Darla school changed its girls dress for second time in a year

Old red tego

A kira, woonju, tego, gho, or shoes and socks may not be the ingredients for my favorite outfit, but if I were given a choice, I wouldn't throw away the idea of school uniform. Wearing a uniform is a badge of pride, creates an identity for a school, and is an important part of being a school student.

Uniforms show that you are part of an organization. Wearing it says we're all in this together. Also, if you wear your uniform with pride, it means you are halfway there to being respectful.

Old Dress

I feel uniforms are great social equalizer. It discourages inappropriate dress, helps bolster school and academic pride, and is a no-brainer when you get dressed in the morning.

I was told by one of the parents in the morning, “My kids go to the school and uniforms were the best thing that happened. They don’t see friends having better clothes, and in the end, you can save a lot of money.”

I also feel that uniforms give students a sense of belonging to a particular school and create an identity for the school in the community.

New faded ash tego

Some people believe that a school uniform can improve learning by reducing distraction, sharpening focus on schoolwork and making the classroom a more serious environment, allowing students to perform better academically.

Perhaps most importantly, a uniform means students don't have to worry about peer pressure when it comes to their clothes. When everyone is dressed the same, worrying about what you look like isn't so important. There is no competition about being dressed in the latest trend, which would put a great deal of financial pressure on students and parents. Potential bullies have one less target for their insults; it's hard to make fun of what someone is wearing when you're dressed exactly the same.

In America, where a majority of schools do not have a uniform, roughly 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by other students. This might not be directly linked to what they're wearing, but having a uniform can be a safety net for many students who might otherwise suffer from bullying. A strict uniform gives the impression that rules are strict too, perhaps helping maintain a sense of order at school.

New dress

The pros and cons of school uniforms

According to the proponents, school uniforms:
• Encourage discipline
• Help students resist peer pressure to buy trendy clothes
• Help identify intruders in the school
• Diminish economic and social barriers between students
• Increase a sense of belonging and school pride
• Improve attendance

Opponents contend that school uniforms:

• Violate a student’s right to freedom of expression
• Are simply a Band-Aid on the issue of school violence
• Make students a target for bullies from other schools
• Are a financial burden for poor families
• Are an unfair additional expense for parents who pay taxes for a free public education
• Are difficult to enforce in public schools

Darla school changed its girls' dress for the second time in a year. Starting from this July, our girls will be wearing ash-brown tego instead of bright red tego. A number of students have complained about the change, and there was a general opinion about this dress as really bad.

The red tego was lots of problems with many students and some teachers and parents against it. It was only due to a few persons in the school, that the red tego was to be red. Many thought it was not good. There were many reasons saying against the bright red colour. Though symbolically confident and bright, it had more negatives than its good ones. The red was so intense to look at, as it affects the eyes, especially, teachers who had to see tegos. I also heard that it attracted bulls, leeches as they were plentiful in Darla.

The tego was chosen by our school girls before the first term, and they like it now. One of the students said, "I like uniforms because everyone is same and no one can be left out by the way they are dressed. Our new tego looks smarter, which is good."

New Principal
With the change of the tego came the change of principal. Mr. Tshochu was replaced by a new principal Mr. Tshering. The former principal went to Gedu HSS, and the latter came after his studies. Till now I have worked under seven principals, and I found Mr. Tshochu to be the best of all. Though, he was also a little crooked, and who says humans are not crooked. Everyone is. Everyone was a little bit un-human and they would lack civic sense sometimes. When I have time now, I would like to list down some good and lousy leaders:

Lack of Transparency; we(i) can tell when someone is not being completely honest. There’s rarely a reason not to be entirely transparent with everyone, every time. But we appreciate an understanding of all. Lack of transparency can result in a lack of trust.
Egoistic; the best leaders are ones who accept blame when things go wrong and give credit to their team when things go right. In order to be a true visionary leader, you need to let go of your ego and focus on your people because without them you would be nowhere.

They don’t have enough confidence to lead at their level. The boss I worked in Tsirang at the start couldn’t decide because he had no faith in his decisions.

They’re arrogant, assuming they always know what’s best. It takes confidence to lead. It also takes humility. Many leaders think they’re confident when they’re really just pigheaded and proud.

They’re disorganized. I’ve worked with some hard-driving, capable leaders who hamstrung themselves by never getting organized. I had one leader like this, who ran after ladies and bother little about school. The first thing I would do if I were boss fired him.

They over-promise and under-deliver. This one affects more than just politicians. People leading up in an organization often do this because they are trying to impress those above them, failing to realize that by under-delivering they are shooting themselves in the foot. And people at the top fall into the trap by overusing promises as a way to ensure team loyalty. I see most leaders in Bhutan are like that – sycophancy.

They don’t articulate a clear vision. No one wants to follow in the dark. It’s impossible to motivate people who feel in a fog.

