Translation of a Teacher's Dream by Students

I am a dreamer and have thousand things going on in my head. If I hadn't become a teacher I would have died of frustration. School is the place where I can express myself freely. I translate my personal dreams into spaces in school and spend sleepless nights of satisfaction. My students enjoy my wild ideas and become part of them, often adding their share of craziness. We work endlessly during our holidays and learn to celebrate work as art of life. I harness their talent and make them polish their skills. Students are treasure house of talents.
My school is right next to the river but strangely the campus is very dry and dusty. I had a refreshing feeling at a water body in sight would chill our mind and then planned a pond in the park. It took a long time to bring the mental picture on the ground but my VIII C students had the required skill to give shape to it.
I consulted two engineers but for a project of our scale students are the best engineers. My friends generously donated cement and love, and kezang prepared her best fried rice for my class during the long concreting hours.
More than the pond itself, the time I spent with my students gave me deep insight into their lives, about their families, and their life during vacations and at home. It's very inspiring to discover that many of them have worked as temporary labourers and paid for their schooling expenses. While the kids from well to do families take so much interest in learning from the experts friends. It strengthened our bond as class and as team. Tomorrow morning they will be so proud to see the whole school admiring our pond.
Following is a glimpse of our journey in creating the pond, in picture over a period of one month.

The First touch.

Groundbreaking (helping hands from Basketball team)

Laying foundation 

Concreting during a holiday

The shape is formed, first layers concreting done and watered for strengthening.

Trying out Colored-cement for the first time- Polishing was done with help from 5 experts from senior classes.

First Guest to my Pond is my Family- Sunday Morning 

Isn't it refreshing? 

Now the pond is waiting for fish, turtle, frog, lotus, or anything that will survive there to give students visual of some aquatic life. The least we have planned is to shift 8 fishes from school fishery farm (8 fishes because it's class VIII's work) and put 29 beautiful stones, each with roll numbers of my 29 students for, what they call, Long Remembrance.
When I have luxury of time I would like to share about amazing projects my teacher colleagues have done in Bajothang too because I think I am being very selfish my sharing only about those thing me and my class did on my blog.

Disclaimer: No teaching time was wasted in building this pond because we did it during weekends and holidays. And no contributions, in any form, were asked from students except their free time and skill.

Curiosity Post in Bajo WiFi Park

Curiosity Post

This Sign Post stands tall at the entrance of the WiFi Park and I call it curiosity post. If you look at it perhaps you will only be curious about how it was made because you already know about the things that are written on the planks. But in my school where every year over 700 students will walk pass this and not many will know what these are. They will be curious and the next time they are on a computer they explore, that is what this post is supposed to do.
A school is a world in itself; rich and poor, good and bad, intelligent and dull, happy and sad, beautiful and ugly, and many other extremes. And there is another gap that divides students into two, which is called the Digital Divide, and I am hoping to break that barrier subtly. NIIT's Project in schools across the country is training every student from class VII to XII in use of computer technology and they are introduced in use of internet as well. But how much do they know about using internet as a source of knowledge? and as a tool for collaboration and learning? This post has no magic in it but it can trigger the magic students have in themselves.
I have already had several teachers and guests from abroad who passed by the post and asked me, "What is KhanAcademy?" That's where the learning begins. I love explaining about each one of them,

The Curiosity Post is a piece of art created by the eight students I have in class XI computer Studies. Each one of them carved and painted a board each and we had a tough time deciding whom to be placed at the top. I am happy Blogger won the place on the top.The bird nest on the top is borrowed from another class that has done another project of placing bird nest on trees.

Update 25th Aug: 39 Students from Raffles Institution Singapore visited our school yesterday morning along with four teachers. They spent the whole morning mixing with out students in their classes. Some of our students were stunned by the brilliance of these young Singaporean kids.
 One of the teachers, Mr. Louis, who worked in Bhutan for a year and have returned thrice, told me that his student were amazed by the WiFi Park. He says they have wireless internet connection across their campus but having a specific place outside to relax and enjoy is something new to them.

Creative Works of My Students in School WiFi Park

 I have been dreaming of building a park in my school that will translate the idea of free and open learning environment into a real space. I read somewhere that modern classrooms should be www, which is a pun and interestingly means Wherever, Whenever, Whatever besides its actual meaning.
I planned a park where there will be beautiful benches to rest under the shade of green tress and wherever you sit you could catch strong WiFi connection. The idea was expensive and school had no money. But dreams require passion more than money, and passion I had enough. It didn't take long before I knew I could do it without money. With the plan in my hand I went looking for sponsors and surprisingly I received commitment from many people who would donate cement, wood, nails, electrical equipment, and wireless router.

WiFi Park Board (Hemlal and I carved and painted)

Then I was stranded at the idea of having to make huge number of benches. I would need a carpenter to work for me over a long period of time and he would want me to pay him handsomely. Even if I had money I will run short of bench designs. That is when I turned to whirlpool of creative idea, yes my students. I announced a "Park Bench Making" competition among sixteen senior classes and promised then attractive prizes. Then I went looking for "attractive prizes" while students worked on their benches. The result amazed everybody. Following are some of the benches my students created;

Bench 14, 2nd Prize Winner

Bench 10, Consolation Prize

Bench 5, Consolation Prize

Bench 9, Winner

With major portion of the work happening on its own, I was left with loads of energy to focus on the technical infrastructure, which was completed right away. Then I had to build a pavilion that will not only provide shade but also power supply to charge laptops. A colleague and his class of students volunteered to takeover the work.

The Pavilion

Seven out of 16 benches were awarded prizes based on the judgement of five external judges and acknowledgements were sent to our sponsors. Now the park is ready and opened for operation. You could sit in the shade and enjoy internet.