Things Change

For most people, graduation is an exciting day - the culmination of years of hard work. My graduation day... was not.

I remember that weekend two years ago. Family and friends had flown in from across the country to watch our class walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy turn from bad to worse my senior year. We graduates had degrees, but very limited prospects. Numerous applications had not panned out and I knew that the next day, when my lease ended, I would no longer have a place to call home.

The weeks ahead weren't easy. I gathered up everything I couldn't carry and put it into storage. Then, because I knew my small university town couldn't offer me any opportunities, I packed up my car and drove to Southern California to find work. But what I thought would take a week dragged into two, and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself in the exact same spot as I was before. And the due date to begin paying back my student loans was creeping ever closer.

You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just consumed with dread? Dread about something you can't control - that sense of impending failure that lingers over you as you hope that everything that happened to you thus far was just a bad dream? That feeling became a constant in my life.

Days felt like weeks, weeks like months, and those many months felt like an unending eternity of destitution. And the most frustrating part was no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't seem to make any progress.

So what did I do to maintain my sanity? I wrote. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer - a little brighter. Something about writing gave me hope. And if you want something badly enough... sometimes a little hope is all you need!

I channeled my frustration into a children's book. Beyond the River was the story of an unlikely hero featuring a little fish who simply refused to give up on his dream.

And then one day, without any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world - just a lot of hard work and perseverance - I was offered a publishing contract for my first book! After that, things slowly began to fall into place. I was offered a second book deal. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with The Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.

The moral of this story is... don't give up. Even if things look bleak now, don't give up. Two years ago I was huddled in my car drinking cold soup right out of the can. Things change.

If you work hard, give it time, and don't give up, things will always get better. Oftentimes our dreams lie in wait just a little further upstream... all we need is the courage to push beyond the river

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Wooden Bowls

A frail old man lived with his son, his daughter-in-law, and his four-year-old grandson. His eyes were blurry, his hands trembled, and his step faltered.

The family would eat together nightly at the dinner table. But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating rather difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon, drooping to the floor. When he grasped his glass of milk, it often spilled clumsily at the tablecloth.

With this happening almost every night, the son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess.

"We must do something about grandfather," said the son.

"I've had enough of his milk spilling, noisy eating and food on the floor," the daughter-in-law agreed.

So the couple set a small table at the corner.

There, grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed their dinner at the dinner table. Since grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in wooden bowls. Sometimes when the family glanced in grandfather's direction, he had a tear in his eye as he ate alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food. The four-year-old watched it all in silence.

One evening, before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly: "What are you making?" Just as sweetly, the boy replied, "Oh, I'm making a little bowl for you and mama to eat your food from when I grow up." The four-year-old smiled and went back to work.

These words so struck the parents that they were speechless. Then tears streamed down their cheeks. Though no words were spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening, the husband took grandfather's hand and gently led him back to the family table.

For the remainder of his days, grandfather ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk was spilled or the table cloth was soiled.

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SAIBSA GLIMPSES

SAIBSA GLIMPSES by Stuti Vasavada

Date: 18^th April’2015

Venue: Mulund – Mumbai

Session – 1

Approaches To Learning – ATL Skills

Facilitator –Mr. Rafael Angel

§  Culture Of Learning

o   ATLs are considered as ‘backbone’ of MYP curriculum

o   Collaborative Learning and Interdisciplinary Projects are the major aspects to develop all different sets of skills

o   To make Collaborative Learning effective –

1)Awareness of the academic surroundings – Each subject teacher should be aware of the other subject curriculums and alert about the rest of the activities and happenings. 

2)      Sharing Strategies –The teachers should share their unit plans and strategies of teaching with one another frequently

3)      Students should be able to demonstrate learning

4)      Setting up proper system for storing the acquired knowledge

5)      Attitude – Each teacher is responsible to carry an attitude of        contributing equally, regardless of the acquired position

6)      Designing Documents &Classes –The documents and the classes should be designed in such a way that it creates enough scope and opportunity to develop all different sets of skills prescribed by the MYP. Students should not only be able to learn, rather they should be able to ‘feel’.

7)      Students should make self assessments/reflect through journals and essays

§  Key Words

Following are few key words to keep in mind while considering ATL Skills as part of the curriculum and the unit plans.

o   Promote – Thinking Skills through Inquiry Questions, Statement of Inquiry and Experiments

o   Empathy – Create and develop empathy within students by addressing burning issues through debates or online discussions by getting registered on some particular websites

Registration on MUN – Model UN Online Debates

www.onlinemodelunitednations.org/‎

Registration on SPECPOL –Making association with UNICEF

www.academymodelun.org/

o   Apart from these – Analyze, Art, Contradict, Debate, Contrast, Relate, Compare, Evaluate, Assess

§  Generating Dialogue through Reading

Following are some books,which could help to generate dialogue within the students through reading

1)    ‘Number The Star’ – For Individuals & Societies

2)    ‘The Curious Incident of A Dog in A Night’ – For Visual Arts

3)    ‘Hatchef’ – For Biology

4)    ‘A Brilliant Mind’ – For Maths

§  All ATL Skills have to be applied to CAS projects

§  Important Links:

o   http://tiniurl.com/ATLSAIBSA

o   google books

§  A separate document on certain questions to be thought over for developing ATLs effectively was provided; which is submitted to the MYP Coordinator if it is required to be studied.

