Spiritual Empowerment and Service-Learning Program (SESLP)

Spiritual Education Class

Every classroom at Brilliant Stars School begins its day with a ‘spiritual education’ class. We use a variety of Baha´i-inspired books and programs including the "Moral Teaching" series (F.A.S.), compilations from the Ruhi Institute books (Colombia), and the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program - a global initiative aimed at endowing youth ages 12-14 with the ability to recognize the spiritual significance of their actions and words.
Acknowledging the fact that spiritual and moral concepts cannot be taught to individuals, and inspired by the Baha´i Faith´s principle of ‘independent investigation of truth’, our spiritual education classes are treated primarily as a forum where dialogue and debate amongst students and teachers are used in order to promote the sharing of personal views and perspectives - thereby enriching one´s understanding of the profound spiritual/moral concepts under study. Such conceptual study then finds its consummation in student planned and executed acts of service in their local community.

Service-Learning Projects

Brilliant Stars School acknowledges that in order to fulfill its ambitious goal of raising intellectually and morally empowered, active human resources that will labor towards the positive transformation of their community, it will need to provide students with more than just direct-instruction and drilling on the prescribed academic content. Thus, the Central Board´s (CBSE) curriculum must be supplemented with activities or programs that will help develop critical thinking skills, inculcate a strong sense of social responsibility along with the positive dispositions needed to act for the welfare of one´s community, and promote learning for understanding – by integrating the vast amounts of fragmented information provided to students in each subject, while engaging them in opportunities that enable the practical application of knowledge and skills gathered during class-work.

In order to meet these goals, a service-learning-inspired program has been integrated with the Central Board (CBSE) mandated academic curriculum at Brilliant Stars English Medium School. The proposed program, designed by our Education Consultant Siamack Zahedi, in collaboration with Biswajit Sinha from the school, aims at engaging students in researching, planning and executing acts of community service which will, in turn, reinforce their classroom study of academic subjects by deepening learning through its practical application, help develop in students a sense of social responsibility, and also provide immediate support to the reform-thirsty community being attended to.

Below is a depiction of the different stages (typically) that students work through during a service-project (though, much flexibility is offered in terms of sequence and inclusion of specific stages):

 

Our students are engaged in service projects throughout the year, devoting an average of 30 to 40 minutes each school day to it.

Click on the links below to learn more about our service projects so far:

2015
 Gender Equality

2014

Revisiting the Malaria Project

2013
 Nutrition

2012
 Garbage and Waste Management in Udaipur

2011

Malaria

2009 – 2010
 Swine Flu
 Medicine Collection and Distribution (Part 2)

2008
 Medicine Collection and Distribution (Part 1)
 Polio Drive
 Child Education
 Plantation

We consider our Service-Learning program as “work in progress”. By closely observing, documenting and then reflecting on the different phases of each successive project, and by incorporating the feedback from all those individuals participating in the projects and even visitors like yourself, we hope to continue enriching this original program that our School has been designing since 2008.