DnE Reflections

4th Sep

2011-09-12T21:26:00.002+05:30

Self appreciation and Peer appreciation......

Wondering what it is?

Coming into DnE session not many volunteers knew much about self appreciation and peer appreciation, something which has vital importance in a work environment and has equal importance in a school atmosphere.

Thanks to Dronas Anil and Anuraditya our Eklavyas and Dronas learned a valuable lesson today. DnE’s training is aimed at making the students capable to meet the challenges they have to face in the outside world where they have to work in a team environment and where they have to have complete confidence in their capability.

Through the group activities they planned for session Anil and Anuraditya did just that. There were five activities planned for the day. Kids rather enjoyed the activities and it brought out their creativity and made them to come up with out of the box solutions. Kids were divided into teams and the first activity given was toxic river, wherein each tema member had to cross a toxic river which can be done only if they possess a magic stick. And the trick point here was that one person could use the stick only once.

Confusing huh?

Well for our little geniuses from RKM home it was not much of a challenge. All of ‘em came up with out of the box ideas and completed the task. Next up was the the tower building activity wherein eklavyas had to make a structure using paper and tape which could support the weight of four books. Kids came up with very impressive ideas, one team came up with an idea of a tripod and their structure was able to support weights of upto 2 kilos. Well now thats exceeding expectations. Wow! Eklavyas you outsmart Dronas.

Kids keep on throwing us surprises by showing their smartness.

Now am gonna start a fan club. RKM students fan club.......joining?

All work and no play makes Tom a dull boy

Well Anil and Aditya came up with a complete package last two activities were chase game and story narration. Kids had lot of fun.

Now it came to the closure. Each team came forward to talk about their strategy and also named the best performer among them. Therein they were appreciating themselves and their peers.

So at the end of the day kids learned a valuable lesson.

We bid adieu to the kids promising them to come back with cooler activities next week...............

21st Aug 2011

2011-08-25T21:32:00.008+05:30

If Rolling over was ever a challenge this is it right hear ;-) Yet again two more Drona’s came up with a rock n rolling activity! What did we roll? A ball on thin sheets of paper...what did we rock ? Damn the kiddos always rock each and every challenge put forth by us! Credit goes out to Varun and Prashanth for coming up with the activities and Ganapathy for the buffer activities that filled in that little time which made a lot of smiles pop up.

ACTIVITIES - The theme was Team-building and Communication Skills.Our fellow dronas Varun,Ganapati and Prashanth came with very interesting group activities.The session began with a friendly 'Hi' to kids that is always reciprocated by priceless glees :D EEEEEE :D . The smiles on those innocent faces when we walk-in is our thorough motivation. The activity was "Dumb-C and Reverse Dumb-C". Our Dronas got into action soon to monitor what kids were upto noting the progress that they make week after week .The rules of the activity?Two kids each standing opposite to each other and they had to tell something and the kid standing opposite had to act.Dronas watching them could'nt help but notice the cricket fever that was soaring high :)

Moving on to our second activity.It was a team-building exercise for kids.Kids teamed up according to their 'houses'. Each team had to pass the ball through the pipes( made of newspapers) and reach the bucket. We had our next session where one kid from each team spoke whatever they wished.Their innocent wishes,dreams,goals and motivation was worth lending an ear.

We started our Learning Cycle(LC) after bidding good bye to kids.The topic was "Communication Gap and Miscommunication" .It was awesome session conducted by Aakif,Sangeetha and Jacob.The team played a video on which the discussion based upon. Prime motive of the discussion ? - Challenges expected while mentoring kids. Dronas came up with many solutions.Dronas makes a point that their 'Eklavayas' feel comfortable and their lives are enriched and the enrichment doesn't stop with just the kids..does it ? ;P

Snap shot of what happened -

2011-08-22T22:09:00.000+05:30

Got junk in your trunk ? Bring it to the kids in Ramakrishna mission and they get set to get your jaws dropped !
Our activity with the kids turned out to prove what 15 year olds can do with a nothing but junk. It was Creativity at its best with kids proving their mettle.
Activity courtesy - Prakash and Aarthi. The duo's activity tested the 10th grader's Team building skills, resource management skills, leadership qualities, critical thinking and of course their creative side. The challenge given to them was simple - use the junk given along with a few basic materials like cardboard, thermacol,and few color papers and make anything you want! The twist came in when one vital article from each of their designs was removed and they had to continue with the same design minus that one vital article.. And what did they come up with ? see for yourselves...

