Hari Om,
We hosted the parents of our Grade 8 students for the first 20/25 mins of class. After they and the teachers did introductions, we requested each parent to share one fact they wanted us all to know about their child.It was wonderful to see how supportive and positive the comments were.
The teachers gave an overview of this year's curriculum-Yato Dharmah,Tato Jayah and Symbolism in Hinduism.
We laid out the importance of an open,honest mind when looking at our scriptures. As discussion, stories,chanting and games will be used to convey the lesson messages, we also highlighted the importance of being regular, punctual and engaged in class discussions.
After the parents left, we continued with the roadmap to Jayah,victory, focusing on the 1st aspect-avoiding bad actions by body, speech. Bad actions by the body being stealing, killing, having improper relationship.
Bad actions by speech being- using bad words, using harsh words,gossiping. Examples from their school- life of not letting negative remarks of peers bother them, not pulling pranks without actually knowing the people well, being respectful, even toward adults who they may not actually like all came up.Tying all this up was the karma box game.It didn't work as we thought it would, but the idea that every string in the game represents our action, and every thing tied to the end of it, the outcome was clear. If we had total faith in the truth that the doer of the karma alone experiences the outcome, just as we have faith in gravity (I will land on the ground when I jump), so many of our fears would vanish. Result of an action always comes at the right time.
We concluded class with the reminder to ourselves that even though we examined Jayah on Sep 7 class, naming people we consider winners, the truth of the matter is we are all winners as we have this human birth with immense potential.
Uma and Sangita
