A student empowerment programme, Leader in Me, will now be expanded to 34 Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) schools and schools of excellence across the State through the Naan Mudhalvan scheme to help children tackle life’s challenges.
The programme aims to empower students through a curriculum of seven habits that they can implement in their life to solve any problem. A pilot programme was launched in Vidyodaya Girls Higher Secondary School, T. Nagar in February 2023. It was implemented for students of Classes I to IX and teachers underwent training in May 2023. Every week a class was conducted on a habit and an activity was conducted in the next class.
“The students are no longer inhibited and take more initiative in class. They are proactive to solve problems and introspective of their behaviours. A student who was diagnosed with dyslexia has now moved to regular classes due to the programme’s effect,” said Shanthi V, headmistress of the school.
Kannan Gireesh initiated the programme in an effort to prevent children from anxiety, depression among other issues. “This programme is being conducted in the United States of America and has shown great results. This was then adapted to suit the Indian society and was launched in 2017 in 108 schools across India. Vidyodaya is the first government school to have implemented this. More government schools must implement this for a greater impact,” he said.
Stating that the programme is child-centric, Aarthi.C, a teacher said: “The focus is on the children giving them the space to open up about their parents and friends unlike academics. We have had students who wouldn’t participate normally, but are now showing initiative to take up activities,” said .
Activity-oriented
Through the programme the students were encouraged to journal about the events and maintain an emotional bank in class.
Through an emotional bank activity, the students wrote about an incident in the day where they would have reacted impulsively and write down the appropriate reaction, she said. “Many have followed through with the right action too,” she said.
“We did not have a basketball coach and would lose every game we played against any school. Usually we would scream at our teammates for missing a basket, but this time we implemented the seven habits of the programme and encouraged our teammates. We won our first ever game,” said Dharshini. S, Class VIII student.
She also added that her relationship with her parents has improved tremendously. “I do not have a great relationship with my parents. So I implemented one of the habits, seek first to understand then to be understood, and found that they were busy and made time to approach them when they were free. Today, my mother would voluntarily come to speak to me and we have cultivated a good relationship,” she said.
Speaking about the result of the programme Thousand Lights MLA Dr. Ezhilan. N said, “The impact of the programme has been tremendous. The plan is to expand this programme to all Corporation schools in my constituency. People in the department must think out of the box to formulate these kinds of niche programmes to empower the children.”