They don’t enroll others in their initiatives. Some leaders just expect people will follow them just because of their position. Wrong. If a leader can’t enroll others, failure looms.

They don’t hold people accountable—especially themselves. If a leader avoids responsibility and won’t hold their team accountable, they’ll shipwreck the organization. Accountability is essential.

Nobody is born with any given skill, we learn through observation and by copying others (our role-models). You might get some valuable info from reading books on this subject, but I remember an old saying, scribbled on the cover of a book I read in my teens: “Life is not learned from books, but by living it.”

While meeting great leaders has always been a wonderful experience, it is the bad ones that really enforce the true values of leadership. I’ve been lucky in this sense, as I got the chance to meet some of the worst leaders you can possibly imagine. Leaders who fail to keep up risk being clueless, close-minded, and arrogant. A lack of knowledge leads to indecision and fear and can cause employees to quickly lose trust in their leader.

Bhutanese Films and Theaters

Bhutanese people take pride in three names - religion, culture, and traditional, and these are all associated. These also often come to the rescue of our identity and nationalism to the outside world, or when any intellectual debate happens outside.

Being a proud real Bhutanese, I wanted my youth to absorb as much of Bhutanese in them, but as they would have it, only a few of the youth now shows interest in religion, culture and tradition.

However, I, myself being a subservient son of Bhutan have its own perils. When I was a thirteen-year-old kid, I watched GasaLamay Singye with my friends. It was Bhutan’s first movie. To be or not, it was not about religion, culture, or tradition, but human bonds- a love triangle. There were little quarrels and fights, dishoom-dishoom and songs. The movie moved some of us to be like heroes and it entered inside our juvenile brains. It was no traditional-cultural film, I remember.

Today, when I look back at those days, a sense of nostalgia takes over. I can reflect on the flicks of that movie. It was in fact, the emerging of movie-making in the country. I am not a Bhutanese movie buff now. I watched GasaLamay Singye as there was no TV at those times. Now, I am the type of ‘Woods;’ just like many of us - Hollywood and Bollywood. I have watched about seven Bhutanese movies so far. And I find Bhutanese movies a little un-Bhutanese, a little tactless, amateurish, sluggish, and predictable. All copycat. Bollywood from Hollywood, Hollywood from Bollywood, and other ‘woods’ and then to Bhutanwood or ‘Drukpawood.’ Our Drukpawood is the mixture-Masala of all Woods. Thinking it would become delicious Emadatshi. And thinking of these testy Emadatshi, that our ‘Drukpawood’ could also match the international level, we copy. But otherwise, it’s the commonly tasted ones. Our Dzongkha is becoming ‘Dzonglish.’ Anyway, let’s think over this; Fiji, a smaller country than Bhutan produces the world’s best movies.

Most of our movies do not depict the story of our rich history of our country- its rich historical background and tradition. We had so many Penlops, Deps, legends, myths, and folktales could be made into very good films. For example, the legend of Ling Gesar Ghyap, Zhabdrung, and his Dzongs, etc, could be made into beautiful movies. But nowadays, we live in the floating world, so we see in the movies flashy cars, immaculate houses, decked up ladies in tatters, fancy mood lighting, all these flesh and bones, and difficult to understand what and why are they portrayed.

Bhutanese movies are very much threaded in misery and weepy kind of life with little sparkling moments of joy that bring a smile to the viewer's face. The scene in which Phurba Thinley tries to behave like a woman gives little guffaws or the westernized musical party where the kids gather, dance, and sing a Nga Chelu Ga, Che NgaLu Ga or ting-a-ling-ling-song. Otherwise, there is no striking moment in the movie. The scene in where Singlam and Galam go to see their old ruined house and breaks apart, or cruel mother-in-law, Aum Lamo crouches the head of a hero’s girlfriend and thrashes on the wall, or the scene of heroes running through sometimes in poverty and dejections (and it usually happens because of the lady he loves... gripping lives... and then, they understand each other-their heart, they become together and start a new life, which will be a success within a minute, and there is little connections). The films, most of the time tighten the knots showing brutal and faithless life, making audiences, especially Bhutanese women considering their life like film.

Aristotle truly said that films must excite, startle, thrill, and shake viewers. Its effects cannot be produced by a play that is lacking in conflict. The conflict in the movie may be between human beings pulling in different directions, between a character and the environment in which he finds himself or the society in which he is a member. Movies must generally represent human sufferings, which raises pity and fear among audiences and make audiences decide that the film is a great one in its tragic appeal. The misfortune of the film should be simple and straight- forward, but sublime and universal in its penetrative appeal.

A good film as per my judgment should represent human suffering, have fear and pity, embellished language, and have emotional/cathartic appeal, and of all, it should educate, entertain and inform. There are two views on the tragic vision of life. One is that man is the plaything of inscrutable power called fate and another is that character is responsible for the tragic end. In Greek tragedies, the tragic fate for the heroes is predetermined. Oedipus and Antigone become obstinate and tyrannical. Their tragedy is due to their overconfidence in their respective attitudes.

