NEW DELHI: The Delhi government wants its students to inculcate mindfulness, self-awareness, critical thinking and social awareness through its happiness curriculum - all through activities and storytelling.
Launched on Monday by the Dalai Lama, the curriculum, which is still in its budding stages, is touted as a means to recognise and attain a greater meaning of life through the all-round development of a student's personality.
Underlining the need for combining ancient and modern knowledge to give real, wonderful and useful knowledge to the students, the Dalai Lama urged people to respect human values and sentiments to generate "happiness" among all. This, the
Nobel laureate said, can further establish peace and harmony and discard hatred, jealousy, violence and destruction.
Education minister
Manish Sisodia said the curriculum had been prepared by a specially constituted cell of 40 teachers, chaired by Rajesh Kumar, a member of the directorate of education. At least 10 lakh schoolchildren from classes I to VIII and 50,000 teachers will participate in happiness classes every day. Chief minister
Arvind Kejriwal said every class would last 45 minutes and include meditation and talks on patriotism.
The curriculum will focus on helping students experience "innate happiness" by directing their attention towards "exploring, experiencing and expressing happiness". Its keystones are based on Unesco's fundamental principles for reshaping education with a focus on educating children "to ensure harmony with their inner being and discover self in the process of learning".
The pedagogy has been devised to be "child-centred", wherein teachers will prompt them to explore their feelings through stories and activities. For example, as a lesson in expression and bonding with the teacher, the students of classes III to V will be asked to imagine a ball of clay that can be moulded in any form, and express what they imagine. Younger students of classes I and II will be engaged through stories. For example, one of the stories tries to help them understand the difference between reacting and responding. A boy bites into two apples before sharing one with his sister. She reacts, thinking her brother to be greedy, but soon gets corrected as he hands over the sweeter apple to her.
