- To become responsible for own learning
- To pursue learning with joy
- To teach how to learn
- Practical applications
- To encourage creativity
- To ensure optimum utilization of human potential Vision
These capabilities are made up of skills and attitudes that are in bulleted items immediately below each capability:
- Ability to think critically and make right decisions
- Recognizing the moral issues involved in any situation (justice, fairness, what’s pleasing to God)
- Applying moral principles in decision-making and judgement
- Thinking about the moral consequences of one’s decisions
- Accepting responsibility for one’s choices
- Being wise and tactful in relating the decision (not all that we know needs to be said at once) (upyukt and unupyukt)
- Ability to work with others
- Consultation skills (considering that all views are valid and must be respected; other rules of consultation)
- Working with people of different views and backgrounds, abilities, economic status
- Conflict recognition and resolution skills
- Soliciting support and cooperation of others
- Ability to counter peer pressure
- Communication skills (ability to understand and be understood)
- Considering the feelings of others beyond the words
- Love for other human beings and respect for diversity
- Recognizing interdependence among all people
- Recognizing and believing in the world as one family
- Recognizing diversity as an asset
- Respecting differences of opinion, emotions, backgrounds, cultures, religions and traditions and all other differences
- Reverence for all forms of life/all living beings
- Equality of status to women
- To serve others
- Respecting human dignity, worth and rights of all individuals (improving self-esteem)
- Becoming involved in community life and identifying one’s potential for contributing for the betterment of community/society/future generations
- Taking responsibility and engaging in acts for the welfare of others and the less fortunate
- Taking pleasure in helping others and in proactive empowerment (helping others come up)
- Caring and consideration
- Compassion and Empathy
- Soliciting the opinions and beyond that full participation/decision making of those we serve
- Leadership skills (so that we can be agents of social change)
- Proactive thinking and decision making (not just reactive)
- Love for the environment and nature
- Love for nature
- Respect for all forms of life
- Kindness to animals
- Enjoys and protects nature and environment
- Attitude of conservation and sustainable use of natural resources
- Responsible Citizenship
- Me, family, community, nation and the world
- Knowledge of the world
- Understanding of the rights of each member of a family, community and the world
- Respecting rights of each individual/community member (eg personal property)
- Responsible citizenship what does it mean and how to become
- Respect for laws of each nation and region
- Understanding of democratic processes and their implications
- Problem-Solving Skills
- Ability to identify problem
- Ability to access information and use it
- Ability and desire to use knowledge to create, invent, think and solve problems
- Clarity of thinking; to be able to conceptualize
- Prioritizing
- Evaluating between various options
- Rationalization skills/Analytical skills
- Ability to strategize
- Seeing the end at the beginning
- Ability to consider short, medium and long-term consequences
- Resourcefulness to involve others/technology/modern methods to solve problems
- Tactfulness
- Ability to take concepts to reality
- Planning and organizational skills
- Will power/perseverance/diligence/determination
- Becoming involved/taking pleasure in what one is doing
- Taking initiative
- Proactive thinking
- Exemplary Living
- Cleanliness (outer cleanliness is a sign of inner purity)
- Purity of inner thoughts leading to pure actions
- Awareness of preventative measures (eg inoculation against prejudice)
- Love for beauty
- How to create beauty and orderliness around us
- How to create a safe and clean environment around us
- Fitness and exercises
- Healthy habits of mind and body
- Prayer and meditation, memorization and internalization of holy words (quotations)
- Reflection and bringing oneself to account every day, thinking of ways to improve and be better (guiltless)
- Adopting personal goals and principles
- Daily improvement; rising everyday to a better person (On every day, in every way, we are getting better and better; Hum roz he roz ache bante jate hain, hum roz he roz us peram shakti ki ore barte jate hain)
- Practice makes perfect (karat karat abhyas se jarmati hot sujan, rasri awat jat se sil pe parat nisan)
- There is more to know attitude (always striving for becoming better)
- Attitude of I will not be provoked into anger and I will not make a rash/rushed decision
- Happy demeanor
- Purposefulness
- High Moral Character
- Belief and faith in God
- Spirituality
- Virtues and values
- Motivation
- Moral courage
- Self-control
- A strong sense of justice and fairness
- Humility before God and humbleness
Social Issues in the SNS Curriculum
The SNS curriculum also attempts to address some of the social issues confronting our rural and urban underprivileged. As these are relevant to the day to day circumstances of their life, incorporating these as case studies within the curriculum presents an opportunity to make education more relevant to their needs. Education in the past has been removed from a discussion of these social issues. Instead of teaching about how "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water", we can talk about instead of the caste system and why Ramu and Shyamu cannot drink from the same well, or should they be able to. This also develops critical thinking and problem solving skills on many fronts.
Though not all of the issues can be discussed in all age groups within a class (since SNS curriculum can be used for a variety of age groups), here is a list of many of the social issues that can be discussed with some age group or another.
Caste system, sati, poverty, population, illiteracy, lack of resources, lack of proper sanitation and hygienic conditions, environmental degradation and pollution, superstitions, child/early marriage, inequalities (e.g. financial or male/female), child labor, land and property dispute, religious issues such as practice of rituals, communal riots, bribery and corruption, adultery, rape, blind following of leaders or selecting them for wrong reasons (what should be right reasons?), smuggling, lack of electricity or water resources, communication, productive land, divorce, bonded laborers, ignorance and blind faith, narrow mindedness, interference, adverse climatic conditions, lack of interest in work, exploitation, lack of initiative, lack of accountability for one’s wrong actions, lack of prompt social justice, reservation,
In addition, the SNS curriculum will also integrate a discussion of problems at the national and international level such as national security, terrorism, drug abuse, continuance of war, younger and more kids getting into violence, communal harmony, need for peaceful solutions, emerging global economy, etc.