Evolve

In the final part of our series, we reflect on a milestone year – a year that was designed to test our mettle, offering us challenges galore and through every challenge, the opportunity to grow and evolve.

Amidst the continuous chaos, most, if not all of us, realised afresh our ability to face and embrace even the most difficult situations. As we stepped out of ourselves in creating a healthy space for our students and for each other, paradoxically, our circumstances encouraged us to go further inwards in introspection. We learned to enjoy our own company, yet our bonds with the community were forged stronger than ever this past year, without physically meeting even once.

“Education for life” was redefined in a unique sense – we revelled in being able to discover ever new ways, means and tools, in the realisation that truly, we are all learners and there can never be a limit to knowledge and learning.
 

(We released this video celebrating educators everywhere - the real VUCA Warriors - transforming a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous world into a new VUCA, characterised by Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility.)⁣


We experienced giving and receiving new depths of empathy for one another. And most importantly, through recognising our positions of privilege, our students, parents and staff took every opportunity to help others stay afloat.

The Shiv Nadar School Gurgaon Student Council spearheaded Reach One, Teach One, an initiative to secure brand new laptops for the children of the school’s support staff so that education could continue uninterrupted.

That’s What Classmates Do, a Shiv Nadar School Noida parent-led engagement ensured laptops for neighbourhood children. Community Kitchen was organised by Shiv Nadar School Noida to reach out to the communities around the school, serving around 500 meals every day.

Team Enkindle, a team of six from Shiv Nadar School Noida (in collaboration with Make-A-Wish Foundation) designed, executed and fundraised for a solution to address the menstrual hygiene crisis faced by low-income communities by distributing kits to over 1000 women and children.

Beyond this, individual students and their families across all three of our campuses fundraised and arranged donation drives in their own communities. 

As we look back and reflect on a year truly like no other, we find that it was through the critical relationships between School, Parent, Student, and the broader Community, that we have all been able to weather the chaos. Ever learning, innovating, exploring and evolving, our journey has now led us to the shores of 2021 – knowing not what life will bring, but strong in the knowledge of what we can bring to life.

 

Jan 25, 2021 by Shiv Nadar School