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Annual Day is an important celebration at Isha Vidhya schools.

The Cuddalore Isha Vidhya school celebrated its Annual Day
earlier this year. They had invited Saravanan, Proprietor of
Bayselle Marketing, as the chief guest. Inviting local business
owners to school functions is a way of reaching out to local
community and getting them involved in growth of the school.

Saravanan, who had not been to the school earlier, was
pleasantly surprised to come across a well equipped,
beautiful school in rural setting. During his speech he urged
the parents and students to take advantage of the opportunity
and make best use of all the facilities available at the school.
The eagerly awaited prize distribution ceremony took place
when prizes for excellence in academic and extracurricular
activities were given to deserving students.

The cultural programs started with welcome dance, performed
by kindergarten students. Classical pushpanjali – an offering,
was performed next. A train song by the 2nd Std students
rocked the evening. Sadhana, a student, spoke in flawless
English about the methodology practiced at Isha Vidhya to
teach languages. Saravanan commended her effort and gave
her a prize after her speech.

'Respecting elders' was the message of the heartwarming
English drama. Another hotly debated topic 'misuse of mobile'
was hilariously brought out by means of mime performance.
This was followed by western dance where audience was left
wondering if the performers had any bones of not.

In the rush to become a part of the global society, folk culture
is getting neglected. Tamil drama 'Oor Thiruvizha' i.e. Village
festival, exhibited several folk dances of Tamil culture. Another
English play stressed the importance of Isha's Green Hands
project which is about reforesting the land with local community
support.

These and several other performances underlined the talent of
the students and effort of the teachers. The audience was
spellbound and stayed glued to their seat till the end. We cannot
end the report without mentioning the exemplary comparing done
by Kunthavi (English) and Tamilmozhi (Tamil).

Sharing of the administrator of Cuddalore school:

So far we have conducted many annual day and sports day  
but this I was little but tense since both functions to be held
in continuous two days. But all my staff gave me confidence
and assurance which made me to boost up my morale. We
wanted to do it in a planned manner to avoid any hitch. So we
conducted staff meeting and work was allocated to each staff
and so every one was aware of their responsibilities and care
was taken in allocating work based on attitude and interest
of the staff. I did the constant monitoring of work done by the
staff.  We decided to invite people from rural background who
have come up in life due to their sheer hard work as chief
guests since they will be an inspiration for our students and in
turn they will be interested to visit a rural school like ours.
Since everything was fine in a  planned manner. Both functions
were a grand success and i vow this credit to all my staff and
students who stood behind giving solid support."

Sharing of the Principal of Cuddalore school:

"This year both annual day and sports day were a grand success.
Thanks to the team-spirit of our staff and to the able monitoring
done by our admin team. Since tenth std science practical exam
was also on the same month we have to balance the tenth
revisions as well as preparation for the function. But we did it
so nicely without compromising anything. Thanks to the tireless
effort of our staff and the precise planning of our team. I was
happy that the chief guests for both the functions were genuinely
interested in our school and students and asked many questions
about our methodology, scholarship scheme etc. I was happy to
see the huge turnout of parents and all remained in their seats
till the end of the program. Both days were memorable days in
my life."

Links:

• Isha Vidhya at Global Giving

Teachers at Isha Vidhya schools are motivated to
excel in their role as well as in their passion to
contributing to the society in their own ways.

Cuddalore Tamil Teacher Tamizhmozhi has blossomed
into a wonderful Tamil writer, with the promise of a
bright future for her.

Tamizhmozhi has been writing poems and stories from
an early age. She joined Isha Vidhya Cuddalore as
Tamil teacher, and started carving out a name for herself
with innovative teaching.

She penned stories based on the 12 'Uyir' letters
(Tamil letters), and 18 - Mei poems (Mei are Tamil basic
letters) to help teach Tamil letters in classroom. Use of
these stories and poems led to marked improvement
in learning curve of the class. Observing this, the
Central Academic Team asked other Isha Vidhya
schools to also adopt it in their classroom teaching.

It was fortuitous that Tamizhmozhi met a publisher,
of Nivedhitha publications, who came forward to publish
her poems and stories. The first book, 'Sila kodukalum
sila pullikalum', sold like hot cakes in the recently held
Chennai book exhibition. Encourage by the response,
Nivedhitha publications published her Uyir stories and
Mei poems in a book.

Shares Tamilmozhi :

"During my collage days my Tamil professor Tamilarasi
was my inspiration who motivated me to write poems
in Tamil. So as per her advice and guidance i have
started writing in Thanthi, Rani and Kunkumam magazines.
Then there was a long gap and i virtually forgot to write. 

Then all on a sudden i had an urge to write and at the
same time i got an offer to working in Isha vidhya. So
for i had written only poems only at Isha vidhya i realized
that I have the talent to write even songs and stories.
LKG teachers of Isha vidhya are the force behind my
effort. They requested me to write songs based on
each uyireluthu and meieluthu. Encouraged by their
words I wrote songs on Uyireluthu and stories on
meieluthu. In fact the LKG teachers Rama and Latha
are my first fans. Four years later, my songs and stories
were published into books."

We are proud to have talented teacher like Tamilmozhi
teaching in our school. We hope that students will get
inspired by her and try their hands at writing too.

Links:

• Isha Vidhya at Global Giving