Reflection about my Training
“Listen to the experienced teachers
They have wisdom and patience”
Aparna and I had an internship programme with Mrs. Gloria, who is an experienced person in teaching and as well as in the coaching field. She approached us every time in a sweet manner with great patience and we had nearly 45 hours of training with her in executing as well as experiencing the different steps of the coaching processes like
As an efficient coach, Ms. Gloria taught us and also shadowed us in a systematic way in all her two rounds of visits.
While observing our classes she also wrote her personal feedback to correct our language and to follow few tips while teaching as well as dealing with the students of present generation. As a passion for teaching, she did not only limit herself to the teachers, but stepped into the classroom of 10th std. students to give exams tips to face the final papers with confidence.
The key points which I learnt from her are
- To listen more while paraphrasing
- To take more time to reflect what or how to give feedback
- Not to be judgmental and always start the conversation with “Do you think….?, Can you……?, Is that possible……..?”
Ms. Gloria’s gestures and facial expressions are a very good example for the coach to take it from her.
Personally I liked the techniques which she followed while training us.
She also shared few of her teaching experiences with us while having our lunch together. Though she was rich in teaching experience, she was like one among us to chat and to crack jokes with us in a friendly way.
BIG thanks to TTF for sending a wonderful person to take us through this internship.
Though we had 150 hours of training we really had a wonderful sessions in TTF, out bound sessions at “Ancient school of Wisdoms” and Internship at our school.
We had an effective interaction with all the facilitators who were with us with smiling, encouraging and guiding us to success in our training.
We were blessed to have very understanding 15 colleagues from 9 schools [Ranipet, Haveri and Bangalore]. Our collaboration extended to invite some of our friends who were part of our training, to visit our school and had a chance to share our mission with them in serving the under-privileged children.
Last day of our training we had an activity to write the qualities of us by our peer group. The lovely words were written by our friends are an evergreen memory for me to share in my portfolio.
I wish and pray to God the Almighty to practice all my learning in my teaching profession to be a sincere coach to the teachers who need my guidance.
“How wonderful to see others who try out our ways”
Feedback to Stella by Arokia Lissy
My name is Arockia Lissy J. I joined Shishu Mandir in November 2013.
As I was new to teaching profession, I got an opportunity to observe the classes of my seniors. During my training period I had an opportunity to attend Stella Madam’s class when she was teaching a chapter in English. Her way of teaching inspired me to strive to become an efficient teacher.
I had a very good opportunity to be with Stella Madam, as we both were a part of the training for the Lego Competition. Her innovative ideas and the way she handles the children has given a boost to me. One good thing I learned in the journey of Lego competition is the determination she has towards whatever work she takes up. It was a great experience and a good opportunity for me to be associated with Stella Madam
On Feb 20th 2015,When I got the feedback for my lesson plan for the topic “Day and Night” she made me to think about the topic in an interesting way which helped me to write a good lesson plan through joint planning.
On Feb 28th 2015, I had the opportunity to take a class where Stella Madam and Ms. Gloria observed and gave the feedback in a positive way. She also appreciated me for the activities I conducted during my lesson.
As she is a good observer, she specified about a child in one of my classes who was not concentrating and she brought to my notice in a positive way which will help me in future to have attention towards all the students in my class.
I would like to thank Stella Madam for being a good guide, and a mentor in my teaching profession.
FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK
The Valuable 13 years in Shishu Mandir
Stella joined the school in the year 2002 as a Preparatory class teacher, but was asked to teach the junior classes as there was a requirement to do so.
Usually the preparatory teachers are trained in our school to teach the English language in the phonetic manner and then they are placed in the junior classes. Stella accepted the challenges and learnt the phonetic way of teaching English to the junior class students.
We believe in the teaching and reaching out to our students in the best method, therefore it is a must that all the teachers in the junior classes write and pronounce the letters in the same manner. Stella meticulously follows it and is always in search of new books which will help the children learn and understand the language easily. She is dedicated and multi-tasking teacher. When Hippocampus, an organization, with the aim of developing reading habits among students approached our school, Stella volunteered herself to be trained as a librarian. Not only did she win an award for the best librarian of the year 2009, but the number of books in the library has grown from a mere two hundred books to twenty three thousand in 13 years. Generally library is a place which strictly follows silence, but Stella’s library classes are buzzing with activities. Not only her students read the books, but she has also inculcated the habit of reading books to their siblings.
