Shivani Sahni – Principal – G D Goenka Public School, Bahadurgarh, Haryana
Shivani Sahni, a self-motivated person, an educationist by profession, and a voracious learner, loves to contribute in people’s lives in various ways believing in the motto ‘Life is worth making relationships’.
Shivani Sahni is the current Principal of G D Goenka Public School, Bahadurgarh – a CBSE school under the aegis of G D Goenka Public School, Vasant Kunj. Its mission is to provide education in an engaging manner that is full of creative ideas and innovative pedagogical techniques. It lays equal emphasis on academics, talents and lifeskills.
Sahni talks to India School News…..
Purpose of Education
In my view the purpose of education is vast. It is not just preparing students for a job or be an entrepreneur but preparing them for life. Life puts everyone into various situations. A positive attitude/mindset and correct skill set becomes critical apart from knowledge to sail through those situations. The school must focus on enhancing students’ skills like thinking – critical & creative, emotion management, make them learn resiliency etc. So, to me the purpose of education is to empower the students to lead a powerful and happy life.
Challenges as a Principal
Finding the right candidate to fit the role of an educator is the biggest challenge that I face as a school head. What I look in a candidate is Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes, Values and Ethics.
Among the others is to educate parents to the changes in pedagogy and the teaching methodologies.
Pre-requisites of a good teacher
It is not necessary for the best teachers to be the brightest students of their class. It’s a different skill set and attitude that is required to be an effective teacher. Knowledge is available at the click of a finger however; it’s the skills and attitudes that are a miss.
Teachers need to be equipped to be facilitators eliciting responses from their students and building the concepts on students’ previous knowledge rather than teaching or lecturing. An effective teacher will be great in developing skills like Observing, Experimenting, Questioning, Researching, Associating, Networking (Collaboration), instills the skills of Initiative taking, Leadership, Public speaking etc in the students. Such teacher lays the focus on the process rather than the product.
A positive and a never give up attitude for any student makes a teacher worth a teacher.
Teacher’s burden
A teacher’s task is a lot beyond teaching. Few hindrances that take the joy out of being a teacher includes lots of paperwork, rigid framework of curriculum without the liberty of being flexible, same syllabus and assessment system for all students of a grade, pressure of attaining marks especially in board classes.
Teaching work is a 24 X 7 work, it doesn’t end at the school. With the pay scale like Seventh Pay, the teachers are reasonably paid however, the same has yet not been implemented everywhere.
Coaching centres
Coaching centres are merely preparing students for competitive exams. They lack training students in life skills. Majority of them are still following the traditional approach of teaching learning process focusing on rote memorization and tips/shortcuts for quick calculations. These institutes guide students in various aspects of the competitive examination systems however, fail to redefine the education system. They play no role in doing so.
Contact Details:
G D Goenka Public School
HL City, Sector 37,
Bahadurgarh, Haryana 124507
Ph No:+91- 01276 – 298998, 298999
Email: info@gdgoenkabahadurgarh.com
Visit: www.gdgoenkabahadurgarh.com