PAPER GREETING CARDS

My friend and college mate, now a school teacher in Bangalore once shared her exciting experience of Teachers' Day celebrations at her school. She was overjoyed to receive many gifts and greeting cards from her students. She asked me whether I too had received students' love in kind. Then, I too was teaching in a school in Cuttack, Orissa. I replied I had only received greeting cards and warm hugs from the students, coz I always used to request them to abstain from expressing their love in the form of gifts and chocolates. My reply annoyed my friend, she tried to convince me of refusing gifts from children who treat us as their parents will break their heart. I candidly questioned her in response, ' If we are like parents of our students, then who pays for the expensive gifts they present us with? :) :) Doesn't a greeting card they create and present us with directly connect with our heart to convey the love and regard they have for us?' 
My friend, quite annoyed by now replied. 'You may not feel their sentiments the way I do.' I smiled and said, 'True, my true happiness is in seeing them living a purposeful, happy, healthy, responsible and, responsible life with the ability to express themselves simply and effectively, beginning from the simple hand made greeting card and I treasure them.' No! I didn't intend to put a damp squib on my friend's euphoria!  
Now that there are such user-friendly software to design and draw greeting cards, we can certainly make beautiful greeting cards for our loved ones, if not desk or table calendars 

On March 17, 2020, we visited Mahesh Foundation's premises in Belgaum to celebrate the birthday of the children born in the month of March. We had created paper greeting cards. The cards had messages in code language. We explained to their mentors the logic of decoding the messages and how they could facilitate the children in deciphering the coded birthday message. The purpose of creating coded birthday messages in paper greeting cards was to stimulate the children's creative, critical and lateral thinking skills through applied curiosity. Needless to say, children would be elated on successfully deciphering the message. We organised the puzzle-solving- message decoding activity as a team or collaborative effort. Four teams, members of each team would get together with the birthday child in deciphering the birthday message. Four teams would compete with each other in being the earliest in decoding the message. 

Winners' reward: their elation and sense of achievement in solving the puzzle. Later, the teams shared the challenges they experienced in solving the puzzle. 

We admired one of their mentor's enthusiasm. Once the children had their fill of birthday cake cutting ceremony, she asked them to form four teams. Two Girls' teams and two boys' teams. Each team had approximately eight members. She then gave each team a birthday greeting card and explained how they were to decode the message. 

We had purposely made errors in the messages to check whether the children would point them out and question them.  

Here are few of the birthday greeting cards and thank you cards:

How to decode(decipher) the messages:

1. Every alphabet in a word that is part of a message is the alphabet preceding the actual alphabet in the word. Replace each alphabet with its succeeding alphabet to decipher the word.
2. Every alphabet in a word that is part of a message is the alphabet succeeding the actual alphabet in the word. Replace each alphabet with its preceding alphabet to decipher the word. 

We observed:

• Initial mental inertia to mental exercise was evident in both boys and girls. We had discussed with their mentors and care-takers at the Foundation the pedagogy and learning methodology of the school the children study in.
• Boys were more curious than the girls to see the greeting cards.
• Girls were more enthusiastic than the boys in decoding the messages.
• Girls were more focused on understanding the logic behind the coding of messages.
• Girls questioned the anomaly(deliberate error) in the messages.
• Boys were first in selecting a team leader. Ironically, the members relied on the leader's efforts in deciphering the coded messages.
• Girls deciphered the messages in less time than the boys.

About the four teams participating the Greeting Card Puzzles. Children were from the age group of four/five years and twelve/thirteen years. They study in Kannada Medium School. Most of the children are from the rural areas of the Belgaum district:

Line graph indicates the relationship in the team size and the average time each team took to solve at least two greeting card puzzles.

Observed the team members on their cognitive skills; critical/analytical thinking skills, and lateral thinking skills when their existing school pedagogy does not provide a necessary learning environment, opportunities and stimuli to develop these essential skills. We used a scale from 0 through 5:

0:None of the teammates applied the skill; 1: At least one or two members applied the skill; 3: 1 to 3 members used the skill; 4: 1 to 5/6 members used the skills; 5: Almost all the members used the skills. 

0: 

Purpose of our visit was to enjoy the birthday celebration of the children. We did not overtly focus on studying their cognitive-thinking abilities. Therefore, we did not have each group solve all the six message puzzles. Had we, then we would have had relevant data for columns: "Creative Thinking Skills" and, "Approximate Time Each Team Takes in Solving All the Six Puzzles." Creative Thinking Skills would assess the assimilation and synthesis level of learning objectives.

While the boys and the girls were busy solving the greeting card puzzles, my new young friend Shankar was cautiously guarding the Five-in-One game box that has the games of Business(Monopoly), Snake and Ladder, Ludo, Cricket and Car/Bike Race! He was curious about the games and was anxiously waiting for his friends to join him to discover the fun and wonder of the game box!

 The game box was an element of distraction making them unmindful of the greeting card puzzle. No sooner had his friends joined him, they had they hurriedly solved the greeting card puzzles They were eager to try the game of Business a new game for them. In less than thirty minutes they were able to play the game. 

The girls abstained from participating in the game of Business and preferred playing the games of Pebbles and Hop-Scotch. 

Observed the children's learning style, also their unconscious gender bias was evident in their behaviour and mannerisms. It was heartening to see them respond positively to new methods of learning through games both at a conscious and subconscious level. They eagerly participated in the puzzle games, while the boys to the game of Business like a fish in the water. We observed that through puzzles and games the children were able to break the glass ceiling and perceptual bias and prejudice. 

They were excited to see Bhootie our Pomeranian son. They were eager to brush his fur, feed him post-lunch, walk him outside the facility and even stopped bursting birthday balloons when they realised Bhootie was afraid of the noise of crackers.

We really enjoyed the birthday celebration at a home away from home. Our love and blessings to our extended family at Mahesh Foundation, Belgaum.
If you want to view the video and photographs of the Birthday Celebration on March 17, 2020: https://photos.app.goo.gl/98nMKwqj8JUumQCa7
Would you like to try solving this birthday card puzzle I created for my friend on her birthday in the month of March 2020? It is a simple lateral thinking puzzle. Don't forget to find out her name "PIPI" from the front page of the birthday card! ENJOY!

In the second image after the  English alphabet "V " is the Oriya equivalent for Hindi alphabet "द" and an English equivalent "The " phonetically.
This is an unconventional and applied method of learning a new language using the vernacular- mother language.
We, the grown-ups and the children can create paper cards to express our love, sentiments and impression of the person we are creating it for. This is an effective medium of connecting with one another and candidly expressing ourselves. It goes a long way in reviving and retaining the love and, camaraderie with our relations, friends, colleagues, and of above all, ourselves. Through such creative expressions, we get to know ourselves better and that helps us in expressing our love and compassion we have for one another. We can innovate and be indigenous enough to uniquely express ourselves through such greeting cards and marvel at our thinking and creative skills.

Generously post your comments on this post in the form of query, clarify any doubts, seek more information and suggestion. Thank you.