We are students from Grade 9, of the Riverside school, India. We would like to share with you the process that we have taken to come up with and idea around the development of our 'wellbeing' curriculum...

We were basically reading a lot about children committing suicide just because they did not score high grades in their exams, in the newspapers. It is then that we asked ourselves – is marks our identity? This is how we started discovering our 'i'dentity. We learnt that our identity is more than just the marks we score - It is our name, character, personality, interests, dislikes, choice we make, our job etc.

To help other students uncover themselves we came up with the idea of compiling an 'i'dentity curriculum.
Sir – we would like you to know the process that we have been going through – through this process we have understood a lot about ourselves. We started it all by an amazing brainstorming session. We just kept getting ideas on what should be in the toolkit and also the WHY behind each of it. We understood that what would be there in the toolkit would make a child realize his/her identity. Therefore we came up with a list of things one could do to explore themselves.

Below are some explorations that will make the process of our learning come out loud and clear:
Legacy – While doing the legacy we realized that our identity is made up of many many attributes. Not only is our identity our name but also our geographical origin, our choices, our likes, dislikes, our hobbies and much more. While the legacy was in the making we also realized that our identity is something to be proud of.

T – Shirt – While doing the T shirt we learnt a lot about introspection and how to represent our introspection in a creative way. The t – shirt made our identity visible to the world.

Through the process of making the curriculum we have realized a lot. As mentioned we realized that our identity is something to be proud of. However many people are not proud of their identity – so our goal was to make them understand the relevance behind it all. Initially we were planning to make an identity toolkit which included the final products as activities to do. However we realized that our thinking process was more important than just the products. We understood that this idea had to be process oriented and not just product oriented.

We understood that discovering ourselves cannot be done in just one day – it is a life long process. We realized that this identity idea had to be carried along 3 years from grade 8 – 10 as this is the time we start making choices for our future. The curriculum is designed to finally empower a student to make right choices in the future and not be helpless.

This curriculum is designed in such a way to make a student have fun in discovering their identity. Showing the relevance to them as well as making them understand their true identity. This curriculum will also benefit the teachers and parents of the student as it requires full involvement from them too. They too will understand their identity better.

To sum up, this curriculum is not just a book they have to read, but an exploration and process that they have to undergo. We have benefited a lot from this process and hope they will too. So this was the process of the identity curriculum we are designing, we hope that other students also realize the relevance behind the fact that this is a process and not a product...

Sincerely
Jazz and Bhavya of grade 9 of the Riverside school, India
www.schoolriverside.com

It's been a pleasure to read such an amazing work. Committing suicide among students is not something new but schools must be concerned with this issue. Being a good student and trying to always do the best is important but to have a life full of good memories is better.

Discovering ourselves can take all our lives and even then probably we wont be able to accomplish it. A person's beliefs, education, economic status,and culture depend a lot on their identity.

People in every country has a different identity which is marked by its cultural burden. I would like to know more about the development of your work and if it really helped your students find their identity.

Martha Morett
Jules Verne School Mexico