Compassionate Citizen workshop report

[Guest guest]

Report on Workshop for Teachers

 

11 November 2002

 

Venue: iACT (International Academy for Creative

Teaching), Bangalore

 

This is a report on the Compassionate Citizen*

Workshop for teachers held on the 11th of November

2002 at the International Academy for Creative

Teaching (iACT), Bangalore.

 

The International Academy for Creative Teaching

(iACT), is an exclusive center for training teachers

at all levels. An arm of the prestigious Jain Group of

Institutions, International Academy for Creative

Teaching (iACT) keenly desires to bridge the gap

between the need and availability of good teachers.

 

Various eminent Educationists, Principals and Teachers

participated in the program.

 

1. Capt. V. V. K. Mani, Regional Manager, The Hindu

was the Chief Guest.

 

2. Dr. Gururaj Karajagi, M.Sc. (Analytical Chemistry),

Ph.D.(Inorganic Chemistry),, iACT

 

3. Dr. Sandeep Shastri, M.A., M.Phil., FSS., Ph.D.,

Dean, Social Sciences, iACT

 

4. Mrs. Vijayalakshmi has been a Teacher and a

Principal with various Defence Schools and Kendriya

Vidyalayas and is with NIE (Newspapers in Education),

The Hindu.

 

5. Mrs. Stella Parthasarathy and

6. Mrs. Suma Krishnaprasad from

The East-West School

 

7. Mr. Uday Shankar from

The U.A.S. Campus School

 

8. Mr. C. Chellapandian from

Kendriya Vidyalaya, Malleswaram

 

9. Mrs. Suchitra V. Kumar and

10. Mrs. Evangeline Sunderasan from

B.M. English School

 

11. Ms. Geetha Ramadurai from

Innisfree House School

 

12. Mrs. Parvathy from

Kimmins School

 

13. Mrs. Rosemary and

14. Mrs. Jayashree (an NCERT award winning teacher)

from

Carmel High School

 

15. Ms. N. Prema Kumari

An award-winning teacher who was with the Carmel

School and is now involved with lectures at various

schools.

 

16. Ms. Poornima Harish, Trustee, Animal Rights Fund

 

17. Mr. Dilip Bafna, Trustee, Animal Rights Fund

 

18. Mr. Jayasimha, Humane Educator and volunteer,

PeTA, ARF, PFA, ¡K

 

19. Mrs. Samita Rao Ninjur, Krupa Loving Animals

 

20. Ms. Achala, volunteer, Krupa and ARF

 

21. Mr. Nagarajan K, Teacher, Friends of Children

Trust, Volunteer, PeTA, ARF, ¡K

 

22. Ms. Padmavathi, Program Coordinator, iACT

 

And many other students at iACT who are also educators

at various institutions.

Mr. Jayasimha¡¦s parents Mr. Geethaprabhu and Mrs.

Jayashree also graced the occasion.

 

Sri. Chenraj Jain, Chairman, Jain Group of

Institutions who had agreed to grace the occasion had

a eleventh hour meeting with a delegation from abroad

and hence couldn¡¦t make it.

 

About the program:

 

Registration began at 9 a.m. as planned and the

program was inaugurated at 10 a.m. by an invocation in

Smt. Vijayalakshmi¡¦s beautiful voice. This was

followed by ¡§Introduction of the Speakers¡¨ by Mr.

Dilip Bafna. And by an ¡§Introduction to the program¡¨

by Smt. Vijayalakshmi.

 

Capt. V. V. K. Mani did a great job speaking about

compassion and the importance of the Compassionate

Citizen programme. This was followed by a short break

(Vegan drinks ¡V lemon tea, lemon juice ƒº)

 

This was followed by Mr. Jayasimha¡¦s powerpoint

presentation on the Compassionate Citizen (CC)

programme where he spoke eloquently about the

programme, ways in which teachers could get involved,

ways in which teachers could involve the students and

he presented lots of innovative exercises that

teachers could use in the classroom like ¡§Having a

box of articles some of which are good for animals

(like biscuits, ball) and some of which are bad (dry

cells, polythene covers, glass pieces) and asking the

students to classify the articles as good and bad¡¨.

This was followed by the CC video and a question &

answer session where the audience raised many queries

about the programme and about its implementation like

¡§Can we implement CC without making the students

spend time outside normal class-hours?¡¨ etc.

 

This was followed by a presentation on Veganism by Mr.

Dilip Bafna who did a wonderful job presenting and

handling queries.

 

This was followed by lunch where all of us had a

variety of Vegan dishes, thanks to Mr.Sridhar.

 

We also had tables with leaflets for people to take

and Vegan items and PeTA tshirts for people to buy.

 

And post-lunch, Dr. Gururaj Karajagi had the audience

in captivity for the 2 hours he spoke on the

importance of value education, creative teaching and

necessity to implement CC in schools. He made the

audience realize the mindsets each one of us has and

reinforced points that Mr. Jayasimha made like

¡§We¡¦ve been using pigeons for communication. But we

don¡¦t continue to use them¡¨ etc.

 

Mrs. Samita Rao Ninjur did a wonderful job anchoring

the whole event.

 

We collected program-feedback at the end of the

presentations and all the teachers had a wonderful

opinion about the whole show and felt CC is a

wonderful thing and must be implemented. We also asked

teachers what they think about Veganism and there was

a variety of responses ranging from ¡§It¡¦s the only

way to lead a healthy life¡¨ and ¡§It¡¦s a commitment

made by animal lovers¡¨ to ¡§It¡¦s nice in theory,

difficult to implement¡¨.

 

¡K and what did we learn?

Yes! There are many many teachers interested in this

program and in implementing the same. While more

schools had confirmed attendance, some of them didn¡¦t

turn up because of last-minute work at schools,

preparation for programmes for the Children¡¦s day

etc. And what can we do? Organize CC not very close to

exams, not very close to school functions.

 

And the press-coverage is directly proportional to the

attendance I guess. Because press-reporters did turn

up. And had they found a bigger crowd, they would¡¦ve

found it worth a front-page article!

 

Hope to make the next workshop much bigger and much

much more successful.

 

 

* Sponsored by

 

petaindia

 

 

 

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