Films though, portrayed antinomies of our lives, a majority of our viewers take it as reality. Because of this, the films should touch on various themes and issues, and, not only love failures that dominate most of our Bhutanese films, the films must represent history, contemporary Bhutanese society, roles, changing relationship and educate about the moral of faith and believing.

Moviemakers cannot retell the story of GasaLamay Singye again and again. Bhutan has a rich, different and diverse history. We have so many untold stories. Our people are rich, each one of us has many things to share. Every stone, every tree, every valley, every hill, every mountain, every village has a story to tell. There is Galem and Singye in every hamlet, there is Amrish Puri, Phurba Thinley in every hamlet. There are unsung heroes. We are not short of the story. But we are short of audience.

Many Bhutanese movies have been said to have run in lost. The question? Why do most Bhutanese movies run in lost? Why is Bhutan not successful with our Drukpawood? Why Bhutanese are not skilled with better movies production? What is lacking in our entertainment?

I think we are not devoid of the market or audience and people like to watch, but we are devoid of good places to be screened. Our villagers are hungry for Bhutanese movies.

Therefore, in order to reach Bhutanese movies for our hungry audience, we must have good distribution in place and good entertainment place especially halls or theaters. Good halls with good sitting arrangement, good sound systems, etc.  It would also serve as a meeting place for local people. Local people, because the good halls should be actually in every Gewog or if possible in every Chiwog. Building good theatre infrastructures and providing better and efficient facilities for the audience can profit movie makers and change the quality of movies.

In this way we can promote our own films/Drukpawood, and promote our own shows, etc, educating our own type of traditions. Not only that, we would be creating so many jobs opportunities in this industry. And at the same time generate lots of money. We would have fewer drugs users and crimes as a whole because it helps to engage them and give them a second thought.

Our neighbor India has very strong and prosperous films industry because almost all-little towns have very good cinema halls.

Bhutan has not many good halls; we have in Thimphu, Phuntsholing, Samdrup Jongkha and Gelephug. But these theaters are not really theaters, they are simple halls.  All these halls lack a good sound system, the technicalities of sound and such. And the size and cleanliness of halls could put them in grade-G.

I hope our government will look upon this matter and come up with good theaters. I am ready to contribute a small amount to build good theaters in our country.

Transformative Pedagogy -- 2016

Most employees want the same things: a fair and competitive salary, hikes and promotions, and normal TA/DA, to foster greater employee engagement and a sense of satisfaction in jobs.

Monetary benefits consistently top the list of what employees would give them greater gratification. Provide these benefits, and one could see a more positive culture, more engaged employees, and a more loyal and productive workforce.

The education ministry has been working on developing the skills of teachers and increasing their happiness. “A teacher is the heart of school and education,” education minister Norbu Wangchuk said. With his vision and a good plan, teachers in Bhutan got to attain the training for five days in the various centers in Bhutan.  Though the time of the workshop is (for some teachers) was during their summer break, it was mostly at the beginning of the second semester of the year. The centers for workshops were properly planned, to get entitlement or TA DA, teachers were sent a little far away from their school. For example, teachers of Darla MSS were sent to Phuntsholing and Chukha and likewise, Chukha schools were sent to Gedu. It was truly heartwarming to have arranged in that way, and many teachers were thankful for it. For that, all teachers were entitled to all kinds of benefits. If not, it could be otherwise, if it was to be steered by bad hands.

It was clearly announced and published in the newspapers how much budget that our new education minister had invested for teachers. “In order to develop the capacities of teachers, Nu 116.8 million (M) has been allocated this year from just around Nu 8M last year. The ministry in 2016 will initiate a new pedagogy training for around 9,000 teachers across the country.” (Kuensel, Investing to better teachers, June 6, 2016). We know teachers don’t get any benefits like traveling allowances. Entitlement of equal TA/DA and Mileage will boost the efficiency and productivity of the civil servants in Bhutan, thereby the overall performance of the country’s economy will be benefited. Further, this will also increase the level of confidence, competence, ethics and integrity across civil servants. Moreover, this might indirectly decrease the level of corruption and improve the accountability of the civil servants in the long run. I particularly thank Lyonpo Norbu Wangchuck for his good initiative and it will definitely boost teachers.

During the pieces of training, we were given sumptuous lunch and refreshments. Looking at the nature of all the other workshops or training in the country I didn't expect this to work in the beginning. But I assure it will work.

But by the end of the workshop, we felt a certain sense of satisfaction. We learned some new skills and knowledge. We learned how to apply cooperative learning structures and active learning strategies. And I don’t want to write that literature here as we got our detailed handouts.