AIM SCHOOL (CBSE)

Avatar International Model School

Only the topper is awarded the gold medal and the next with silver and bronze even if they break the old gold records. Every student, not only the topper, should be given an equal opportunity to evolve since this is not about winning a game but learning and mastering new skills. This seed of thought got sown in my mind at that time itself even though I was immensely benefited by the existing system.

The transition of learning in Tamil medium in school to English medium in college had its initial impacts on me but I managed to overcome it quickly and turned out to be the only graduate who got the first class in English in that year in my college. In fact, I was the first student to get a triple first class in Tamil English and the major with two ancillaries in that college. That motivated me to work harder and smarter to achieve whatever I wished for.

If the technique of learning is properly mastered at a young age, whatever learned will be stored permanently in the brain and one need not relearn it even after many years. ‘Relax and Focus’ should be the sequence of learning as the relaxed mind focuses better, absorbs faster and retains longer or forever.

I did my graduation and post-graduation in chemistry and won the university gold medal in addition to many other prizes in handwriting, debates, versification, essay and short story writing, etc. I also developed the habit of reading books. Every child should be taught to read at a young age and then the real learning becomes a part of him/her easily. Students should not read the text books alone and they should be encouraged to read anything and everything.

Getting educated in IIT is every student’s dream and I am not an exception. Yes, I got a Ph. D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in Chemistry. I also learned that IIT is a place where one can learn both freedom and responsibility. If it is possible there, why is it not in every institution in India?

Learning and Earning are related. If the focus is on the subsequent earning alone, it is hard to love what you learn or do. It’s my passion for learning that took me to a Nobel Laureate Dr. H. C. Brown in Purdue University, USA to do research for five years in chemistry. Whatever one does, be it study or play or work, it should have a purpose and I learned this important lesson at Purdue.

I had an opportunity to work in various institutions and industries in both India and USA where I learned the important bond between science and technology. When I got trained in the field of Information Technology to help the companies that I worked for, I also learned that the purpose of education should be to spread out its wings to fly high and not just to incubate the learned eggs within.

After spending a one-half of my life in the West, I returned back to our country and started working in a college in Chennai as a Director where we had designed to teach spoken English to the first-year students and life skills to the final year students. I found this strange because most of the students had been learning English since Kinder Garten for more than a decade and a half and still many found it hard to make a simple sentence without a mistake.

A branch when it is tender bends but breaks when getting old. Such is the case with the students and, therefore, the youth should be focused more than the old. I started writing motivational essays for the students, teachers and parents in the various media and also visited many schools, colleges and universities to motivate them on the importance of learning. My inspirational speeches and writings inspired me more igniting the idea of starting a model school for children.

The purpose of returning to India is to give back what I learned to my country. Now it is my turn to give something back to my native place where I grew up even though there are more demands for good schools in cities, such as Chennai. As Mahatma Gandhi said, our village is the backbone of India and let us support and start from there.

Kerala is mentioned as God’s own country and Kanyakumari district is also one of his favorites. We have chosen a beautiful land near Kanyakumari that is surrounded by many small villages with natural beauty for our school project. Incidentally, it is within 10 minutes of reach from my native place also. In an eco-friendly green campus with gentle breeze passing through the school from the Bay of Bengal and beautiful mountains presenting a feast to the poetic eyes, the surrounding coconut trees dance to the songs of our school children promoting peace on earth.

We have named it ‘Avatar International Model School’ as it will be a new transformation to every student. Our global education and experience also make it truly international. I want to set a standard in education so that it will become a model for other schools to follow us. It is aptly abbreviated as AIM School, with a tagline of ‘AIM to Succeed’, as it is the aim of every child, parent and teacher to be a part of the success.

Effective communication is very important as we become one and the same globally in the new millennium with the electronic advancements. By nature’s design, every student is either visual, auditory or kinesthetic in learning. We should not forget that the teacher also belongs to one of these three. Unless there is a match between the sender and the receiver, the message will not be communicated or received effectively. NLP, the Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a great technique that helps to achieve such wavelength in sync. I am a master trainer in NLP and have trained our teachers in NLP so that the teaching and the learning become very effective in our school.

Life skill, as everyone assumes, is not an interview skill after college. It is a skill for life and should be taught and practiced from childhood. Our school practices it and the parent are also trained in NLP and Life Skill techniques to help their children at home.

We tend to give importance to the Quantity forgetting the Quality many times. Everyone, including most of the teachers and parents, assume the student who scores 100% is smarter than the one scoring 95%. This math is only a myth. In fact, the students are earning marks in the process of learning and the test score is only a by-product. The CBSE system encourages the students to learn on their own to respond to the examinations better.

There are three stages of learning: Information, Understanding and Knowledge. Usually the learning stops at the first stage of copying the pages from the text books to the test papers in many institutions. The copy machine does not hold what it copied and that’s the case with many students. They tend to forget almost everything after the examination and that’s not a good sign for the future.

Instead of making the education a necessity, if we can create curiosity in the young minds, we can definitely reach the third and the highest status of learning (Gaining Knowledge) and then nothing will be lost from the mind. Our school is aimed to succeed in this from the beginning.

We have the best teachers who are strong in their subjects, fluent in communication and having love for teaching. Every student is taught effectively and we also have good communication with parents who are the second teachers at home. Our more than 3 acres of campus with a total of planned 75,000 sq. ft. building, the state-of-the-art library and the techno-driven class rooms will be a new Nalanda for education.

In our school, every student is taught to love every subject and the burden of examination is removed from his/her mind. The purpose examination is mainly to confirm the students’ understanding of learning and to focus on any area in which they need more attention.

Every parent wants his/her child to be outstanding but fails to see where he/she is standing out. We focus on their hidden talents and help them to identify and master it. A student, when he is a Senior at the end of the school, should not be spoon-fed with what he should do for his higher studies. Instead, he should be able to follow his heart to feed his brain.

Education is FUNdamental and everyone should have fun learning. There is a difference between studying and learning. When studying is temporary, the learning is permanent. Yes, many forget what they studied but never forget something learned. One can restart cycling or driving a car without referring to any manual even after many years of not touching it. So, we call our children in our school as learners, not just students.

Having raised one of our own children in the western education and the other in our eastern system, we have the practical knowledge and experience of learning in both systems. We want to give the best of both to our school children.

In our school, we seed the dreams of our former President Dr. Abdul Kalam in the minds of our young children. I want many doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists and technologists with humanity for our society and not just graduates and post graduates. “AIM to Succeed” is our tagline and we sincerely aim to succeed making everyone’s dream become true. Let’s all work together to make it successful. Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM)!