15th January 2022
St. Teresa’s Institute of Education, Santacruz

“Heartfulness is a language of the heart which always cleans our dirt”.

Every teacher has to be heartful in order to teach effectively and to touch the souls of his or her students. Keeping this in mind, St. Teresa’s Institute of Education in collaboration with Inspire Mumbai, organized a 15 days Heartfulness workshop for it’s B.Ed teacher trainees. The first session of Heartfulness took place on 15th January 2022, Saturday. This session was an orientation for all the upcoming sessions. This session was held online on Zoom. The Principal of the institute, Dr. Sr. Tanuja Waghmare and professors Dr. Joan Lopes and Dr. Reshma Rodrigues were present in the session to welcome the Inspire members. From Inspire Mumbai, Poonam Gupta Ma’am, Mala Gupta Ma’am, Rakhi Ma’am, Kunhiraman Vappakalathil Sir and Reshma Dubey Ma’am were present for the session to introduce us to the concept of mindfulness. In the beginning, they asked the students to define mindfulness in their own words. The members then gave the real meaning of heartfulness, ‘it is an offer to humanity in a simple and effective set, a practice of relaxation, meditation and regulating mind’.

In the first session there was an introduction and meditation was done, lot of questions were asked. To develop empathy, tackle self-doubt, heart-to-heart conversation was taught through the program. To be able to share all of that in the teaching-learning process being heartful is necessary. For that have to transform and be good humans, practice life-skills, values, activity based learning and student oriented teaching is required was told. Dynamic classroom, inspiring teachers to be gentle brought about true-self and what is within the student trainees. The training programme had content like self, student and self. The concept was highlighted; ‘Heart is one of the most important. By meditation on the heart, we bring about real inner change’. Knowing oneself and others through the intellect will help oneself know the perseverance, willpower, attitude, sacrifice, discipline and energy. The session ended at 1’o clock in the afternoon.

This session was very refreshing. It is said that clear introduction of a certain topic increases our interest for that topic. So, the first session of Heartfulness created curiosity among the trainees for the upcoming sessions. This session was organised by the professors, Dr. Joan Lopes and Dr. Reshma Rodrigues.