ST. THOMAS HIGH SCHOOL & JR. COLLEGE: GOREGAON - TEACHERS' ORIENTATION
September 13, 2013
Today, AVEC made an inroad into St. Thomas High School and Junior College - Goregaon. Thanks to the foresight of Fr. Henry D'Souza, manager of the school & Junior College. Sixty nine teachers participated in a full day's Value Education Orientation Program 'Management By Values' (MBV) that was organized by AVEC. The school manager, Fr. Henry warmly welcomed Fr. Glenford Lowe and Mr. Rochwyn Fernandes to the school and invited the teachers to make the best of the opportunity being provided to them. Thanks to Sr. Geraldine Soeiro, Principal of the school for making all the arrangements to conduct this orientation program.
To set a spiritual tone to the day's orientation, an inter faith Prayer song ' Sarveshaam, Swastir Bhavatu' depicting the various religions of India with its multi-religious rituals and celebrations, enabled one and all to implore God's blessings for peace, prosperity, health and abundance on all. After the prayer song, Mr. Fernandes invited the teachers to take a relaxed position and to focus on their breathing. The exercise proved to be an opportunity to slow down and relax and to re-energize oneself with a fresh breath of energy.
Fr. Glenford Lowe, then began his session on 'Management By Values' (MBV). Taking the participants through a number of daily life's situations and focusing on their 'metaphors of life', the teachers were able to get a new perspective change that would trigger a new procedural change. The first part of the session challenged the teachers to look at their level of change in life. "Are you ready to just make a 'quantitative change' in life. or are you ready to go for a 'qualitative change' in life?" he asked them. "Once we embrace Values and make the necessary shifts in our lifestyle, that is the start of a new lifestyle," he said.
The teachers were invited to enter in the 'world of the young' and to understand their ' attitudes to life'. The role of an educator is to make a difference in the lives of their students by making quantum changes in their 'attitudes to life' by instilling Values in them. Through the use of a PowerPoint presentations, deep insights, personal testimonies and moments for interaction and coupled with a lot of humor, the teachers were taken through the various stages of discovering themselves and understanding their own 'level of Value Consciousness'.
In the final part of the session, the teachers were asked to look at their own 'Hall-Tonna Value Map' and to plot their 'Goal Values and Means Values' and to make the necessary Value Shifts in their personal lives before they begin to mentor their own children and students too. The teachers took part in the entire program very seriously and one could see a new sense of purpose and dedication and commitment emerge on faces of all the teachers.
At the end of the session, Mrs. Merlina D'Souza proposed the Vote of thanks. A few teachers came forward to write their comments in the AVEC appreciation log book:
"Thank you Fr.
Glenn for the wonderful session. It has definitely enlightened us. We hope to
become better educators by instilling value based education in our pupils. And
we definitely would like to have many more seminars of this kind! Thank you,
once again." – Vivian Pathare
"What you see is
what you get’ this has gone down very well with all of us. We saw and heard a
lot Fr. Glenn and got plenty of value based education. Thank you Fr.Glenn, for
giving us your valuable time to suffuse us with values. Your session was simply
fantastic, superb, well organized and qualitative. To add to it Fr. Glenn’s
impeccable sense of humor had us regaled throughout and gave us an interesting
time." – Harriet Fernandes
"Thank you so
much for such a wonderful, inspirational session. I enjoyed every bit of it. It was very systematic and well
planned. I learnt a lot from it. I will remember you in all my prayers." –
Mariam Jose
