Nervous! Anxious! Excited! Scared! Well, these
were some adjectives that would have described me best at the start of the PYP
exhibition journey. It seemed to me, so much to travel and with so little
knowledge about what I was supposed to do. It all seemed so haphazard and
disorganised and even, my “to do list” seemed all over the place. I had no idea
how to start and what I would tell the students who would be working under me
for I would be one of the mentors for them. It was not a good feeling to be
honest.
The support and assurance I was getting from my
coordinators and my colleagues seemed meagre to build the confidence in me.
This was how I started off. Not many days had passed and it was already time
for the first mentor meet.
19th November, 2013 was when I saw
the brightest bunch of cool kids. Their faces exuded excitement and thrill.
They were the ones who comforted me more than anyone else and the much needed
push, seemed to come from these kids. The job seemed a little easier now.
“Passion” to work with these kids started overtaking the initial nerve-racking
feeling I had.
To break the ice and kick-start our exhibition journey, I had
planned for a Marsh Mallow activity. The idea behind having this activity was
to make the children realize the importance of cooperation and teamwork while
having an individual opinion at the same time. The job was well done as they
were able to point out few points that are required for building a strong team
working under the same issue “Rights”.
Next, it was time for me to know from the
students their area of interests under “Rights.” We had a long discussion and
they came up with their issues that had really touched their hearts while understanding
various issues around the globe. Then there I was ready with the four issues
the kids really wanted to find more about. They were 1) Gender Discrimination
2) Child rights to education and life 3) Habitat loss due to human activities
and 4) Hunting leading to extinction of Animals. All the 9 mentors of the PYPX
shared that they had a similar experience and that each of them had about 2-4
groups on the issue they were helping the kids deal with. So, uniformity was
seen in all 5 issues of the PYPX.
After this, it was time for blue printing the
Matrix for each of the issues. Teachers started brainstorming for an
appropraite Central Idea for the Exhibition and soon our dear colleague Sita
Supriya came up with a brilliant Central Idea that would embody all the 5
issues viz. Rights, Culture, Personality, Child Labour and Health. After this,
kids had to form their own Lines of Inquiry, select the concepts, attitudes,
skills and profiles — all related to their respective issues. To our surprise
they all did a wonderful job as they came up with some amazing lines of inquiry.
This was done as the idea behind PYPX is to make the kids learn about concepts
of independence and cooperation.
This time, much importance is being given to the
entire process of the inquiry rather than the final presentation. Thus, it was
an inevitable prerequisite for everyone related to PYPX that significance was
to be given to even the smallest detail from day 1. Meanwhile we saw ourselves
in several meetings with our PYP coordinator and also with Head Mistress
regarding the Exhibition. We were getting valuable feedback and interesting
ideas from our coordinators and it helped a lot to make the journey more
exciting.
In the course of the PYPX journey, students are
learning about being responsible, being independent and learning to cooperate.
These actually are also the essence of the whole PYP exhibition. Besides,
students are also learning a lot about primary and secondary resources, the
basic interview etiquette, and netiquette since they are also using online
(Edmodo account) to share and discuss ideas. This journey is rigorous and
grilling but I keep reminding myself that this is going to be a sweet beautiful
memory, in not more than 17 or 18 days. So, I am just making the most of it,
good and bad, the way it comes. So far, the journey has been great and I’m
hoping for the best to come yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment