24 November, 2023

A warm welcome to all to the second semester of 23-24.

Some of us had a racing start to the new semester. The Navy Marathon on 19th Nov was a thrilling experience for all of us. Running needs so much mental energy rather than physical energy. Its comforting to run along side so many people, because you can feed on their support. It is a proud moment for our children who did 5 km.

Even though it was just two weeks, few kids seemed all grown up. For a few this is an age where only their limbs are growing, on a few you can trace their well forming jawlines. We  shared our stories of diwali. We discussed our time table and electives. We plan to have clubs this time, reading, chess and drama.

Sociocracy Circles

The IDEC attendees returned with the sociocracy bug and few older kids are gung-ho about implementing it here. We have started conducting our meetings in a sociocratic way. Earlier we used to discuss an agenda and vote for it. We didn’t put our best effort in understanding the minorities in depth or persuade them to give consent for at least giving the proposal a try, so onwards we will try. So we will see how it goes.

Elections

We have observed that mostly all the girls are in positions of power in LC. Yes its the other way round here. This semester we convinced the boys to take responsibilities of ministries. We have ministers for:

1. Parliament- who will run the judiciary meetings (in the most cordial way possible!?)
2. Resources- responsible for the upkeep of resources, making sure that they are replenished
3. Mediator- who will conduct the complaints circle everyday, be the "listener" and be the neutral party to resolve conflicts and find solutions.
4. Admin- responsible to mark the attendance online, announcing time at the beginning of activities/sessions, etc. Just making sure the everything runs on time.
5. Seva- responsible for making the seva chart, check if the sevas are being done properly, manage if there are absentees. Seva chart btw, is the biggest analytical/logical task, as you can't pair this friend with that friend in a room. Sometimes you want to put two of them together so that they can be teased, etc. Plus no one can be spared the toilet cleaning job. It almost seems like solving the Einstein's puzzle.

Restorative Justice

We discussed at length about restorative justice, but it is an uphill task. We would like to try a semester without any consequences. Largely kids are excited at the idea of not having to do any consequences. Seems like a dream come true! But facilitators have kept their fingers crossed.

Public Speaking

This session has started from 25 Nov and will be conducted on alternate saturdays. Interested parents and kids can contact us to know details about joining.

We have sent a google calendar to all, please integrate that with yours. We plan to keep updating this so that we are all in sync on what events are coming are way.

Reminder for those who haven’t deposited the fees, an instalment of Rs. 35,000 by the end of this month.

That's all for this week,

More later!