‘Life Skills’ and ‘Life Education’ have assumed larger role in the education system again in the last decade. To address the need to impart effective life education in schools we at EFIL have designed a Life Education Program that suits the enquiring mind. This program is named EQUBE – meaning E3– which stands for Enabling Evolutionary Excellence.
The EQUBE program spans for six years, from 5th to 10th grade, with 24 sessions per year. The goal of the EQUBE program is to impart the concept of evolutionary excellence. To achieve this, we employ experiential learning through multi-sensory aids, participatory classroom processes with experience sharing, role plays, group discussions, and behavioral games. We also use self-inquiry through parables and learning from real-life examples, deeper reflection, and introspection. Finally, we use multiple art forms for self-expression.
This is a research report of over 660 sessions in a span of 6 years. The perspectives were measured in the tenth grade. The number of responses collected was Group 1 (intervention group) = 374 & Group 2 (comparison group) = 348.
The primary hypothesis was that exposure to the Life Education EQUBE curriculum would result in the following
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Group 1 children would be able to face challenges in life much better than Group 2 children.
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​Group 1 would have a significant difference in their perspectives about life and its related dimensions.
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The bandwidth in the class with regard to key concepts would be significantly higher in Group 1
To assess this, 28 questions were formulated relating to the following topics
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Learning from parables, stories, and the ability to connect to life.
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Self-awareness, the ability to handle emotions, the ability to receive feedback, and a focus on improvement, as well as gender sensitivity.
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Vision and goals and their implications for life.
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Values, beliefs, and behaviour and their connection to life and society.
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Orientation towards change and the ability to learn.
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Ability to handle circumstances and attitude towards facing life challenges.
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Ability to solve problems and the implication of win-win in life.
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Ability to convert problems into opportunities to learn.
This goes to prove that there has been positive and educational impact on the students when exposed to LIFE EDUCATION in six years span of time. Their capacity and ability to handle life and be positive in outlook has certainly got enhanced.
Findings
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The Group 1 mean value is 49.9% as against Group 2 mean of 34.48%. Group 1 is 15.42% better than Group 2.
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The perspectives on life of the children in Group 1 are well contained and balanced while in comparison to Group 2 children where it is widespread with too many outliers.
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21% of Group 1 students are able to connect the parables to their life, but 18% of Group 2 is able to see meaning in the parables. Nearly 80% of Group 1 students say they will think and learn from that.
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In Group 1 73% of students understand that Values are ‘Beliefs and Principles’ (40 + 33%)
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59% of students from Group 1 think Beliefs control their behaviour as against 18% of Group 2 students
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68% of students from Group 1 think by changing beliefs they can change their behaviour as against 27% in Group 2.
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Higher % of students in Group 1 have a positive orientation towards change and understand the implications of change.
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Only 20% in Group 1 think If they have an ‘I know’ attitude they can argue and win; 50% think they will dominate and not learn and lose out while 80% in Group 2 think an ‘I know attitude’ will make them confident and argue better.
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54% of the Group 1 students have said the Win-Win option in solving value conflicts is possible; 43% of students from Group 2 have said they don’t know. 69% of the students would find alternatives and go for a win-win in Group 1.
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While in conflict 64% of Group 1 students will seek to resolve conflicts while 44% in Group 2 will do so.
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When faced with conflicts with classmates, 43% of Group 1 would work on changing their beliefs
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The Study results also show that EQUBE as a life education program has certainly impacted the perspectives of the students about life positively in terms of their maturity levels; alignment in thinking; level of self-focus and introspection; understanding of self and environment connect; ability to handle hurdles and receive feedback; understanding of value conflict and conflict resolution and more positive outlook in life.
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This goes to prove that there has been a positive and educational impact on the students when exposed to LIFE EDUCATION in six years span of time. Their capacity and ability to handle life and be positive in outlook has certainly got enhanced.