And how did we end the session ? The kids came forth and shared their experiences and their learning out of frolic filled activity :)

7th Aug 2011

2011-08-12T21:46:00.000+05:30

What do we at DnE and Bhumi do best? We are all about creating a difference. Be it in the lives of kids at a whole, empowering them with skill sets to face life and its hardships or to the smallest sweetest differences on their faces by a special something that is worth more than a million bucks – A SMIIIILEEE J.

What’s better than combining fun that brings up long glee filled faces and an activity with a lesson to boost their teambuilding and strategizing skills? An activity by fellow Dronas - Sangeetha and Jacob did not let us down on that front :D. you have one go,guess what all of us loved when we were kids despite the chocolates, messing the place around and pulling your siblings hair :P ANSWER - BALLOOOOOONS! Everyone loves balloons now, don’t we? A wise man once said 'usage of something we love in our learning always enhances the process of learning' (That wise man was certainly not me : D ) And looks like Jacob and Sangeetha did take the wise man's advice ;) We had pillars and beds of balloons made by teams of kids competing against each other to build the strongest, tallest and the most stable balloon tower. Materials used were restricted to a spool of thread, a roll of tape and of course balloons.

One simply has to be amazed on the technique and strategic team work pooled in by our little fellas. At the end of it all, it was a 5 foot balloon tower that stood taller than the rest. The winning team shared their experience with the rest and the applauds where converted in blasts, blasts of balloons popping :P

Nooooow.. it was that time of the day where we Dronas sit together for our LEARNING CYCLE! Our new LC co-od- Ganapathy along with Prakash had planned a team-wise presentation on whats our take on communication. Although it was just a start a few rattling points where made. The discussion carries on to the next week with a team preparing an LC with the topic revolving around communication.

NOW THAT THE LC IS BACK THIS SEASON, WE CAN ALL BE REST ASSURED OF PRESENTATIONS AND HEATED UP DISCUSSIONS ULTIMATELY AIMING FOR ONE GOAL AND ONE GOAL ONLY - ENRICHING THE DRONA BRAINS :D

31st JULY 2011- RKM

2011-07-31T21:39:00.004+05:30

Alright then! We are up and running with awesome highs and tons of learning from the last year. Speaking of last year, our center Ramakrishna Mission recorded the best ever score in the 10th grade in the whole of RKM history. WOOOOOHOO! It goes without saying that we Dronas had a huge impact on the kids. Thumbs up, people! :D

We had an amazing Drona turnout today, with activities that kept them on their toes! ;) The GA team as usual brought in amazing activities, and the kids as usual surprised us all with their abundance of skills, something that gets us wide eyed every single time!

Let's head to the activities themselves. The first one involved pairing up the children. Each child sat with his back against that of his partner. One child was given an image made of basic geometric shapes arranged in a specific form. The rules were simple: the child with the image should instruct his partner, guiding him to reproduce the image on another piece of paper. Sounds easy? Hell no, it wasn't! Although the shapes were simple and all the kids had to do was use words to indicate what to draw and where, it boiled down to the mutual trust between partners and the ability to process and respond to clear/unclear explanations. It was the duty of the ‘instructor child’ to make sure his partner listened well and arrived at the image. Concentration, trust, listening skills and instant adaptability were the skills targeted and, hey, we did succeed! The kids loved it, and we loved it, and now the story ends with everyone living happily ever after. :P Uh huh? We Dronas don’t settle for less do we? We didn't stop there...

We moved right on to yet another activity brought up by ‘Superman Srinivas’. This involved pairs of children lifting sticks. The catch? A child could use just one finger. And the fingers of both the children in a pair should be separated by no more than 3 inches of space. Pretty apparent even if I don’t say it - the kids nailed it! :D

Now came the best session of the day. It was S.T.O.R.Y. .T.I.M.E! :P Bhawana brought us all a treat. It was a cartoon that showed us that everyone is a true king and that to be a true king you need to be a true human.

P.S : The people who attended the session today know exactly what “the best session of the day” meant! :D We all have to thank Bhawana for this. :P

All said and done, the kids enjoyed it. And that's all that matters!

19th MARCH 2011

2011-03-31T12:44:00.004+05:30

   Are we to cry or to smile ? :( / :) ?

Was a perfect personification of 'MIXED EMOTIONS' Was the last day of the current year at RKM..

