Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow.‘
Virtual assemblies were started at Ekya in the last academic session as a way to motivate students in a fun and educational way. Each grade has the opportunity to participate and showcase their abilities, this last special assembly on Friday, July 11th, 2021 was orchestrated by our grade 5 students who chose the theme, ‘Time Management.
The session began with greeting all the students and teachers followed by a short animated video on time management. After this, there was a brief sharing of time management followed by a conversational discussion on the benefits of time management. The news headlines on all the happenings around the world were shared to keep the students informed and aware of the happenings around the world. Thought was also shared to cheer up the students.
The significant part of the assembly was to motivate all the students to organize and use time wisely, tips to manage time were shared to help each and everyone organize time since Term 1 Reviews are right around the corner! A fun activity was conducted on Padlet to bring out student views on what activities make time fly versus activities that make time go by slowly. The Head of School addressed the students, motivating them to stay organized, and wished them luck for the upcoming exams. The session came to a close with the National Anthem. It was yet another meaningful and fun-filled session!
By, Anshika, Grade 8, Ekya Byrathi
How can social studies be used practically?
I have been teaching social studies for over five years now and one thing that astonishes me is how fuzzy students are about why we teach social studies as a subject in schools? When I ask this question in my class, I usually get specific content-focused responses such as: to learn about history and geography, India and the world, other people and cultures, government and politics, or even current events. True, we learn about history, geography, economics, and politics but does this bookish knowledge help one to understand the real world?The answer is YES! Let’s talk about history. What is history? In simple words, it's our past put up in the present to think about our future. Today the entire world is experiencing a pandemic. Our history says we have experienced this earlier too and yes because of this experience of the past we can figure out our present. Researchers constantly warned us about the second wave and that it would be much deadlier than the first. How did they know about it? How did they manage to make such strong statements? This is because our history specifies so. I have been to 3-4 countries and have noticed that because of globalization, everything is available everywhere. I remember when I was in the United States; the first few days went fine but after a week I was craving my Indian food. We searched for an authentic Indian restaurant to have our lunch. The food acted as water on fire, but it still lacked the same taste that I was used to back at home. That's when I realized that when I was taught geography in my school, my teacher once told me that our lifestyle, food, and clothing-everything depends on the geography of a place. Today because of Globalization it is possible to get everything everywhere, but one cannot get the same taste, same culture and same lifestyle. Travelling reminded me of another incident. I was traveling from Kolkata to Bangalore. I still remember it was raining heavily and because of some political rally I was late for my flight. I quickly checked my ticket for the closing time for boarding. It was mentioned half an hour before the scheduled time. Somehow, I managed to reach the airport 40 min before the scheduled time. But, as soon as I reached the counter, they said I cannot board as boarding is closed. I remember that day I could only manage to get my flight rescheduled for free because I knew as a consumer what my rights were and if things were to go the legal way the airline had to refund my money back. It was an interesting yet eye opening experience because as a citizen I knew what my rights were and how I can always fight for them. It is rightly said, “THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS IN LIFE ARE USUALLY NOT LEARNED IN THE CLASSROOM.” It is essential for this generation to develop their young minds with thinking ability, innovate & function adequately in society. It is a social science- the science of understanding people’s needs and their unique relationship with art, literature, history, music, work, philosophy, community, technology, and psychology. All the knowledge we have of nature depends upon facts, for without observations and experiments our natural philosophy would only be a science of terms.
By, Madhu Bharatia, SST teacher - Senior School, Ekya ITPL
It was a nice spring morning in the jungle. Do you know who I am? My name is Mark and I am a Zoologist. I work with the animal rescue service which is right in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. I look after the animals and take care of the animals that get hurt in the jungle.
I was at the Amazon rainforest with my best friend, Boxer who keeps the rescue center clean. We were eating breakfast and talking about the new animal that we had seen in the rainforest yesterday. We finished breakfast and Boxer’s wife came out of her room. She ate her favorite breakfast which was a croissant dipped in chocolate milk with marshmallows. We went up to the terrace while she was having her breakfast.
On the terrace, we spotted a giraffe with a crooked neck. I got into my rescue truck and drove to the place where we saw the giraffe, as fast as possible. With the help of my crane, I put the giraffe in my truck. I took it to the place where we take care of the wounded animals. It’s a big space with fences around it and dormitories for the animals to stay and recover.
I took the giraffe out of my truck and parked it. I took a look at the giraffe. There was a branch stuck around its neck. I took off the branch and it looked like the giraffe’s neck got stuck in a tree and it tried to pull out the small branch but was not able to. There was also some wound and I put medicine on the wound. We also took an X-ray of the giraffe’s neck and two bones in the neck were broken. We put a bandage around the neck and neck support around the bandage. It would take 2 months for the neck to heal. So, we decided to build a place where he could stay safely, next to the dormitories where all the other animals stay. We named him Andberry because he loves berries.
It was a long day and finally, it was time for bed. I was very happy that we were able to save the giraffe and I could take a rest.
By, Arianna Tayenjam, Grade 2C, Ekya ITPL
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