The New Year brings vibrations of positivity as well as togetherness. Millions, who otherwise skip connecting, send their wishes across boundaries and borders. What is so special about this thing called, NEW YEAR?
Before we try to understand the significance of turning not just a page of the calendar, let's dive deep into the words of a mystic- Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
WHY DID HE WRITE THIS ONE SENTENCE? Yes! This whole poem is a prayer with the fluency of expression concluding only at the occurrence of a Full-Stop at the end. Tagore envisioned a world or a country or even a home as something blissful. He gives us, not a utopian view of the word, but a possible thing we can actually accomplish only by EDUCATION. We, teachers and students (collectively called Leaners) can actually collaborate and communicate with each other to make a difference to the current perception of disturbance. The classrooms are failing what their actual purpose is.
We wish to present only one resolution here. Teachers and Students must come together to learn. Teachers to learn Teaching and Students to Learn How to Learn. We should stop, this year if possible, to preach WHAT TO LEARN. Rather, the focus must be on enabling the kids To LEARN. It would be a great accomplishment if we can teach them HOW to LEARN.
On more focus has to be corrected: Return of Reading! If we don't get back to books, we shall be far away from moving ahead. We don't talk to elders and mentors. The dialogues have ended and spending time in 'conference' is not a favourite pastime. Sir Francis Bacon said that we get a 'full' man through reading and a ready man through a conference. If we, teachers and students, both ensure that we READ as much as we can, there is a guarantee that our learning can become exact.
- Resolve to engage in dialogue with people around you.
- Roam in the Libraries and Meet the Books
- Read the Books that are known for their contents and message
- Enter into the classroom to listen and express, when needed
- Teachers must encourage students to FLIP the classroom (Flipped Classroom)
- As we have music playlists, make Reading Lists and complete the mini-bucket lists
- Take Notes and Share them to your Social Media so that people also get to know - 'YOU ARE READING!'
- Learn Quotations, Proverbs, and Idioms to have a good language to speak
- Don't Afraid to Cancel a Resolution if that does not work
- Collaborate to Complete the Tasks
- Motivate Each other
- Respect Those who Learn and Learn from them
Another one as a Happy Year Wish:
(Robert Herrick)
- Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
- Old Time is still a-flying;
- And this same flower that smiles today
- To-morrow will be dying.
- The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
- The higher he's a-getting,
- The sooner will his race be run,
- And nearer he's to setting.
- That age is best which is the first,
- When youth and blood are warmer;
- But being spent, the worse, and worst
- Times still succeed the former.
- Then be not coy, but use your time,
- And, while ye may, go marry:
- For having lost but once your prime,
- You may forever tarry.
Happy New Year!
