Shikshak Prabodhini

SHIKSHAK PRABODHINI is a mentoring project for secondary school teachers started about 2 & half years back. The main aim was to empower the teachers with skills of identifying students with talents in any area and imparting skills of nurturing these talents at the school level. The project began by visiting schools in & around Thane. The school identified their motivated teachers with the interest and skills for the project. The teachers were then asked to fill up a comprehensive questionnaire tapping varied areas necessary in a mentor. The shortlisted teachers were invited for an informal meeting with senior psychologist & psychiatrist. T he selected teachers were then given intensive inputs on various topics like self-development, rational thinking principles, handling emotions, communication, goal-setting etc to name a few. Interactive sessions, role-plays, demonstrations, lectures, power point presentations etc. were used in imparting the information. Marathi and English medium schools are a part of this project. Initial input sessions have been completed; revision sessions for the teachers are going on.

Since the project works at three levels i.e. teachers, students and parents. Intensive inputs with the students in the form of summer and Sunday workshops with guest faculties, one-one interactive sessions with the co-coordinators in schools, summit meetings (PARENTS, TEACHERS AND STUDENTS) are undertaken. Similarly parenting workshops for enhancing their skills of handling their child is also conducted. Presently more than a 100 students are a part of this project. The teachers' feedback show a marked improvement in themselves and their work with children .The project seeks to continue its one to one intervention with teachers and children. Being a funded project by the mundane trust the teachers are trained with all these inputs without any remuneration. Students with talents in different areas like singing, dancing, creative writing, sports, drawing, elocution, acting and many more are identified by the teachers and school level intervention to nurture and enhance their talents is underway.