But wow! Some heck of an experience it was. A lump of ups and downs smiles and smiles dying out. A lot had gone through in the hearts and minds of our very potential Dronas. As planned earlier we had goodies given out to our mentees. 1 ink pen , 1 ball pen , 1 pencil , 1 eraser ,1 scale and 1 watch (which delighted them the most) was given out by the mentors to their respective mentees. It was sure a very emotional day with a few mentors kinda having their eyes filled..awwww...! All the mentors had their last talk over followed by a photo session and a lot of wishes and words of encouragement.

   But hey! Amongst everything, We are rest assured all did carry great memories, learnings, experiences and a lot of long lasting friends. A few Dronas would be parting from the sessions. But but but.. NOT THE FAMILY !!! ONCE A DRONA ALWAYS A DRONA. :D

Bows and salutes to all the dronas, who carried out everything with great passion and made DnE what it is today!

13th march 2011

2011-03-21T16:40:00.001+05:30

Venue : RKM..!

Tring ..tring..time for dne 10 am the session began!

A very serious day ... our kids have their exams knocking at their doors ,and we had an experienced and retired teacher among us to give them ideas on how to face examinations. She started off with how to prepare for the exams .She gave them the following ideas:-

§ Be cool! All izz well!

§ *Subjects to study during morning,noon, evening and night.

§ *Write neatly!coz first impression is the best impression.(though not true in all cases)

§ *Concentrate on the text book information as it helps to learn things from scratch, helps you to give the best and also gives the impression that you know the answers well.

§ *Importance of time management for each paper.

§ *Do not panic during exams coz it does not help you in anyway.

§ *Preparations should be serious work, use colour pens to highlight important information during preparation so that it stays coloured in your memory forever.

§ *Finally, do your best and god will do the rest!

So our guys are off to face it smart and confident! The session was covered by a student from womens Christian college for her project, a documentary.

few of our Volunteers had a short talk with her regarding dne and its functioning.

Mentoring went on for sometime, and everything seemed to be quiet serious today. Totally felt the heat huh?

Winding up session made things more interesting!...next week dne is gonna wind up with this academic year. Discussions were done on how to wind up.ideas came up from everywhere corner and we decided to gift our kids something before they leave..and then we came up with the idea of a card,exam stationery materials and a wrist watch! Cool! We have mentally prepared them to face the exams! Let’s now sit and watch them coming out in flying colours!

Venue: St. George

As is usually the practice at St. George's, the mentors were in front of the
kids' hostel at 9:30 awaiting our precious little demon to come out of their
wonderlands and join us for yet another sunday with a group activity
iterlaced with fun-filled moments. that's when Bhargav, Kenny, Joel and I
started kicking the football around the ground (we were no match for the
kids. but we did manage to get our legs on the ball now and then) while
Vijitha was chatting with Katherine (Kat), Christina and Rachel.

Today Vijitha came up with a game called "Identify Jack the robber" (well at
least that's what i vaguely remember calling it, some of the kids were
reeling out similar names one after the other!!) wherein each person
(mentors included) picked up chits of paper where the following were
written:
(1) Police (2) Jack (3) Associate-1 (4) Associate-2....Associate-n (just
prepare as many chits as there are participants

The games starts off with everyone sittin in a 'round' circle (that was
Damu's phrase!!) facing each other. Then Police announces that he's the boss
while the others keep traps shut. Then Jack winks at each of his associates
without being spotted by Police. Then the associate declares "Received
Signal" (or something wacky) to let the others know that he's been contacted
by Jack, and then leaves the group. One by one the contacted associates
leave the group.
The fewer the associates that escape and sooner that Jack is caught in the
act of winking at his associates, the higher is the Police's score.

So whats next ??????

It was the very first - "Drona's Day out"!! We decided to meet up at 5pm at Gandhi beach!

Had a lovely evening filled with fun in the water, bajjis and fially ending the day at Dominos :D !

2011-03-05T22:53:00.000+05:30

Just as all children are not equally intelligent, all children are not equally creative. But just as all children exhibit behaviours which evidence intelligence from birth, they also exhibit behaviours which evidence the potential for creativity.
Creativity is essentially a form of problem-solving. But it is a special type of problem-solving--one that involves problems for which there are no easy answers
-anonymous

Now we know what creativity is all about .we just saw it today!Every mentor must have smiled Jwhen their mentees came up with mind-blowing ideas from the materials we gave(:news paper,colour charts,tapes,and colour pens).

Cheers!! The great minds are working!

From Laptops to ..flower vase..handbags...beach...apartment..airports...isnt it awesome!!!:)
All this came out of those little minds from just the little things we gave them..And we can be sure that our country is going to do well coz these little minds are already on work!
Proud to be a part of dne right!:) gr8 job!

