TEACHERS’ WORKSHOP ON ENHANCING INSTITUTIONAL EXCELLENCE

Dr. Jose Parappully, Director of Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jharmari, Punjab was invited to facilitate a training workshop for teachers of Jesus and Mary School at Bhurewala, Haryana, on April 2, 2024.

Bhurewala is a very remote farming village in Haryana. The school caters to students from poor families. There are about 300 students and 19 teachers at Jesus and Mary School, Bhurewala. There is also a small hostel.

All the teachers, including the Principal Sr. Kusum, attended the workshop. The topic was Enhancing Educational excellence.

Dr. Parappully used data from organizational psychology research, exercises and group activities to discuss the significant contributors to institutional excellence.

He helped teachers to assess the current scenario in regard to institutional excellence at Jesus and Mary and helped them plan measures to enhance institutional excellence at the school.

The participants were unanimous in their feedback that the workshop was immensely useful. It had not only provided them ways and motivation to enhance excellence, but also insights and skills that will be useful for classroom management.

SUMEDHA OUTREACH – SOUTH CITY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL KOLKATA

The Director of Sumedha Centre, Jose Parappully PhD, was invited to do another workshop for the teachers of the secondary section of South City International School, Kolkata on June 14-15. He had done a workshop there last year.

Last year the theme of the Workshop was “Enhancing Institutional Effectiveness.” This year the Workshop focused on one of the significant dynamics that contribute to  Institutional Effectiveness, namely, Relational (Communication) Networks.

Accordingly, the workshop was labelled “Enhancing Interpersonal Communication.”

Of the 48 participants this year, 15  had joined the school since the last workshop.  Hence, the facilitator briefly referred to the concepts explored last year to acquaint the new teachers with these foundational concepts. He then introduced Howard Gardner’s concept of Personal Intelligences and their role in effective interpersonal relationships and communication.

A major obstacle to effective interpersonal relationships is unaddressed conflicts. Teachers were helped to discern current conflicts between Management and Teachers and conflicts among themselves and introduced to tools that help address and work through conflicts in an effective and helpful manner.

The focus of exploration on the second day of the Workshop was Interpersonal Relationships among the teachers. The role of Assertive Communication was pointed out and teachers were helped to understand and practise it in a series of experiential exercises.

Video clips, songs, introspection and group interaction and processing were some of the tools used, besides insights from organisational psychology presented by the facilitator.

Teachers found the Workshop very useful to enhance their interpersonal and, consequently, work relationships. The Workshop especially provided them, they observed, opportunity to come to understand more deeply one another and the issues that affect them, which in turn has contributed to increased desire to work toward greater cohesion and collaboration.