“Magic hai to mumkin hai”-Really

“Magic hai to mumkin hai”-By Dr Swaroop Rawal

The recent spate of suicide by children in Mumbai has got everyone worried. Mumbai has recorded 8 in the past week, mainly in the under-20 age group. Psychiatrics suggest that children as young as 5-6 test as clinically depressed. That is really distressing. A survey done in 1999-2000 by an Indo-USA team interviewed 2,273 college students in Mumbai and found that nearly 24 % suffered from various degrees of depression.
Mental heath professionals suggest that – “ Nip depression in the bud ”. Below are some points put forward to protect children from suicide. They are

Individual factors

·         High emotional intelligence

·         Good Problem-solving and coping skills

·         High Self-esteem

·         High personal control

Family Factors

·         Positive family relationships

·         Good parent supervision

·         High level of family cohesion and support

·         Strong parental disapproval of antisocial behavior.

Community Factors

·         Positive connections in school

·         Good presence of supportive peers

·         Good school attendance

·         Frequent  extra-curricular activities

·         Strong involvement in faith community

·         Availability of counselors in schools

·         Safe neighborhood.

  Source- Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly (Children’s Health Policy Centre, Simon Fraser University 

All of us who are involved in the – ‘Making-magic in Gujarat’ project which deals with ‘Enhancing Life-Skills in Children using Drama’ will observe that there are so many points that are common between our project and the points raised above.

I believe the most important features that contribute in enhancing the mental health capacity are the individual factors that are high emotional intelligence, good problem-solving and coping skills, high self-esteem, high personal control. All these are inculcate in our programme. They are :

·         Emotional competence :

o      Emotional understanding

o      Emotional perception

o      Emotional facilitation of thought.

o      Emotional management

·         Awareness of self :

o      in areas of self-expression, self-acceptance and acceptance of others.

o      Awareness of his/her worth, which encourages them to develop a strong sense of themselves as capable persons and that their ideas are valuable. Thus leading to a gain in self-esteem and self-confidence.

·         Ability to empathise with others.

·         Creativity and creative thinking.

·         Communication skills.

Then the school environment and support come next. School is actually classified with community but I have separated school as a separate category because if children get even a touch of help from school and importantly their school teachers their mental health can be resuscitated. Moreover, usually school and what we call education in today’s India is the cause of stress in our children’s lives. This category has positive connections in school, good presence of supportive peers, good school attendance, frequent extra-curricular activities, and availability of counselors in schools. Yet again there are commonalties – through this program the teacher makes learning an enjoyable experience for their pupils. Thus not only enhance motivation to learn but additionally enhancing the children’s self-esteem.

When children enjoy whatever they are doing, they are going through what Csikszentmihalyi (1990) calls a ‘flow experience’. A flow experience is an experiential state that distinguishes an enjoyable moment from the rest of life. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) suggests that the feeling is like being carried away by a current, like being in a flow. A teacher who understands the conditions that make children want to learn is in a position to turn classroom activities into flow experiences. Through this programme children learn to work together in a group and this in turn improves their relationship with each other and their teacher’s.

Below is a table which suggests the change brought about by enhancing life-skills for approximately 2 years.

Expected Outcomes with reference to Time Line

	Year 1(level 1)	Year 2 (level 2)
Understanding and Coping with        emotions	To understand that there is a range of emotions and the expressions of different emotions To become aware different people may experience different emotions in response to the same situation	Understanding how they affect the way we behave. To better understand how others’ words and action can influence our emotions and how ours affect others
Self -awareness	Learning about me as a special person	Self control
Communication	Basic verbal and non-verbal communication skills	Assertive communication in the face of peer pressure
Empathy	Understanding how people are alike and how we differ. Learning to appreciate the differences between people (also falls in self awareness skills)	Avoiding prejudices and discrimination of people who differ (also falls in self awareness skills)
Creative Thinking	Developing the capacity to think creatively	Generating new ideas about things that are taken for granted
	Year 1(level 1)	Year 2 (level 2)
Interpersonal relationship skills	Learning to value relationships with friends and family	Forming relationships and surviving the loss of friendships
Decision making	Learning basic steps of decision-making
Coping with stress	Identifying the sources of stress	Methods of coping in stressful situations
Problem solving	Learning basic steps of problem solving
Critical thinking	Learning basic steps of critical thinking

 

Importantly, I believe that an agenda in augmenting the mental heath in children should be concerned not only with the prevention of emotional and psychosocial problems but should also be focussed at management and enhancing pro-social behaviour. That is exactly what our programme is doing.

Warm up activity before Life skill Class

How Do You Feel?

Objective: warm-up ice-breaker, learn about emotions, improve emotional lexicon, enhancing peer understanding

Description: (5 minutes) this ice-breaker can be used as a ritual/repeating activity at the start of every class or life skills session to help children express their emotions.

Students stand in a circle and one-by-one reveal how they feel…..in one word at that very moment.

It is important to establish consistency and have a regular activity, this enables the students to get familiar with the activity and in turn become successful at doing it.