As Stella is eager to learn new methods, she always shares her class experiences with her colleagues and asks for their feedback too. When she realized that the book based activity sheets in her library classes developed an interest in reading amongst her students she suggested the other language teachers to do so. The Kannada and the Hindi teachers prepared worksheets and did help in generating an interest in learning these languages. Thought she is now teaching English in the middle and high school, she has trained three teachers in the functioning of the library. This year Stella was asked to teach, Social Science for the 10th standard and she willingly accepted it.
Stella was one among the few teachers who were sent to participate in TAFET competition by the school management. After various rounds of the competition
Stella, name appeared in the list of teachers who won the Best Teachers Award. Due to her dedication in teaching Stella was sent to a training “Coaching for School Success”.
Stella is a mother to her class children. As our students come from the economically backward streets of the society and disturbed families, she is always there to listen to their problems faced by the students at home. Her closeness is not with her class children, but with all the children in the school. Her aim is that not a single student of her class fails, so she keeps a track of her weak students. Like a parent she discusses with the subject, teaches their weakness and helps them. The students enjoy her teaching and her classes are interactive and have a variety, other than teaching she always comes out with novel ideas to entertain the children on the Children’s Day.
Whenever a new teacher joins the school, Stella welcomes them to observe her classes and guides them. Though every school has a fixed number of days or working hours, but Stella doesn't limit for it. She is always available in times of need.
Since two years our children are participating in the FLL [First Lego League] competition. The opportunity was provided by the Caterpillar Company. In order to see that our children utilize this opportunity to the fullest, Stella stayed with our children late hours, after the school to guide them and was a strong support to reach the national level held at Delhi. We are blessed to have her as a teacher in our school.
I thank her to be the part of the Shishu Mandir family and wish her all the best.
Rani Tandon
(Principal)
Gratitude
Gratitude is the memory from the Heart
It’s my pleasure to be grateful to TTF, Maitri Trust and Shishu Mandir for giving me the opportunity to participate in the training of‘Coaching for School Success.’
My heartfelt thanks to
· Our Founder, Mrs. Hella Mundhra, for giving me an opportunity to serve in Shishu Mandir. As an evergreen memory in my life, she gave an opportunity to visit Germany and gave the exposures to visit schools in Germany.
· Our Director, Mr. Anand, as a guiding light who recognized me to undergo this training programme.
· Mrs. Rani Tandon, our Principal, who wrote about my experiences in Shishu Mandir.
· Mrs. Nirmala Meena Kumari, our Vice-Principal, who edited my portfolio and helped me to present in a systematic way.
· Ms. Maya Menon and her team of facilitators along with the Maitri Trust Sponsors in offering me this opportunity to be a coach in my teaching profession.
· Ms. Gloria Calebs who trained me in the internship programme and moulded me to be an effective coach.
· Mr. Sojo Varghese who helped us to create the blogger for all the trainers and guided us to create an e-portfolio.
· Mrs. Aravinda who is the author of ‘My Shishu’ and she interviewed me and wrote about me in the year 2012 which helped me to revisit the article and add in my biography.
· Hippocampus Reading Foundation for recognizing me as an ‘Ace Librarian’.
· Mr. Mark who works in the Shishu Community College willingly accepted my request to type the contents of my e-portfolio.
· Mr. Bosco, our Social Science teacher, helped me to create PPT about the KWL sheets.
· Ms. Savitha, our school secretary, who informed me whenever I received an e-mail from TTF.
· Mr. Swami, our school manager, who organized the vehicles and the drivers Mr. Sunil and Mr. Muniswamy to attend our training on time.
· Humrutha who shared her views about me, when I asked her to write a few lines. It was a surprise that she was able to remember her childhood experiences with me and mentioned about those incidents which really touched me.
· Ms. Lissy, our computer teacher, who sacrificed her time to spend late hours with me to complete our project in an efficient way.
· Ms. Aparna who was the part of this coaching journey supported in giving ideas, planning each and every step to boast me throughout this training.
· Finally to my family members who supported me to complete my training in attending all the sessions sometimes away from the family during the out bound sessions
