A Postcard from Modern School: Courage is Grace Under Pressure

Posted: 28 July 2021

Overview

Modern School Barakhamba Road hosted a Round Square Zoom Postcard Event on 14th July, 2021 on the theme ‘Courage is Grace Under Pressure’. The hosts, through this event, desired to give a new definition to courage; a definition that is fluid, adaptable, and universal. A hundred students from nineteen schools spread over seven countries including India, Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Oman, Ghana, and South Africa attended. The event was packed with fun activities like a ‘Kahoot!’ online quiz and three audio-visual rounds which, along with keeping the participants engaged throughout the conference, catalysed the infusion of modern-day ideas of fortitude and valour in the minds of the delegates.

Planning

This was our first time hosting a Round Square event, and our student planning committee put in a lot of hard work to make this event a success. The Round Square Student Committee of Modern School Barakhamba Road was selected and trained over a period of four months. The selected students regularly attended RS Zoom Postcard events conducted by other schools just to understand the inner workings of this relatively new format and to notice the minute details which go a long way in making a postcard a success.

Mentored by the RS representative of Modern School Barakhamba Road, the Student Committee planned different activities, selected a ‘host’ for the conference and evenly distributed the workload among all the committee  members. The session conducted by Mr. Duncan Hossack of Round Square also helped in giving the Student Committee insights on becoming an effective Barraza leader.

Detail

• The Audio-visual Rounds: Our students created three videos which were played during the Postcard to stress the different aspects and domains of courage and justified the theme of the conference – “Courage is Grace Under Pressure”.

• The Baraza sessions: With a total duration of forty minutes, the two Baraza sessions played a key role in achieving the goal of our Postcard  – helping the delegates to question the previous definition of courage and come up with a new, universal one. Delegates shared their new definitions in a plenary session.

• The ‘Kahoot!’: The hosts played a fun, interactive game of ‘Kahoot!’ with the delegates. The questions were related to the theme of the conference and the quiz achieved the twin goals of introducing a healthy competitive spirit and helping the participants understand the deeper meanings of courage.

Challenges

The major challenge we encountered was time management and ensuring that the Postcard did not become monotonous or boring. The best solution for solving time management was timing everything multiple times beforehand and practicing it. We soon discovered that sometimes everything does not go to plan, and learned to adapt and to be flexible to allow for smooth running. We rehearsed and practiced all kinds of situations so we were well prepared.

The Kahoot! Quiz played a great role in keeping energies high and the event fun. It ensured that everyone felt engaged without deviating from the theme of the Postcard.

The majority of the students on our planning committee are in their senior year and are engaged in a host of other activities, so finding time together as a team that didn’t clash with these other commitments was tricky. To resolve this issue, students from other grades (freshmen and juniors) were also included in the Committee. This enabled a more equitable distribution of workload and, as an additional advantage, also provided a variety of opinion.

Impact

Hosting a Round Square event is nothing short of a once in a lifetime experience. It is an opportunity that not many people get, and there is a reason for it. The practices were thorough and sometimes intensive. It taught us a lot of things, but the key aspect was teamwork and cooperation. Everyone had each other’s back at every single point in time. The Postcard also taught us how to plan well and mitigate all possible risks. We were predicting all things that could go wrong and preparing for them. We were also taught how to be spontaneous and adapt to every possible situation. Learning the ability to lead a conversation without being too involved was another major lesson. Hosting this conference gave the students a newfound confidence and helped them develop these soft skills, which hold a lot of importance in the 21st century.

Advice

•  have a clear vision of how you want the event to turn out, i.e., the hosts must be clear about the skill sets which they want to impart to the participants.
• try and keep it fun, there should always be a two-way communication between the hosts and the participants,
• ensure that you make the participants feel at ease
• the more you practice, the less likely it is for something to go wrong.  Practicing smartly is one of the key aspects. Forecasting the worst-case scenarios and preparing for them while maintaining a positive mindset is an example of being thorough. This will also boost the confidence and help keep the nerves in control. Continuously appreciating one another for team efforts also helps keep the morale high.