Start date: May 20, 2025
End date: May 21, 2025
Venue: DAV Public School, Kaggalipura, Bengaluru
At the invitation of the School Governing Council and Administration of Dayanand Arya Vidya School, Bengaluru, the BhāratShakti team of Sri Aurobindo Society designed and conducted a 2-day workshop for their teachers during their annual professional development week in May 2025.
In discussion with the concerned representatives of the school governing council, an overall theme was decided for the workshop – Deepening Our Roots and Growing With Others. During the two-days, May 20 and 21, 2025, Dr. Beloo Mehra and Ms. Biswajita Mohapatra worked with 46 teachers plus 5 administrators to explore two broad topics, in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s vision on Education, Indian Culture and Integral Human Development:
- Incorporating the Spirit & Forms of Indian-ness in Education: Prospects & Challenges
- Harmony Within and Without: Empathic and Effective Response to Workplace Challenges
On Day 1 the main theme that was explored was: ‘Incorporating the Spirit and Forms of Indian-ness in Education: Prospects and Challenges’. Specific topics included: What does India Mean to Me? What do I know of Indian Culture? What is understood when we speak of the Spirit and Forms of Indian Culture? What is Aryan Character and what is the implication of this understanding for Education? What does true unity in diversity look like when it comes to bringing Indian-ness in our classrooms? Emphasis was given on understanding the nation and culture through a soul-mind-body paradigm, and encouraging learners to look for the inmost truth behind the outer surface events and patterns.
These topics were explored through a variety of activities including presentation-discussion, interactions, introspective reflections, movement-based fun games, exhibition posters and expression of a collective aspiration and prayer.
On Day 2 the main theme of ‘Harmony Within and Without: Empathic and Effective Response to Workplace Challenges’ was explored through was also explored through a variety of learning activities. These included a brief presentation followed by interactive exploration of the idea of harmony, a small-group experiential activity designed to practice harmony, a reflection exercise exploring the challenges in creative a collaborative work environment, a movement-based game to help identify our behavioural patterns, a concentration activity in silence for deeper introspection and knowing one’s multiple layers of the being, and a fun game to facilitate emotional awareness.
While the initial grounding talks on both the days helped set the right context for each day’s deliberations and explorations, the wide variety of experiential activities, games, group work sessions, reflections and interactions, silence time and introspection, engaged all the participants in creative manner and kept the learning experience fun and approachable.
Throughout all these activities, relevant insights from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were constantly being shared in a simpler, fun and approachable manner. Through this blend of activities, the physical, vital, mental and psychic parts of the being were engaged, and this was briefly explained to the participants. On each day, the workshop opened with a brief concentration and chanting. Similarly, the day’s sessions also concluded with a gratitude circle and a brief concentration.
The workshop was appreciated by all the participants and school authorities. BhāratShakti team has already been invited to conduct more such programmes in the future.