On Wednesday, we published a report on Avasara Academy at Lavale. Elaborating more on her thoughts on the all girls’ school, Dr Tamara Philip, who is the director of Teaching and Learning at Avasara, says, “We want our girls to be role models for each other. That’s an important need across the world. Just feminism is a good reason to have an all girls’ school.”
She goes on to add that it’s important for the girls to understand and empathise with each other. “The most important thing for us is to see girls from diverse backgrounds get excited about learning something together. The curriculum is unifying. This is the centerpiece of our school. I think our teachers and students are highly invested in each other. The teachers know that every student has different needs.”
The teachers that we spoke to echo Dr Philip’s thoughts. “When they start classes here, the girls struggle quite a bit. But by the time they come to second or third trimester, they know the ropes. The students know they have to read certain books when they come to Humanities classroom. In Std VI and VII, we teach them skills like how to read a history text. We set a context and that helps,” says Arti, who heads Humanities department at Avasara.
Shyamala, who heads the Science department, says, “We are more focussed on teaching them how to apply what they have learnt. With introduction of grades XI and XII, we are encouraging them to imbibe other skills like exam and prep skills, interpreting questions, besides understanding the process of Science.”
While the world at Avasara encourages the girls to explore and excel at the opportunities, the reality is different at their homes. When asked about the disconnect and how the students cope with it, Pooja, a counsellor, says, “We have quite a few students who come from unhealthy home environments, but they, as individuals, certainly don’t come under the category of damaged. Our whole focus on counselling here is skill-based. Counselling along with catering specifically to a child’s need, helps them to learn certain skills and develop overall coping mechanism. What we have realised is that with regular counselling, there can be significant improvement in the child’s ability to cope with the situation. She might, at this age have not much control over the situation, but her ability to not let it affect her negatively can definitely be improved.”
The school also ropes in parents, visiting them at home, when they think that the adults should step in to improve a situation. Also, when parents visit Avasara for parent-teacher meetings, they are a part of the workshops, which revolve around themes and topics that are explored in counselling classes. “The couselling class that every grade has in their schedule is more of a life skills class. We talk of larger topics which we think that the girls of these grades should be exposed to — in grade VI, we talk about friendships and bullying. As they grow older, we talk about conflict resolution, decision making, emotional management and so on,” adds Pooja.