The Delhi Government on Saturday launched ‘Every Home a School, Every Parent a Teacher’ initiative under which happiness classes to be conducted at home for students.
Eight lakh student will join special classes Happiness Curriculum and Mission Buniyaad at their homes from Sunday.
Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister, Manish Sisodia presided over the second live session of ‘Parenting in the time of Corona’ discussing the importance of transforming homes into engaging classrooms for students with the hell of parent amidst the ongoing nationwide lockdown.
“Starting tomorrow, parents of students studying in classes up till Std 8. will receive audio calls (IVR) from the Education Department to guide them through as to how to take on the role of teachers at home. Step by step activities will be shared through pre recorded audio message on how to conduct Happiness classes and Mission Buniyaad at their homes”, said Sisodia.
“The purpose behind the Happiness curriculum is to make children introspect and get to know themselves better. Mindfulness is practiced by all 16 lakh students everyday in our schools.”
“We are all gripped with anxiety today. These are unusual times and we do not know what to do as a fun activity,” said Sisodia,”We cannot go out, can't go for movies, or sit in the parks, we are confined to our homes, with our family. In such situations, it is possible to get irritated with one another, and we don't know how to refresh our minds as we are still restricted to our homes.Under this circumstances, Happiness class is all the more important.”
The activities of Happiness class would be conducted at home everyday by the parents.
“We will support, around 8 lakh students and their families to practise mindful meditation from tomorrow with the help of our teachers. It is important to turn the atmosphere positive in our homes and make the families spend quality time together,”Sisodia said.
The Delhi Govt. has already started Online teaching for Class 11 students (those awaiting results to join class 12) with daily 1.5 hours session conducted online by the Govt school teachers. Besides that, Nursery to class 8 students are being given daily activities via SMS to which IVRS will be added to support Happiness and Reading, writing and numeracy activities from tomorrow.
Talking about the importance of using this lockdown as an opportunity to tutor kids at homes, Shri Binay Bhushan said, “We had planned to start Mission Buniyaad in April, but this could not happen owing to the lockdown. So we now request the parents to start coaching their kids to make them start reading and writing few lines everyday, and solve basic math problems. This will create a good environment at home. It is also a good way to help tackle boredom if parents start coming up with creative ways to teach their kids. We will help the parents to take on the role of a teacher for their kids.”
According to expert panel,the focus in mission buniyad is to strengthen the foundational skills of the children through basic and simple activities through which they can get to learn while playing it too.
Talking about Mindfulness, Neeru Puri, Happiness Mentor Teacher said, “We introduced the happiness curriculum two years back and it has reaped fruits today. In the turbulent times., parents always complain that kids don't concentrate but we havent taught them how to. Its a moment of pride for us that we have been teaching our kids to concentrate since the past two years. Going forward, we will send specific activities to parents to conduct the Happiness class at home.
The live session included Binay Bhushan, Director, Education, Bhavna Sawnani- Mentor Teacher, Team Mission Buniyaad, Delhi Government school, and Neeru Puri, Happiness Mentor Teacher where they discussed how parents can aptly play the role of a teacher and mentor for their kids at home.
