15 Oct 2021,

Dear Parents,

Happy Dussehra to all of you! The day when Good wins over Evil. Haven’t we been celebrating these festivals for centuries, at this rate we should have been completely drained of all evils from the society. It is something to wonder about, isn’t it? Maybe let us ponder over it at another time. 

Let us see what happened this week...

The Entrepreneurship Stunt

Task was to put into practice everything they learnt this semester. Money, banks, loans, interest, business plans, projections, etc. These are big words and carry no meaning if not experienced in real life. We tried to make some fictitious business plans and discuss the implications of it but the kids were not so enthused. Hence the idea of a stall where they will put all these concepts to test. So they each had to make a business plan for their Nimbu Pani Stall...arrive at an estimate, figure out things required for the set up, write an application for the loan from the Bank (which was me). They also had to make posters and marketing materials and think of slogans for attracting customers. They were split into two groups. Both the groups did really well, they also took some money home as profit share. And I also got my money back…:) So it was a success!

Now my confession: I pushed them hard for doing this project, I bothered them over the weekend to make the business plan, I was strict, I told them they were doing shoddy work and I won’t accept it. All of a sudden I had expectations. I didn’t leave them at their pace. I lectured them about quality. This is not how I usually conduct my sessions, none of the facilitators do like this. I reflected and figured there were two things going on in my mind: First of all I feared their failure in front of public, which is outside LC. And then I became protective of them. Secondly, I really wanted them to succeed, experience it and feel that euphoria. If they taste success then they will not be slackers, I thought. Especially the boys in the group. They really need to work in the kitchen and so some work. Anyhow, next time I better be hands-off or else self-directed philosophy will go out of the window…:)

कर के सिखो

We did many different things this time. We made a game called steady hands, stop and go animation and pendulum curves. Steady hands is a game with an entwined wire circuit attached to a buzzer, now with the help of another wire that's made into a loop, we need to carefully maneuver and pass it along the first wire without touching it. I know it's complicated to understand, we will send pictures of all of these.

Writing reviews

Kids have filled up the form for facilitator reviews and self assessment. Some of them have very diligently filled, like the same form almost four times. A few have been finding this whole exercise very tiresome and boring. But we have got everyone’s feedback. We have sent you the following to your email addresses: Child’s review and self assessment forms. Please go through it before we meet next week.

Let’s समझते है

The preparation for the event is going on. But there is chaos, the main characters for the drama have made an exit and joined a dance group. We have no idea who is doing what, it looks like a perfect recipe for a fiasco right now. We are maintaining our cool. Let’s wait and watch.

Looking forward to meeting all of you next week. Please arrive on time and be prepared for the goal setting meeting.