Since the creative session went on and on we couldn’t make up with the learning cycle!It was Creativity at its best

Mentoring went on well..guess all had a nice time with kids.

RKM - 20th Feb 2011

2011-02-21T21:26:00.003+05:30

Picture perfect indeed! Rightly put by Yeshwanth..

It was rather sad that a few mentors and mentees missed out today’s session..The reason for the mentees was actually acceptable; They had to go receive awards somewhere..But Mentors??

Regardless….An ideal day yet again.. Proud of the way we are rolling..KUDOS DnE =) The Bench marks are being raised week and week again. It goes beyond mention how talented and surprising the kids are proving to be. Wooooo..Imagine 16 year olds cracking a solution to a Management activity.. Awesome uh ? An activity brought up yet again by our very own Madav. The activity was called “MAGIC TILES” where in the kids had to cross 20 people in their team using just 6 tiles in 10mins ONLY.. (Scenario: The place is on fire and they have to rely on the tiles to cross the length of the hall on.. The catch - avoid any part of your body touching the flaming ground!!!) All kinds of techniques and strategies were implemented and TADAAAAA all 20 got through even before 10mins..!

Mentoring was up next. Discussions were again on their exams. A few mentors personally provided hands on help with their subjects. In today’s case it was Math the following day. A few others helped them structure their study time. A few mentees were so engrossed interacting and working their hearts out with the mentors that even when we wanted to call it a day for them, they actually said they wanted to STAY..WOW! Yet another sign of how well Dronas are performing and connecting with the mentees.

Now now now.. LC.. This was when tensions heated up a little, a few confrontations, a few REALIZATIONS and a few ‘To-Do things’ were brought up after Parthiban and family had their creative-‘no video’ oriented LC on ‘CREATIVITY’. The session ended with mixed emotions( hopefully positive...Right Dronas??).

FINALLY.. ‘A BIG WELCOME TO OUR 4 NEW VOLUNTEERS’ WELCOME ABOARD. WE ARE GLAD AND THRILLED TO HAVE YOU IN! =) =)

RKM - 6th-Feb-2011 !

2011-02-09T19:40:00.001+05:30

An ideal session portraying what ‘DnE is actually all about’.

Sunday morning started off with pre-arrangements for the GA( Group Activity) brought up by a co-drona-MADAV. Which apparently came to us as a surprise with most of us thinking the activity would prove to be highly complicated for the levels of RKM’s 10^th graders. Surprise surprise..WE WERE WRONG! The kids stood up and completed the task in a highly impressive fashion than that was actually was expected of them. To be really honest, much wasn’t expected. Oh! Speaking of which, the activity was an adaptation from one of the HARWARD MANAGEMENT GAMES.

(Curious about the activity ? ---The link with activity details would be up shortly!)

A successful, exuberant and a very satisfactory GA was followed by ‘personal one on one mentoring sessions’. With board exams tingling every kid’s (well almost :P ) serious side it was agreed upon mutually by all mentors that the prime focus would be-EXAMS. Despite a cricket match being conducted in their ‘home’ forming a distraction at the back of the heads; one could easily be convinced by simply looking at the bright and focused eyes of the mentors and their mentees and evidently conclude as to how amazingly effective the session turned out to be. The Mentoring session ended a little earlier than usual (Courtesy-Cricket Matches x(Cricket does play a spoil sport many a times in our life.. P.S: Cricket lovers..NO OFFENCE!! :D )

Now came in the time to switch roles.. from being teachers/mentors/preachers…and what not ‘ers’ to being Learn'ers'. The mentors now gathered around for our weekly “LC (learning cycle)”.This week’s LC was co-ordinated by Uma and family. We were presented with an awe inspiring and ‘neuron tickling’ video (big word uh? :P..we at DnE believe in Making it BIG..lol). Getting serious, the video presented by Uma and Family was a TED talk by – Sugata Mitra(Educational Technician) on a concept he named ‘Hole in the wall’! And as usual our ‘Drona brains where put to work’. A discussion and a feedback session followed up. The session ended with a brainstorming session and also a little bit of thought clashes and misinterpretations….“AHEM”…. All in all, a very satisfactory and productive session.

Ooops.. did I miss out on the open house visitor from ‘MAD-Bhumi’ ? I, just like the others think he apparently would have had a very positive feed to give and left with a smile glued on. Especially considering the fact the amazing Drona’s who make DnE a Great place to be!