to feel and fuel the soul so that it can give right direction to our mind and keep it out of mischief. The principal beautifully explained what everyone commonly undergoes without realizing it – Value Dilemma and then stressed upon the influence of external environment upon our Value Evolution.
A self-exploration and liberation time was given to the teachers as they sat silently in the activity studios, spending time with themselves in a quest to discover their strengths, weaknesses and values that define who they are. After this, through sharing of a conversational dashboard, the teachers covered the spectrum of team development from ‘I’ to ‘We’. Ms. Anuradha at this point gave full clarity to the four steps process of Team Effectiveness that traverses through forming (the stage of getting acquainted) to storming (conflicts among individual members) to reach norming stage – the stage of resolution of dispute/personality clashes . After a consensus is arrived at among the team members in the norming stage, the team then starts performing as a close-knit and well-aligned team.
Each and every teacher concurred heartily with the Junior Headmistress, Ms. Srishti Bajaj when she said that GDGPS is a happy school on account of the vision and leadership of the principal and management. Ms. Srishti called the trust, care and respect that the teachers have for one another the unique strength of the school. Ms. Ritesh Sharma, the Academic Coordinator shared interesting details of the transformative time that she spent with principal, other incharges and other intellectual luminaries who were a part of Confluence – The Annual Conclave held at G.D. Goenka University in June. Ms. Shalini Tandon, the Middle Wing Incharge pointed out how the principal and management intuitively recognize the individual strength and caliber of the teachers at the interview stage and hire them.
Ms. Ojasvita Handa gave a purposeful presentation on ‘Making an effective presentation’ and guided the teachers about how to improve their oral presentation skills. The teachers took notes as she shared the key points of a good presentation covering features like – purpose of the presentation, the target audience, components of a presentation (introduction, body and conclusion), correct pace and visualization. The teachers benefitted from the handouts shared by Ms. Ojasvita on the Language Features of Oral Presentation.
Then the faculty members were divided into vertical groups including activity teams and faculty members from Primary to Senior Wing. Proving that empowering teachers through the workshop was no idle lip service or ‘humbug’, each group was given broad topics of School Systems, Students and Parents each involving two situations. The whole purpose behind this engagement was to allow teachers’ deeper involvement and autonomy in viewing, reviewing and revamping those areas of school functioning which affects them most vitally. Each group moved to different venues to review existing systems and procedures and propose innovations or improvisations.
Day two of the workshop was the presentation day – when all the twelve sub-groups presented purposeful changes in the 3 main areas that would ultimately benefit the stakeholders – students, parents, school and teachers. Under the guidance of Group Incharges, Ms. Ritesh Sharma and Dr. Shunil Tripathi, Group I showcased the suggestions they had collated on the topics of Teachers ethics and Systems through a series of crisp mini-enactments and a Power Point Presentation. During the moderation time, the school Principal showed her ready acceptance of a few proposed changes and endorsed the idea of creating a Teachers’ Resource Pool where a sample soft and hard copy of school documents like Log book, Pizza book, attendance register, Observation register could be kept to facilitate new teachers. Under the headship of Ms. Shalini Tandon, Group 2 gave an effective presentation of the school’s best student-centric initiatives and proposed a few more measures that could be incorporated to strength the existing ones.
Last but not the least, Ms. Srishti Bajaj’s Group 3 talked about partnering with parents and some of the changes offered by these teams were – sharing of a Pre-PTM questionnaire with the parents, introduction of token system on PTM days, designating an area as waiting area for parents, insistence on formal attire of parents and students when they come to meet the teachers.
The principal and Incharges praised all the teachers for their full involvement, innovative ideas and team coordination. Specially designed certificates were given to all the teachers and team leaders as a token of appreciation. The vote of thanks was proposed by Ms. Shoma Roy who summed up the vision nad words of the school principal by reading aloud from a famous Sanskrit poem – ‘Man has immense powers to do good and make a difference in life only if he believes in himself.’
