Workshops

A Middle School Workshop took up issues affecting the young adolescent, like reward and punishment, peer pressure, emerging sexuality, crystallization of the self, the influence of the media, and a host of related issues. Generally the junior school and the senior school receive more attention and the middle school, comprising classes VI to VIII, tends to get overlooked. However, the child is then passing through a very crucial formative period in her/his life. The workshop made the teachers aware of these aspects in their own life and the need to clarify their own understanding of these issues.

Two experienced teachers visited Rajghat to conduct a Social Science Workshop. The workshop explored innovative ways of teaching geography and environmental science. Two topics, “The Way of Life in Natural Regions” and “Natural Hazards”, were taken up for extensive study. The participants were exposed to the teaching of social sciences in an innovative manner with the help of activities and experiments.

The art teachers participated in The Sculpture Symposium, an international workshop organized jointly by the Marble Association of Colorado and the Valley School, KFI. It was held at the Valley School, Bangalore, and artists from around twelve countries participated.

Work Groups/Clubs

Cooking for around five hundred people four times a day is not easy. Providing nutritious food to everyone’s taste is almost impossible. To assist the kitchen in this difficult job, Annapurna undertook an experiment by which groups of about sixteen students and staff were served differently cooked food for a week. The kitchen experimented with cooking with less oil, little seasoning and masalas and a menu with salads, fruit juices and a variety of vegetables.

The Sangam Group was formed this year to increase the interaction of the students with local children less fortunate than themselves. Teachers and students held story-telling, reading and drawing sessions. The members also collected and distributed warm clothes and shoes for these children. A class on nutritious cooking was also conducted for the female support staff.

The Eco Club focused on the maintaining of cleanliness on the campus. Proper disposal of waste materials and preventing the wastage of water and electricity were subjects taken up. The club members tried to educate the children and the hostel attendants on the proper usage of limited resources. They also watched a number of educative videos on related topics.

Vision: Exposed as they are to mindless, commercial Hindi movies, educating the children on good movies is not an easy task. Vision provides quality entertainment through the screening of select movies. Vision also facilitates the proper reading of a movie, like identifying stereotypes, issues, filming techniques, etc. A synopsis of the movie is made available before the screening of the movie.

The Math Club and Creative Writing also held fun and educational events.

Special Assemblies

Once a week, one-hour assemblies were held where different speakers shared their views on such issues as the Pressure of Academics; Food; Tournaments; the Bhopal Gas Tragedy; and so on.

KFI Annual Gathering

In the first week of November, the KFI Annual Gathering was held at Rajghat, with the theme “Violence Within and Violence Without”. It was well attended, with people coming from different parts of the country. Interestingly, some senior students volunteered to be part of this event. They not only helped to organize it but also participated actively in it.