This also gives the teacher an idea of what to expect from the student’s behaviour/ attitude in class that day.

Try it - Feeling Faces

Feeling Faces

Objective: learn about emotions, improve emotional lexicon, enhancing teacher-student understanding
Equipment: pictures of children and adults showing different emotions

Description: Each week choose a different feeling (happy, angry, sad, excited, calm) to focus on for that week.

Have children look at pictures of children and adults in different situations related to the focus feeling.

Show children how to identify feelings related to different facial expressions:

1. Describe the situation in the photograph,
2. Ask the children what they think the child in the photograph is feeling,
3. Ask children if they have ever felt like that and what was the situation that made them feel happy, angry, sad, and so on.
4. Ask them to make statues depicting the focus emotion.
5. Remind children that all feelings are okay, but not all behaviours are okay. For example, it is okay to feel angry when someone snatches a toy from you, but it is not okay to hit the person who grabbed your toy.

Dear December!!

Here I'm trying to give some points from the second stage of "Life skill through drama"

December,2009, Kelanpur, near Vadodara

Day-1

• General session

In the class room

• Review and reflections experienced by trainees.(Sharing with diary)
• Revision(Walking games-Pass the emotion-three steps-30minutes)
• Group mimes

1. Guided emotions (Teacher will give the names of emotions)

2. Group choice (Emotions will selected by trainees.)

3. Guess the emotion (The groups will perform the mimes. Others will guess the emotions)

4. Double emotions (Have mixed feelings at one time.)

Day-2

·         Game –Do you like me?

·         Group mime-

·         Hide the Emotion.

·         Change the emotion(The emotion will change in same situation)

·         Game-My name is__________. and show an emotion.

·         Circle story with emotion

·         Activity- Speak a sentence with differ emotion on your face.

·         Discuss- Different people- Different emotion (The Teacher will tell one situation and the trainees will tell “What do they feel at that situation?)

·         Emotions chart.

http://nvndsr.blogspot.com     (A primary School’s Blog)

Give me some sun shine

have you heard dat song? from "three idiots"
yes we are doing d same thing in second phase of life skill through drama workshop.
at first we got sun shine, rain , and new way to work.
now we are trying to give another chance to ourself to spread it.

and we are damn sure dat we will get success

now magic is going to spread in other parts of gujarat

hi friends,
for your kind information we have started second phase of life skill
programme. it is held in vadodara district.

"28 and 29th november 2009" it was first workshop of second phase.

here are the points that we have discussed.
-drama in education
-reflaction
- diary writing
-emotions
-statue
-three step statue
-face to face talk
-10 life skills
-10 quetions of emotions
GAMES WE PLAYED ARE..........
-walk walk "phisical feelings"
-walk walk "emotional feelings"
-pass the emotion
-guess the emotion.

keep visiting a blog for more information

News

Swaroop Sampat's kidding around

Tuesday, February 03, 2009 06:23 [IST]

Mumbai: Actress Swaroop Sampat (wife of Paresh Rawal) recently met up with Kirit Joshi, the educational advisor to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi to discuss concrete plans for setting up a Bal University in the state aimed at boosting educational facilities for children from low income groups. Joshi was originally an educational advisor to Indira Gandhi and was one of the main think-tanks behind the setting up of IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University).

"I'm trying to do my level best in whatever can be done to improve the children's educational structure. I couldn't have done it without the support of my kids and Paresh. Every 15 days I have to go to Gujarat and my family has been encouraging metremendously. That's very motivational especially when a woman is not bringing any money into the household through her work," Swaroop says.

She adds: "I was asked by Narendra Modi to work in his state and I'm happy that I can see progress. It will be very beneficial for many children who really need basic education. Gujarat will grow because children will be better educated."

Swaroop recently spent 10 days in Gujarat to spearhead a residential camp for 25 children belonging to backward classes. She says the project was aimed at educating these children about Mahatma Gandhi's principle of self-sustenance.

"These 25 kids were between the 3rd and the 7th standards. We had a camp in Sagra with five teachers and me and we taught them the Gandhian principle of doing one's own work. We had classes, played games with them, hosted dramas, etc. It was a training ground for these teachers too because they will teach others and their numbers will swell," she ends up saying.

News and information

By Dr Swaroop Rawal

Making-Magic in Gujarat
( MIG 2008-09)

Our mission statement:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

-Barack Obama


Phase 1:

Teacher training is almost completed and will be completed in the last week of March 2009. We started in Sept 2008.

Subjects covered:

1. Learning about Drama-in-Education- drama has the power to transform human behaviour. Drama in education is a learning medium and were mainly concerned in how drama as an art form could be utilized by educators to explore important issues, events and relationships

2. Learning life-skills: emphasizing education concerning life skills or psychosocial abilities that help people think, feel, act and interact as individuals and as participating members of society. Life skills education is a way to make children resilient, so they can confront the problems they face in life with strength.

• Emotional Understanding,
• Empathy,
• Understanding Self ,
• Communication Skills
• Creative Thinking

The above mentioned skills were dealt with in details. More complex skills like Critical thinking, Decision-making, Problem solving will be covered but not in details as they are skills for older children. Consider this course is especially designed for teachers of Std 1-7.

