RKM - 20th Feb 2011

Picture perfect indeed! Rightly put by Yeshwanth..

It was rather sad that a few mentors and mentees missed out today’s session..The reason for the mentees was actually acceptable; They had to go receive awards somewhere..But Mentors??

                Regardless….An ideal day yet again.. Proud of the way we are rolling..KUDOS DnE =) The Bench marks are being raised week and week again. It goes beyond mention how talented and surprising the kids are proving to be. Wooooo..Imagine 16 year olds cracking a solution to a Management activity.. Awesome uh ? An activity brought up yet again by our very own Madav. The activity was called “MAGIC TILES” where in the kids had to cross 20 people in their team using just 6 tiles in 10mins ONLY.. (Scenario: The place is on fire and they have to rely on the tiles to cross the length of the hall on.. The catch - avoid any part of your body touching the flaming ground!!!) All kinds of techniques and strategies were implemented and TADAAAAA all 20 got through even before 10mins..! 

          

 Mentoring was up next. Discussions were again on their exams. A few mentors personally provided hands on help with their subjects. In today’s case it was Math the following day. A few others helped them structure their study time. A few mentees were so engrossed interacting and working their hearts out with the mentors that even when we wanted to call it a day for them, they actually said they wanted to STAY..WOW! Yet another sign of how well Dronas are performing and connecting with the mentees.

Now now now.. LC.. This was when tensions heated up a little, a few confrontations, a few REALIZATIONS and a few ‘To-Do things’ were brought up after Parthiban and family had their creative-‘no video’ oriented LC on ‘CREATIVITY’. The session ended with mixed emotions( hopefully positive...Right Dronas??).

 FINALLY.. ‘A BIG WELCOME TO OUR 4 NEW VOLUNTEERS’ WELCOME ABOARD. WE ARE GLAD AND THRILLED TO HAVE YOU IN!  =) =)

                

RKM - 6th-Feb-2011 !

An ideal session portraying what ‘DnE is actually all about’.

                                Sunday morning started off with pre-arrangements for the GA( Group Activity) brought up by a co-drona-MADAV. Which apparently came to us as a surprise with most of us thinking the activity would prove to be highly complicated for the levels of RKM’s 10^th graders. Surprise surprise..WE WERE WRONG! The kids stood up and completed the task in a highly impressive fashion than that was actually was expected of them. To be really honest, much wasn’t expected. Oh! Speaking of which, the activity was an adaptation from one of the HARWARD MANAGEMENT GAMES.

             (Curious about the activity ? ---The link with activity details would be up shortly!) 

A successful, exuberant and a very satisfactory GA was followed by ‘personal one on one mentoring sessions’. With board exams tingling every kid’s (well almost :P ) serious side  it was agreed upon mutually by all mentors that the prime focus would be-EXAMS. Despite a cricket match being conducted in their ‘home’ forming a distraction at the back of the heads; one could easily be convinced by simply looking at the bright and focused eyes of the mentors and their mentees and evidently conclude as to how amazingly effective the session turned out to be. The Mentoring session ended a little earlier than usual (Courtesy-Cricket Matches x(Cricket does play a spoil sport many a times in our life.. P.S: Cricket lovers..NO OFFENCE!! :D  )

                                Now came in the time to switch roles.. from being teachers/mentors/preachers…and what not ‘ers’ to being Learn'ers'. The mentors now gathered around for our weekly “LC (learning cycle)”.This week’s LC was co-ordinated by Uma and family. We were presented with an awe inspiring and ‘neuron tickling’ video (big word uh? :P..we at DnE believe in Making it BIG..lol). Getting serious, the video presented by Uma and Family was a TED talk by – Sugata Mitra(Educational Technician) on a concept he named ‘Hole in the wall’!  And as usual our ‘Drona brains where put to work’. A discussion and a feedback session followed up.  The session ended with a brainstorming session and also a little bit of thought clashes and misinterpretations….“AHEM”…. All in all, a very satisfactory and productive session.  

                                Ooops.. did I miss out on the open house visitor from ‘MAD-Bhumi’ ? I, just like the others think he apparently would have had a very positive feed to give and left with a smile glued on. Especially considering the fact the amazing Drona’s who make DnE a Great place to be!