This was a short class - only till 10:05 AM.
As students came in, we got into a casual conversation of the Chola dynasty in light of the recent movie called PS1. We shared some pictures of the Brihadeswara temple, talked about its history and tied the conversation to Sanatana Sanskriti. Brihadesvara Temple.
After our morning prayers, we played a game with index cards to review what we learned in the topic covered so far on Sanatana Sanskriti. There were some keywords on each index card. These words on one index card are related to another index card. Eg. If "Prakriti" was written on one index card, "Inherent Nature" was written on another index card. These cards were distributed to the students randomly. The goal was to form groups such that the maximum number of related words come together. The student is supposed to hold on to the index card he/she got and present it to the rest of the class.
We played a similar game where the students had key-words from the definition of culture by Swami Chinmayananda. The idea here was the students to line up the index cards with the key-words so that the definition is complete.
The pictures/short videos related to these games are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qpX4z52gRnNoxsm99.
We are now nominating one of the students to be the timekeeper. The timekeeper reminded us that it was time for us to do the Saraswati Puja. The puja along with the rest of the classes was done in the main hall.
---- Student's summary by Srividya Mudaliar ----
An interesting part about this class was that we learned many interesting fun facts at the beginning of class. Some interesting things we learned about are the Chola Dynasty in South India and where they reigned for a long period of time and the Brihadeshwara Temple (Shiva Temple) in Tanjore, Tamil Nadu, India. We also played some card games in class where we were each given a card with one or two words and had to connect them with someone else's card. In one of the games, one connection was about cultures. We connected the cards to say that a group of people living together happily in a particular place is culture. In Balavihar, this week, we learned about the teaching methods of the Indian education system and about inherent nature. For Indians, there is no book unlike for others which means that nothing could be destroyed or ruined easily. The teachings were passed orally from guru (teacher) to shishya (student). The Indian education system was based on knowledge, not money so teachers and educators were very concerned about students actually understanding the various concepts at their level. Depending on how the student was, the teacher taught them accordingly. Additionally, we were told a story in class about how Ashwadhama was actually a failure. This was because he was a Brahmin but learned archery instead of gaining knowledge as he was supposed to. We also learned about some important things in education. (Three main things). Some of these essential things are inquiry and discrimination between good and bad. We discussed how these were very important to learn and how they are a major part of Indian education. One other important thing we learned in class this week is about inherent nature. Inherent nature is the basic nature of something such as happiness, sadness, and silence. These can not be created as they are already present. To notice that it has appeared, we have to remove all obstructions and distractions. Also, for Inherent Nature, we have to stop identifying ourselves as different from each other and associating ourselves in specific groups instead of being one and including everyone. Overall, we learned about some interesting historical facts, the Indian education system, and inherent nature in class this week.
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Sitaram Kuchibotla