Session – 2

Conceptual & Contextual Learning

Facilitator: Ms. Shyalaja Salwan

§  The Activity:

The participants were supposed to make loops of news paper stripes and link them at various stages. It started with the one single participant and increased till five participants step by step. At every stage the time duration was same. 

Up to three steps the output was increasing, however at the fourth stage it came down and once again at the fifth stage it went up with the marginal difference.

The facts derived as conclusion were-

1)    Teamwork could produce better output as compare to the individual one; however not always with all the probabilities. If number of participants increases more than required, the output might turn up the other way round. Also, it might bring down the level of quality.So the number of participants in a teamwork should be exactly as per the requirement.

2)    All the teams were provided resources however not of the same quality; i.e. quality of adhesive tape and the pair of scissors. The quality of resources matters a lot for the quality output of any project.

3)    At some stages the instructions were not given properly in between the activity; which was proven through the output how important it is to be clear and specific while giving instructions while teaching.

4) These concluded facts led the participants towards the larger picture of the business studies and how it affects economics.The same fundamental is applicable for the each project at different stages of academic subjects in schools too.

§  Global Context:

o   The activity described above finally directed how a broad term concept could be delivered through a simple activity. How a complex concept could be delivered through a contextual activity, yet simplified.

o   An MYP teacher should try to connect all different ‘Global Concepts’ and the ‘Key Concepts’ as prescribed in the MYP guide with each and every single task as far as possible.

o   A key concept may be createdas per the requirement out of theprescribed set by the MYP in the guide.

Session – 3

The Subject Specific Session

Facilitator: Ms. Meeta Verma

Discussion on –

o   MYP Art Curriculum

o   How Art could be incorporated with the other subjects of MYP Curriculum

o   Assessments

o   Task Specific Clarification (TSC) for each strand for the summative assessment

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Sharpen your skills

Once there was a group of men - a young hot-blooded, strong chap and a big number of old folks, doing timber job (Wood cutting) in a jungle.
This young chap is very hard working. He always continues to work through his break time and complains that those old folks were wasting time, taking break few times a day to drink and chat.
The first day, the young woodcutter brought fifteen (15) trees. "Congratulations," the boss said, "Carry on with your work!" Highly motivated by the words of his boss, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he only could bring ten (10) trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he was only able to bring seven (7) trees. Day after day he was bringing less and less trees.
As times goes by, this young chap noticed that even though he worked through break time and hardly took a rest, those old folks are chopping the same amount of trees as he did and sometimes did more than he did. It was as if those old folks work through the break time as he did. So he decided to work harder the next day, unfortunately the results were even worse. "I must be losing my strength." The young woodcutter thought.
One day, one of the old folk invited him for a drink during their break time. That young chap refused and said he has no extra time to spend! Then the old man smiled to him and said it was just a waste of effort to keep chopping trees without re-sharpening your Axe. Sooner or later you will give up or be so exhausted as you have spent too much energy.
Suddenly the young chap realized that actually during break times while those old folks were having a chat, they were also re-sharpening their Axe at the same time! And that's how they can chop faster than him and yet spending lesser time! The old folk said what we need is efficiency by making use of our skill and ability intelligently. Only then can we have more times to do other things.
Otherwise you will always keep saying ... I have no time!
Moral of the Story: By taking a short break during work, it would make you feel fresher, think well and work better after the break! (Or am I just finding excuse to take a break). But by taking a break, it is not to stop work but to rest and re-think our strategy to go about it from another angle. Also, most of us never update our skills. We think that whatever we have learned is very much enough. But good is not good when better is expected. Sharpening our skills from time to time is the key to success.

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Value

Value-A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"

Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.

He then asked, "Who still wants it?"Still the hands were up in the air.

"Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.
He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.
"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.
We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special - Don't ever forget it!

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Time is Money

Imagine there is a bank, which credits your account each morning with Rs 86,400, carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every pence, of course!
Well, everyone has such a bank. Its name is Time.
Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the records of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours.
There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow."
Therefore, there is never not enough time or too much time. Time management is decided by us alone and nobody else. It is never the case of us not having enough time to do things, but the case of whether we want to do it.

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Futuristic Device

A nice and creative activity...
Students will imagine a device which is useful in finding ways, locating a place, checking positions etc....
We can see amazing creations and imaginations. I did this activity with MYP 3 students. 
The Statement of inquiry can be
"Adapting the existing technologies and infusing it with new ideas produces a new technology with better prospects and for different categories of people."

You all can try...

Thanks

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