Coping with stress and anger are covered purely by the method we are working and teaching in. However, theory was dealt with to.

3. Learning Disabilities.

4. Reflective Practice- Reflection was a way to ascertain that both the process and the learning objectives could be clarified and evaluated by the teacher and the students in order to deepen the experience created during the drama lesson.

Reflection is the most important element in action research is reflection; it lies at the core of action research

5. Action Research (AR) as a Teacher-research Methodology ? The philosophy followed - ?Built into action research is the proviso that, if as a teacher I am dissatisfied with what is already going on, I will have the confidence and resolution to attempt to change it. I will not be content with the status quo...? & ?action research presents an opportunity for teachers to become uniquely involved in their own practice?

6. The teachers are presently following an AR project; collecting data while teaching and will be writing a paper each.

7. Completed a 10 day residential drama camp co-organized by the Rajpur School. 25 children from 3 villages and 5 teachers participated.

8. We are presently in the process of completing the teacher-training manual for future classes to be used in Phase2 and so on.

9. We manage a blog on which we post study material and interesting news concerning our work. mig2008.blogspot.com

10. Conducted a Introductory Session on Understanding Learning Difficulty for Senior Secondary students of TY level through Video Conference.

11. Planning of Phase 2- In the next academic year 2009-10 the present teachers (hence forth referred to as T-T) will be trained on how to facilitate the next group of teachers. This will be done in approx 7-8 sessions.

As planned we have request the GCERT to allot 90 newly inducted teachers who will participate from the following districts:

1. Baraoda district.

2. Baroda Co-operation

3. Bharuch

4. Panchmahal

5. Aanand

The teachers from the above mentioned districts will participate in the weekend training session and return home in the evening ( as in it will not be a residential training session).

An additional 40 teachers will be chosen from the remaining 20 districts of Gujarat. For these teachers the training session will be a two day residential one.

This program will follow the methods of Phase 1.

At present we have17 trained teachers and by Phase 2 we should have approximately 52 trained teachers. At the same time the training of the T-T (teachers in Phase 1) will continue. In Phase 2 we shall meet every month to review work done by them in their classes and the work done in training sessions. This will ensure that the programme does not go astray.



12. This programme will begin Phase 3 in April 2010. In Phase 3 ALL the 26 districts of Gujarat are the target. Phase 3 will begin with an Introductory Session via Video conference following which every 3 months new teaching sessions will be held. A team of 5 teacher-trainers + Dr. Swaroop Rawal ( as the chief facilitator) will address the 26 districts simultaneously. The TT from phase 1 and 2 will be on the spot in the districts and will supervise the class from there.

Posted By Dear Swaroop

This story is posted by

Dr Swaroop Rawal (Dr=Dear)

And I post here to share with all of you-Our known and unknown FRIENDS


One day, when I was a freshman in high school,
I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school.
His name was Kyle.
It looked like he was carrying all of his books.
I thought to myself, 'Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday?
He must really be a nerd.'
I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.
As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him.
They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt.
His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him...
He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes
My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw a tear in his eye.
As I handed him his glasses, I said, 'Those guys are jerks.'
They really should get lives.’

He looked at me and said, 'Hey thanks!'
There was a big smile on his face.
It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.

I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived.
As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before...






He said he had gone to private school before now.
I would have never hung out with a private school kid before.
We talked all the way home, and I carried some of his books.
He turned out to be a pretty cool kid.
I asked him if he wanted to play a little football
with my friends

He said yes.
We hung out all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my friends thought the same of him.


Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again.

I stopped him and said, 'Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!

'He just laughed and handed me half the books...
Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends..
When we were seniors we began to think about college.
Kyle decided on Georgetown and I was going to Duke.
I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never
be a problem.
He was going to be a doctor and I was going for business on a football scholarship...
Kyle was valedictorian of our class.
I teased him all the time about being a nerd.
He had to prepare a speech for graduation.
I was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and speak
Graduation day, I saw Kyle.
He looked great.



He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school.
He filled out and actually looked good in glasses.
He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him.
Boy, sometimes I was jealous!
Today was one of those days.
I could see that he was nervous about his speech.
So, I smacked him on the back and said, 'Hey, big guy, you'll be great!' He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled.
' Thanks,' he said.
As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and began

'Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years.
Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach...but mostly your friends....
I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them..
I am going to tell you a story..'

I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the
first day we met.
He had planned to kill himself over the weekend..
He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn't have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home.
He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile.
'Thankfully, I was saved.
My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable..'
I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment.
I saw his Mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile.
Not until that moment did I realize it's depth.
Never underestimate the power of your actions..
With one small gesture you can change a person's life.
For better or for worse.



God puts us all in each others lives to impact one another in some way.

Look for God in others.
You now have two choices, you can : 0A

1) Pass this on to your friends or

2) Delete it and act like it didn't touch your heart.
As you can see, I took choice number 1.

'Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly..'



There is no beginning or end.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.