Talent of one is knowledge for all

BHARATI PAWASKAR

She is in her 30s and a teacher by choice. The homely, open, inspiring and uplifting atmosphere in her 2012 founded school, Konkani Bhasha Mandal’s Ravindra Kelekar Dyanmandir School at Vidyanagar in Margao is the perfect ground where she can seed her innovative ideas that blossom into reality. Supported wholeheartedly by headmaster Anant Agni, and her dedicated colleagues, teacher Blud comes up with out-of-the-box ideas.

It was one of her recent ideas that was immediately picked up by the school and won her the prestigious ‘Teacher Innovation Award’ which is given to the teachers in India for Zero Investment Innovations for Education Initiatives (ZIIEI) year after year by Sri Aurobindo Society.   

Rodrigues is one of the five teachers who have been selected from thousands of teachers across the country all of who submitted their ideas for the said award and she is the only lucky Goan teacher selected for this prestigious honour. With Rodrigues there are Kesar Patel from Haryana, Mayanka Sharma from Uttar Pradesh, Kunda Jayawant from Maharashtra and Bharti Yadav from Delhi who have also received the honour. Currently Rodrigues is in New Delhi to receive the award at a special award ceremony to be held on August 17 at the hands of India’s HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.   

“I am humbled by such returns,” she exclaimed after getting the news of her award. “I can only say that it is the culture at Ravindra Kelekar Dyanmandir that is conclusive to such an outcome. A special thank you to our headmaster for his trust in his teachers, and the freedom to be creative and the acceptance of ideas from all of us at this school,” she adds.   

So what was that idea that got recognition not only in her own school, but the entire education sector in India? Rodrigues had proposed an idea to select school children with talents in any art - music, sports, drama, dance, games or any other crafts or skills such as mehendi art, painting, drawing, hairstyling, cooking, gardening etc - as resource persons to conduct workshops in their respective skills for the students of the same school in small groups.   

“This initiative was implemented successfully in our school during the last academic year where 12 of our students from class VIII and IX conducted workshops in flower making, dance, drama, tennikoit, rubik solving, tabla, shamel, singing, power point presentations, karate etc. The idea titled ‘Talentazzle’ was aimed to build the feeling of self-confidence and usefulness to the society among students. The student mentors did an excellent job in sharing their talents to their colleagues,” briefs the proud headmaster, who himself has been an ideal example of dedication and devotion to the teaching profession which he embraced little less than three decades ago.   

For this successfully implemented concept, Rodrigues was felicitated in the school at the hands of chairman of the school’s managing committee, Prashant Naik and in the presence of president of Konkani Bhasha Mandal, Chetan Acharya and the school headmaster, Agni. Coming to the peculiarity of her award, Rodrigues is the only teacher in Goa who has been selected to receive this award among several hundreds who submitted their ideas from the state. From across India, lakhs of teachers have presented their own innovative ideas in ‘Zero Investment Innovations for Education Initiatives’ (ZIIEI) to Sri Aurobindo Society under the initiative titled Parivartan – a step towards progress for all teachers.   

So far 600 teachers have been awarded by the national award . The ideas presented by these selected teachers have been adopted by 1.75 lakh schools in 22 regions in 2018-19 and implemented by 15 lakh teachers, benefiting around three crore students. Across India total of 14.5 lakh teachers were oriented while 7.5 lakh teachers submitted their ideas and six lakh teachers actually implemented their ideas. In Goa, all the schools with NCERT syllabus (North as well as South Goa) were included in the programme.  “From our school four teachers were invited to attend this workshop and Rodrigues was one of them,” mentions Agni who leads by his own example.   

“The parent organization Konkani Bhasha Mandal that manages the school has given me total freedom to implement my ideas and I have extended this freedom to my teachers. Rodrigues is one of the most enthusiastic teachers who take keen interest in ideating and implementing new concepts. Talented students to share their skills among fellow students (free), was something brilliant that our school could put into practice. All 253 students last year and 269 students this year benefited from this concept,” informs Agni.   

The school imbibes in the minds of its students that winning hearts by sharing and showcasing their talents to others is more important than winning prizes. Accepting this principle the students walk on this path are participate in various events and programmes held across Goa by different organisations. Instead of 30 April being the last day of the school, it is open for 365 days, even in summer and other holidays where activities like creative workshops, overnight camps, trekking and hiking,etc keep the students engaged. Indeed, enthusiastic teachers like Blud Rodrigues and committed headmasters like Anant Agni make the school stand out.