The basic philosophy of education at Atmiya Vidya Mandir is to develop the innate critical and creative thinking capabilities of children. All the children are born with a unique talent. The child should be given his own space to explore, adapt and flourish through learning and experiencing variety of things. Teaching at Atmiya Vidya Mandir is aimed at holistic development of a child; we truly believe that creativity is not an inherent skill or only for those with a talent for it; it could be successfully taught to and used by people of any age, walk of life or cultural background.
We need to start looking at our children 10 years from now and help them develop skills that they can use then. We provide resources, recognition, and ample of opportunities to our students, their parents and teachers for the development of the students’ optimal educational potential. We empower the teachers and learners with a new set of skills to read critically, think and reason logically and solve complex problems. We provide the children hands on experience through well equipped math lab, science labs and computer labs. We also have resourceful language and social science labs. We also organize frequent competitions like debates, quizzes etc school wide. To validate from a third party that has done extensive research in the field of education and to know if the school is on the right track developing skills, encouraging thinking, questioning, analysis and higher order thinking, we also encourage our students to participate in national competitions like Spelling Bee, ASSET, International Olympiad etc. Our efforts have also have been recognized by ASSET and are featured in their 2010 brochure which is attached with this post. Thus the students of Atmiya Vidya Mandir are thus exposed to a larger environment and assess their abilities in relation to their counterparts in other places of the world.
It is being proclaimed on the Indian Government website of Department of Science and Technology that today India is one of the top ranking countries in the competitive economy especially in the field of research. However it is said on the same website that we need to embark on some major science projects which have relevance of national needs and which will also be relevant for tomorrow’s technology.
This means we will need a few more Nandan Nilekani’s in India, who currently is the Chairman of the Identification Authority of India. On his blog and in his book, he describes that this project will give each Indian a unique identification number which in turn will enable direct benefits, and fixing weak public delivery systems, giving the poor access to better healthcare, education and welfare safety nets.
One of the leading Scientists of India, Padmashree and Padmabhushan awardee Dr Raghunath Mashelkar while talking to school children at a reputed school in Mumbai highlighted top five attributes of success:
1. Believe in yourself.
2. When you fail, do not go into depression and when you succeed you keep your feet firmly rooted to the ground.
3. There is no substitute to hard work.
4. Positivism, it matters more in the case of leadership. That way you can get extraordinary work done from ordinary people. There is an extraordinary spark in every individual and you should know how to tap it.
5. Believe in teamwork. Individuals can achieve little what a team can. You therefore should build effective teams and guide them to success.
He also said that the gap between academics and industry in India is quite high. What does industry do? It converts knowledge into money and academia converts money into knowledge. Every evolving society needs to strike a balance between these two and the balance will make the society richer in terms of both money and knowledge. In the western countries we find no gap between academic scientific research and industry and therefore we see how advanced they are in terms of knowledge and both application of science.
So what children in 21st century need is more than academics and the top attributes as highlighted by Dr Mashelkar believe in oneself, Leadership, Positive Attitude, Teamwork and Team Building.
The teachers, staff and management of Atmiya Vidya Mandir are aware of these current societal needs and have been imparting these values in children since the inception of our school and thus empowering the leaders of tomorrow, today.
Parents
and guests started pouring in right from the early afternoon and
marveled at a small exhibition of various projects and models
displaying the creativity and talent of students and teachers. As the
evening drew nearer, the vicinity of Atmiya Vidya Mandir echoed with
rhythm and melodious music witnessing the magnificent event – “Atmiya
Parichay” on 26th December 2009. The event was graced by the auspicious
presence of H.D.H. Hariprasad Swamiji. It was celebrated with great
pomp and fervor. Around 4000 people including parents along with
important dignitaries were present in the event.
The
formal inauguration of the event began by offering garlands to Shri
Thakorji and P. P. Swamiji as a mark of reverence followed by the
school tradition of offering the school prayer “Oh Lord! Hold my hand…”
which was presented by the choir group (Grades 1st to 5th) to invoke
the Gods to bless all and to make the event successful. After this, a
GuruBhakti song led by Somnath Sir along with the choir team (Grades
6th to 10th) was presented to offer their obeisance to all our Gurus.
