Hari om everyone,
It was nice to see our students back after the Thanksgiving break. Today's class was extra special because it was taught by our JCHYK friends! JCHYK-s (Junior CHinmaya Yuva Kendra) are the high schoolers starting from 10th to 12th grades.
Once a year, JCHYKs are asked to pick a grade that they want to teach. 3 seniors chose to come to our class today. It was a pleasure having them as co-teachers. It was nice for our students too, connecting with their role models! 9th-graders will be in their shoes someday soon and it was nice for them to see the JCHYKs live in action :).
They taught the 8 Inner Values one needs to develop, through various stories. The values were -
- dayaa - kindness
- kShaanti - forbearance, patience
- anasUyaa - no jealousy
- shaucha - cleanliness
- anaayaasa - no exertion/stress
- ma~ngala - auspicious
- akaarpaNya - non-stinginess
- aspRuha - absence of desires/attachments
The stories were interesting and brought about intriguing discussions! Students listened eagerly and participated enthusiastically. They shared their thoughts and posed their questions.
We connected this to our real-life situations. Without that, there is no point learning all these things after all, right?! :) They questioned how they should stick to kindness, forbearance, etc. if someone is bullying them?! How do you differentiate between being considered weak vs. not being bothered by the bully's words? A very valid question indeed! We discussed that it is all in our attitude towards the situation. The difference is reaction vs. response. We 'react' when something bothers us whereas we 'respond' to a situation when we are sure of ourselves! When we are secure in our own being, nothing can shake us nor perturb us.
In fact, we discussed at length and found out that the basis for developing ALL these values was - being secure in oneself. When that is achieved, all other values shall simply follow! We discovered that this is because the values are all interconnected. That was quite an amazing feat we achieved today.
On the topic of bullying, we spoke about a video that shows how one can turn the spotlight back on to the bully with ease and extinguish the bully's resolve to continue his 'Dominant behaviour'! We had promised to share a link to that video. So here it is - How to Stop A Bully. This video demonstrates the point precisely. Do check it out.
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We were so engrossed in the discussions that we forgot to save some time for gItaa chanting today, sorry :|. Please continue practising at home and we will continue our learning next class.
Until next time, happy learning :).
Regards,
Rashmi and Sitaram.
Rashmi and Sitaram.
