Art integration project at Navrachana school to inculcate Indian values in students

In order to bring India to every household of the students, Navrachana school in Vadodara starts an art integration project during their online education. The aim is to gives them out of the book knowledge and provide a platform to learn and know the real meaning of unity in diversity.

The school celebrated its Founder’s Day (February 7) by uploading the Art Integration into Education Project, [email protected] in the form of a film. It is a tribute in memory of late Savitaben Amin, educationist and philanthropist, who laid the foundation of the Navrachana Education Society in 1965.

[email protected] is a unique project of Navrachana School and reflects how the teaching-learning practices have been designed to inculcate understanding of Indian cultural traditions in the students many years before the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), mandated it now.

According to Principal, Suprabha Menon, “NEP 2020 lays emphasis on multi-disciplinary teaching-learning and connecting students to Indian heritage. [email protected] reflects our efforts to do exactly this and which is actually part of the Navrachana vision. It has been an interesting and challenging experience for our students and teachers as they collaborated online to research, learn and present their learning through this film”.

This is an on-going project, embedded skillfully in the curriculum, where each student learns through the multi-disciplinary approach and expresses the knowledge and skills acquired through the medium of art.

“All subject teachers have come together to design this project with a multi-disciplinary nature focusing on the diversity of India’s culture and heritage, like monuments, cuisine, textiles. Students, along with their subject teachers, over a period of last 2 months, have explored, researched, experienced and expressed their findings through various media of art like dance, rangoli, cooking and use of regional languages,” explains Vice Principal, Kashmira Jaiswal, the main brain behind this project. In spite of being a Maths teacher, Sunita Sharma, senior teacher, experienced “the joy of teaching dance, making props and getting things lined up with available resources.”

As part of the project students have researched cuisines of the different parts of the country, sourced ingredients and taken the effort in preparing dishes. They have also pretended to be tour guides to express their understanding of their vast and diverse country.

“This is experiential learning in actual terms. Navrachana’s innovative teaching – learning practices have thus empowered its students to spread their wings globally while being deeply rooted in the Indian ethos.

The project involves students from 1st to 12th and everyday they work and learn every aspect of the states they select, like their culture, geographic importance and cuisine. With online platform there is a scope of research and self learning of students.

Nearly 3000 students took part in it and get to connect with the art and culture of different states. It gives them the knowledge expansion and come at one platform as part of unity in diversity. The special part is they get out of the book knowledge and whole family comes together the help the children in this project,” said Tejal Amin Chairperson Navrachana Education Society.

She further added that as a leader in education, Navrachana Education Society are committed to offering quality education to the children of Vadodara with emphasis on modern teaching practices and an inclusive and holistic approach towards Indian culture and values.