Dream a Dream is committed to the development of both young people and teachers and ever since the first lockdown was put in place, people have been dealing with negative emotions such as stress, confusion, and anxiety amongst others.
Dream a Dream is committed to the development of both young people and teachers and ever since the first lockdown was put in place, people have been dealing with negative emotions such as stress, confusion, and anxiety amongst others.
Dream a Dream’s Teacher Development Programme (TDP) team, while reaching out to the teachers from partner schools from Bangalore realized that the teachers need something to come back to normal life. The team then initiated reintegration sessions focused on connecting with self and reflecting on their life and challenges during the lockdown with the intention of helping them gain clarity on their emotions and feelings and to help cope with the situations better.
As a part of the initiative, a reintegration workshop was conducted with 19 teachers from Mahatma Vidyalaya, Bangalore on 18th July 2020 facilitated by Lead Facilitator, Shilpa Shetty, from Dream a Dream. 19 teachers were engaged in activities to connect with self and share their emotions with the group. The workshop was received with great enthusiasm of the teachers which reflected in their commitment and participation in the activities. The session began with introductions followed by check-in questions, Check-ins are always used at the beginning of a workshop, a day or at the beginning of a session. Here, it helps to understand the participants’ state of mind, their moods and thoughts, briefly and gives the facilitator an idea about where the group is at. This is also a place for the facilitator to acknowledge each participant’s presence. The questions included direct questions such as ‘How are you feeling?’ apart from more engaging, visual questions such as ‘How does your sky look with respect to your feelings?’
The teachers were creative throughout the session and in their description. The skies of some teachers were clear, and it was a sunny day, for some it looked black, while some of the teachers were dealing with rains. Teachers initiated the discussions and shared about their calm sky with white clouds and shining sun that reflected how they have managed to stay calm and composed in testing times. Another teacher shared how her sky looks dark with rain bearing clouds. She could hear thunder and sense disturbance in the sky with a high possibility of heavy rains. The session indicated how the teachers were going through a range of mixed emotions and how they were dealing with it.
The main activity of the day involved reflecting and assessing self on a scale of 1 to 10 on 4 aspects in quadrants – Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual – and marking the scores as dots on each quadrant. The dots were then connected to form a figure, which was supposed to be given a name. Teachers demonstrated their creativity once again and visualized their figures as a butterfly, or a shining star, a flower among many others. The next step involved writing a letter to their named figures on 3 self-reflective questions. These questions were:
- What do you really want to hear now?
- What should I do so that I feel strong from within?
- What is missing in my life that I want?
The teachers were then divided into smaller groups of 3. After discussion with their peer groups, the teachers shared how the activity helped them connect with their inner selves instead of constantly being engaged with the outside world. The teachers shared how they were missing the children and wanted the pandemic to end soon, so they could start teaching. While some of the teachers were able to share the positives that had emerged out of the situation which included spending quality time with family, others said that they need motivation and support to cope up with the situation. Some were planning to quit their job too. The fact that they saw others also dealing with the similar situations in their own way ensured they now viewed their situations differently, with a new perspective to look at the problem and possible ways to cope with it.
he online session faced some technical and connectivity issues. Some teachers also struggled to reflect deeply and draw or connect with the quadrant figure. Despite these challenges, the participation was encouraging as all the teachers always kept the videos on that made everyone feel more connected and involved in the process. The teachers showed a lot of positivity and hope and came up with suggestions and advice for their peers to come to terms with the problem. The Teacher Development Programme team at Dream A Dream plans to facilitate and reach out to more teachers for more such sessions with other partners schools soon in the future.
Khushboo Kumari is Associate Manager, Research and Impact at Dream a Dream.