Minutes of the first meeting held on october 6 2007

Minutes of the first Educators’ Collective meeting:
October 6, 2007

Participants: Kirti Iyer (Springdales’ School, Pusa Road), Alpana Rastogi (Social Worker, Springdales’ School, Pusa Road), Anjali (Ramjas School ,Anand Parbat), Anita Choudhary (Bluebells School), P. Hemlatha (Andhra School), Krishna Kumari (Andhra School, Prasad Nagar), Krishna Kumari (Andhra School, Prasad Nagar), AS Lakshmi (Andhra School, Pushp Vihar), Vijaya(Andhra School), Anita ( KRM world school ), Kirthi Adhikari (Vistaar Mother’s Own, Bijnore, UP) and Reena Bhasin (KRM world school)

The meeting began by sharing ‘…An exciting thing that happened to me recently…’ (30 mins) .Meenal invited everyone present to share one recent exciting episode from their lives with the whole group to get people connecting with one another.

AVS Laxmi shared that her 15 day visit to Bangalore for yoga class had energized her tremendously. Vijaya was particularly excited about her recent educational trip to SIDH, traveling alone in the train for the very first time!

AS Laxmi felt that the ‘Pravah Methods’ she’d been introducing in her classes had resulted in different students starting to open up and respond receptively, leaving her very happy. Hemlata revealed that she was vicariously living her child’s excitement at having been selected for the Citizenship Learning and Action Programme (jointly run by Pravah and Sanskriti School) for the very first time!

Reena mentioned how inspired she was by the interaction with Sunita Williams that students from her school had been invited to. The maintenance of decorum and how the program was conducted and organized left her with a sense of awe. For Anita, meeting with her parents after so long, without having her husband and children along was a treat!

Kirthi shared that she always felt joyous on the translation of her work into action. She could feel the shift in youth, teachers, peer group she had interacted with, and that to her was most exhilarating. Alpana’s highlight of the recent weeks was taking her kids for a swim and joining them in the pool. It was just the kind of relaxation she was looking for.

Kirti enjoyed going around the city with Alpana, exploring every gully and nook and cranny for what felt like the first time. Anita was overjoyed when the students of her school that participated in Project citizen this year with an intervention on the Right to Information, were awarded a prize for outstanding performance.

Anjali’s moment of excitement came with a series of theatre workshops that she conducted with her students that got received very well.
Krishna Kumari smiled and shared that she was waiting for something exciting to happen to her this month!
Ishani’s moment of excitement came with being asked to write the entrance exam that she was required to take as part of her son’s admissions procedure. She was tickled by the whole thing! Neha’s grandmother coming to live with her for a while was a great source of energy for her, and she particularly enjoyed the relish with which stories about her father when he was a little boy were told!

Meenal brought the sharing of stories to a close by recounting her own thrilling experience at SIDH and of how it is a unique space for educators to learn and share, that continues to inspire her.

This initial interaction served to get participants feeling comfortable with one another, connecting on a level outside of their identities as teachers and getting started on a positive, friendly note.

‘Why an Educators Collective, at all?’ (15 minutes)

Ishani proceeded to pick up on that note and share a brief and simple presentation of the vision and hope with which the space for an educators’ collective was envisioned and why. She then let the discussions flow openly, with participants sharing very briefly why they were keen to be on board as well. (The details of the next activity capture this in some detail.)

‘Recipe for the ideal open space collective-‘(40 mins)

Neha Naqvi then conducted a small activity requesting the participants to sit in pairs across schools, preferably with someone they didn’t know very well as yet.
She then handed them a sheet that had cartoons running through it around the theme of a Café.
The activity required the pairs to brainstorm around ideas for the ideal collective (Café), List the skills, values, qualities the collective should look at engaging (ingredients), a list of aims and objectives (the menu) they would like the collective to satisfy and finally some brainstorming on things that could possibly harm the integrity and purport of the collective (poison).

The activity was met with a lot of enthusiastic discussion and threw up the following ideas:
Potential name for the collective
Aims of the educators’ collective, collective hopes and aspirations
Contributing factors we would like to see brought in to ensure that aims are met
Things we shouldn’t bring into the collective/ Things we will actively avoid.

Taking things forward together- (20 mins)

The meeting came to a close with the circulation of a reader friendly form that asked certain specific questions about how each individual envisioned the smooth functioning of the collective.