2nd July 2021 - 5th July 2021 

 

 The workshop envisioned to provide the participants with practical teaching strategies and strategies that can be incorporated into their regular teachings at the school through an approach of the philosophy of Secular Ethics with the help of curriculum developed on the philosophy.

 

During the registration for the upcoming training program “Ethics in Education” for primary school teachers conducted by Secular Ethics Department Tong-Len Charitable Trust and Ayur Gyan Nyas, all the teachers were divided into two batches to follow the social distancing guidelines due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This whole program was conducted to create awareness about the “Secular Ethics” taught by His Holiness 14th Dalai Lama himself. The official program started on 02/07/2021, graced by HE Lochen Tulku Rinpoche, followed by the Lamp Lighting Ceremony. Then the program continued by thanking all the people who attended by Ven. Lobsang Jamyang, Director of Tong-Len Charitable Trust. In the next session after lunch, Sh. Deepak Tiwari and Saida Sana started the main workshop for the first batch of 50 teachers, which consisted of four parts. The first part of the workshop focused on exploring the term “Universal Ethics,” understanding the need for universal ethics in the current education system, and understanding the emotions and ethics of restraint. In the next part, instructors elaborated on the importance of understanding the Ethics of Virtue and the Application of restraint and virtue in our daily lives. On the next day, in the morning session, the instructors started with various activities followed by discussions to make the teachers understand the Ethics of Compassion, the link between Virtue and Compassion, and the Ethics of Universal Responsibility. In the final session, the discussion was related to understanding the Ethics of Discernment, followed by a concluding session on How to deal with Ethical Dilemmas, Building a connection among all the five ethics, and Reflection on how these concepts play out in our lives and teacher implication. As the teachers were divided into two batches, the next two days of the workshop consisted of repeating the same four sessions mentioned above to the new batch of teachers. The participants in both the batches worked cooperatively as directed by the instructors responding to questions in between and through the comments. Each part of the workshop started and ended with a quick introduction and summary, respectively. The participants also showed remarkable enthusiasm 3 during their learning which involved a deep discussion among them about the lectures, and a lot of questions were also raised. They took only short breaks, and some of them skipped the breaks in their enthusiastic response to the approach.