Brilliance
was bound to come out of Atmiya Vidya Mandir’s pupils as two students,
Niramay Mehta (Grade 1st) and Tarak Trivedi (Grade 2nd) left the
audience spellbound by their wonderful and courageous style of
anchoring. In the later part of the program, students from different
standards came forward to anchor the different items of the program.
Thus, the anchoring was completely taken up by some confident, fluent
and brilliant speeches by students.
Tanmay
Patel from Grade 7th and Sahishnu Patel from Grade 9th shared with the
audience their experience about Atmiya Vidya Mandir in their own words.
In their short but effective speech, they had uncovered a few important
aspects of teaching learning process, role of teachers in student’s
life and school culture at Atmiya Vidya Mandir.
The
next item was dance presented on a patriotic song “Zameen Zameen”
performed by students from Grades 6th to 9th and choreographed by
Suhradam Sir. The theme of this dance was chosen so as to instill in
the young minds a feeling of patriotism and to convey a message to the
audience to spread peace and harmony in the society. The dance was well
synchronized with a video displayed on a huge cinema style screen on
the stage.
This
was followed by a thought-provoking speech by Prajval Sir, who was
representing the devotional and dedicated staff from U.K and U.S
deputed by P.P Swamiji to contribute as an instrument to fulfill His
dream to prepare the individuals who are socially, morally and
culturally strong. He unfolded the multi-dimensional progress in the
teaching- learning field and the contribution of technology which is
evidently a part of Atmiya Vidya Mandir’s teaching style. He concluded
that the aim of this institution was to prepare students to help become
“Global citizens with an Indian heart”.
The
next item was a play titled “Atmiya Shilpi” presented by students from
1st to 5th Grades and organized by Saumya Madam and Nirali Madam. The
theme of the play was to underpin the importance of undergoing pains
and hardship in our life. Also, the drama portrayed in a simple manner
the importance of parents and teachers in the life of students by
giving the example of a gardener who trims the plant for its proper and
symmetrical growth. Just as gold glitters more after burning, the same
is the case with human beings. The more they bear, the stronger they
grow. Besides, the play conveyed the message to the students that it
was equally important to give authority to parents and teachers to
mould them. The play was so touching and heart rendering, it won the
applause of all those who witnessed it.
Mr.
Yogesh Raval, Principal, Atmiya Vidya Mandir left the audience
mesmerized by his inspiring speech. He emphasized on the following
points:
1.Swamiji’s
vision for students of Atmiya Vidya Mandir that wherever they will be
in the future, they shall always remain loyal to their parents, the
society and the nation.
2.Swamiji’s untiring and awe-inspiring efforts and personal involvement for the all round development of each and every child
3.Channelizing the energy through the medium of education.
4.Importance of the involvement of parents in this all round development of the students.
He
also focused on value based education and positive thinking and
conveyed that a little inspiration could make a lot of difference in a
student’s life. He shared his thoughts that it is a moral obligation of
any institution to help mould good citizens of the world and about the
humble efforts of Atmiya Vidya Mandir to provide the right nurturing
and quality education to the students.
Then
it was time for the final and much awaited event of the day of getting
blessings from P.P. Swamiji. He appealed to the people to maintain a
positive approach towards others. His love and care for the students
was quite evident in his insistence for them to be regular, sincere and
hardworking.
This
event also marked a step further in the direction of stage setup and
decoration. Our teachers used multi-rear projection technology to
create a digital backdrop to project on a 40x15 feet wide screen which
made the program even more presentable.
The
event concluded with a sumptuous dinner served to everyone on the
campus. Many witnessed tears of joy on the faces of parents and guests
and many were still in awe having seen the young wonders of Atmiya
Vidya Mandir handle the entire event with such confidence and
naturality.
