Teachers from various city schools participated in the ‘Fifth Year Recall’ camp organised by the Initiative for Moral and Cultural Training Foundation (IMCTF), at Maharishi Vidya Mandir in Chennai on Saturday. The stated aim of the programme was to help teachers to instil Indian values in students.
The teachers performed a series of short plays, highlighting six basic themes - conservation of wildlife and forests, preservation of ecology, respect for parents and imbibing family values, respect for women, patriotism and the need to sustain and preserve the environment.
Speaking at the event, Rajalakshmi, managing trustee, IMCTF, said that the foundation wanted to teach basic and important values to young students.
“We need to communicate this to children as they are diminishing due to modernisation,” he said.
The foundation’s chairman and former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami urged the teachers to incorporate modern-day achievements in their daily teaching routine.
“In today’s paper, there was a story about the 103-year-old Saalumarada Thimmakka, who had planted hundreds of banyan trees and earned a spot in the BBC’s ‘100 Most Influential Women’ list. The students must know about these people as it would change their lives,” he said.
Underscoring the importance of effecting change in young minds through training, noted chartered accountant and journalist S. Gurumurthy said that the foundation doesn’t believe in forcing students to imbibe these values.
“Only proper training can bring about obedience, only obedience can bring about a change in morals,” said S. Gurumurthy.
