This was yet another fast paced class filled with lots of information and activities.
We began the class with usual prayers and review of class etiquettes and continued into a fun recap using Kahoot. The students seemed to really enjoy reviewing through Kahoots, so we are planning to do more in the future. The recap was on the previous class' material on Dharma.
After finishing the recap and discussing the questions that were slightly tricky, we quickly jumped into our material for this week : Dharma Part 2.
Last week, we alluded to the 10 values of Sanatana Dharma to be discussed in class as per the syllabus. A quick recap of those are below:
"धृतिः क्षमा दमोऽस्तेयं शौचमिन्द्रियनिग्रहः । धीर्विद्या सत्यमक्रोधो दशकं धर्मलक्षणम् ॥ ९२ ॥
The Ten forms - (1) Steadiness, (2) Forgiveness, (3) Self-Control, (4) Non-stealing, (5) Purity, (6) Control of the Sense-organs, (7) Discrimination, (8) Knowledge, (9) Truthfulness, and (10) Absence of anger.
We used "Star Wars" to provide a context for these values, giving examples from the movies as well as character analysis. For each value, we had a character on the slide. For example, Rey was the character that displayed dhriti (fortitude) and Princess Leia was shown for dhIra (discrimination). The Star Wars fans in class provided good insight when connecting these examples with the 10 values!
Along with Star Wars characters, we gave simple stories to emphasize the meaning and importance of each value. One example of that would be the story "It Will Not Let Me Go" for damaH (self control) ---
One day, a businessman who sold rugs was walking along a river. He saw a rug in the water and immediately jumped in to take it. But, upon pulling and pulling at the rug, it did not seem to move! The businessman's greed for the rug and future profit he would receive from it kept him going and he did not stop pulling. Soon, another man was walking down the same path and saw this foolish businessman. He screamed out, "What are you doing! That's a water bear! Get out of the water!!" Alas, the man warned this greedy businessman in time and he was able to avoid what could have been his death. The moral in this story was to exercise damaH and have self control especially when it comes to desires. Otherwise, we can be in worse situations than even this man holding onto a water bear!
We went through all 10 values in a similar fashion and then did a recap of them through a video clip. We showed the students a clip of the 2016 movie Sully. The scene was specifically the one where Capt. Chesley Sullenberger made the decision of making an emergency landing in the Hudson River, saving all 155 passengers and crew members. To say it was a powerful clip would be an understatement.
As a class, we were able to identify many of the 10 values discussed displayed in the clip. For example, the Capt. had great control over his senses (indriya nigrahaha) even in the most stressful situation. He had to use his prior knowledge (vidya) and years of experience to discriminate (dhIra) between the choices in front of him, and did so while having dhriti (fortitude) about doing the right thing for the greatest number of people.
Upon finishing the values, we discussed the festival coming up : Navaratri! A special team project was assigned as well… :)
Attached below are the slides with the overview of Navratri that they can use in their projects, as well as the instructions they should follow. The students were split into groups and gathered their team's contact information to collaborate over google hangouts/email.
Here are the teams and topics :
-Karthik, Sahishnav, Sanjay Rishabh —> Sarasvati
-Saanvi, Shethra, Diksha —> Lakshmi
-Anirvina, Amit, Archish —> Durga
Lastly, we had Anjana Aunty come in to do the House Sorting for the students. Each student took a personality quiz and was sorted into either Arjuna's Arrows, Bajrangi's Bolts, Krishna's Cowboys, or Durga's Daredevils. They will be participating in various activities with their Houses and will attempt to collect points for their Houses during the process as well.
That's all for now. Hope you all have a great quarantine Navaratri. Looking forward to seeing the students' projects!!
Best,
Nikhita and Partha
