In-sight of a cause

The students studying various courses at Suryadatta Group of Institutes will gather together on Tuesday morning to participate in a special initiative organized by the institute authorities.

The students studying various courses at Suryadatta Group of Institutes will gather together on Tuesday morning to participate in a special initiative organized by the institute authorities. The initiative is titled Unfolding hidden potential through blindfold. Three hundred students have opted to participate in this initiative. The students will be divided into groups of three,of which two will be blindfolded and one responsible for looking after and guiding the other two blindfolded students throughout the day. The students will be allowed to choose their partners and also choose who gets to wear the blindfold and who gets to be the guide. However,the guide must at all times refrain from any direct physical guidance or else the team will be disqualified.

The initiative is aimed at attaining insight with a social awareness. Since our institutes are molding the managers of tomorrow,we believe that one can only become a good entrepreneur or a capable manager if he or she is a better human being. We want to inculcate sensibilities towards the differently abled in our students. Once they have spent a day blindfolded,they will properly understand the difficulties of the visually challenged and be more helpful and caring towards them, says Nandkumar Sethia,staff at Suryadatta Group of Institutes.

The idea of this initiative was stumbled upon by the staff at one of their meetings. After hosting a programme where hundreds of students at the Institute were required to maintain silence for 24 hours and switch off their cell phones and refrain from using the internet,Chairman and Founder Director Sanjay Chordiya wanted to organise another such activity to challenge the students as well as staff members.

The students will go about performing their regular routine in college,blindfolded. The teams will attend lectures,visit the library and many speakers will drop in to give short motivational talks to the students, says Chordiya. The basic idea for all these initiatives is to get the students out of their comfort zones and make them experience something different that will have a life-changing effect.

Since the blindfolded students will be attending lectures,it is a challenge for the teachers to design their lectures to suit the requirements of the initiative. Only one student from the team will be able to take notes on behalf of the other two blindfolded students,so the teacher must bear this in mind and teach their portion in a way that the blindfolded students can internalise just by hearing. Teachers,in general,also need to be challenged to perform at times. This initiative will give them a chance to try new skills of teaching,maybe use new aids for teaching their lectures. I dont know what concepts the teachers will come up with,but it will be interesting to watch how they design their classes according to the initiative, says Chordiya.

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