St Joseph’s College, Bowbazar, is a boys’ higher secondary school where we went for a workshop on Identity conducted by Sumeet Thakur as a part of the PeaceWorks School curriculum with boys from Class IX on the first day (4 February 2008) and Class XI on the second day (5 February 2008). We met the boys of Class XI in the sprawling library and all the boys seemed enthusiastic to begin. Sumeet started them off with a fun warm-up game which required the boys to concentrate on passing around an imaginary ball amongst them as they stood in a wide circle.

For the next activity Sumeet made statements while the boys sat on the floor with their eyes shut. They were to raise their right hand if they agreed with his statement and their left hand if they disagreed with the statements made. But they could not remain undecided. Next, the boys were divided into teams and Sumeet asked them to write three things that were similar to each other in the team and three things which made them different from the rest. Then each team had to come up and stand on top of a black box and ‘perform’ their similarities and differences.

All the teams, rapped, rocked and innovated their way through their 5 minutes of fame in front of their classmates. Each team tried to outdo the other, and the result was an almost im- promptu talent show!
Finally, all this boiled down to a serious discussion on various social issues, reservations, and cor- ruption in Indian politics and environmental consciousness. Why is it so difficult for us to live in peace despite everyone’s individual differences? Many felt illiteracy was a major cause of such problems and that with regard to ethnic violence, only a few troublemakers tended to tarnish the images of entire communities. We also encouraged them to take part in the upcoming Peace- Works festival and put up a presentation on behalf of their school, and most seemed eager to comply.

The last exercise, to wind up, was one showing the value of co-operation. In this the boys had to successively use each of their fingers to hold a pencil and write the word “PeaceWorks” on a sheet of paper. Once they could use all their fingers together, it turned out to be the most successful of the trials thus demonstrating that better results can be achieved if everyone co-operates with each other despite individual differences. Alone, even a simple task can seem quite difficult.

The next day, three of us returned to St. Joseph’s and this time the workshop took place in their gigantic assembly hall. This time we were to meet boys from Class XI. These older boys immediately struck us as different from their junior counterparts. They were a much more serious group, perhaps because of their seniority. The round of Similarities and Differences in 3 teams was executed differently from the junior class. But when it was their turn to perform, it became quite apparent that a number of them suffered from stage fright! Unfortunately, this session took up a lot of time and our discussions had to be cut short.

— A report by Ragini Ghosh