It has been another crowded and hectic Monday and Mr. Mohanty was already beginning to feel exhausted. Suddenly, a loud knock broke into his reverie. Mrs. Smitha stormed into his room dragging a boy pulling him by his arms. The Principal came towards his desk in his nonchalant way expecting another usual complaint.
Mrs. Smitha spoke in the same infuriated tone, “Sir, you have to take a severe action this time.” She explained that on being asked about the greatest emperor during the Mughal reign, the boy replied that it’s the Nine Gems; renowned as the Navaratna in the court of Emperor Akbar. Sanjeev has joined the school eight months ago and has been scoring far below the qualifying marks. The parents are deeply saddened and anxious looking at the wide differences in their academic performance.
Spotting Sanjeev sitting alone under the banyan tree in the school playground during the lunch time, the Principal got curious and walked towards him. He was diligently creating his favorite characters and also gifting them with words. Bound by the conventional norm where recognition and achievements were only awarded to academic excellence, Sanjeev was considered to be a ‘failure’. Mr.Mohanty was struck with the chord of epiphanic realization.
The ‘Emperor’ summoned the school’s Think Tanks and passed an order to devise a strategy in identifying the different aptitudes of each student Each child is gifted and if their skills are identified and molded at the right time, they could be carved as the best gems epitomizing the Navaratna in the Mughal court. A learning model “9 GEMS” was developed with 9 different parameters like performing arts, sports, leadership, creative skills, community service, drama, entrepreneurship, and ethics along with academics which would enable a holistic development of the child and bring in a balanced progress of the child.
The story did not end here. “9 GEMS” gave ample opportunity for each child to shine in his forte rewarding them with confidence and recognition. The children, whose academic performance labelled them as underperformers, slowly started rising as soccer superstars, art masters, theatre directors and many more, winning various laurels from different inter-school competitions.
The 9 gems approach paved way to chisel each gem into a sparkling one. The school further went on to evaluate the achievement of each child in each of the parameter indicating their area of expertise. This framework of the school was well appreciated by the parent community and hence it gained more popularity even from the neighboring places which led to opening new campuses in those places.
Lessons Learned
Lessons learned
- Student-Centered excellence has both current and future components: understanding today’s student desires and anticipating future desires and marketplace potential
- Organizational learning can result in enhancing value to students' through new and improved educational programs and services
- Agility arise from outside-the-box thinking, brainstorming, research and innovation processes, and extrapolation of current conditions approaches to imagining a different future
- Understand the differentiated abilities of each child. Help the child to set his goal
- Nurture and shape up the best ability of the child as well as integrate all other parameters of well-rounded character building leading to holistic development.