GSA Calendar January 2026

 My Good School

January 4th 2026

Book Reading- What You Are Looking For Is in the Library

Book Reading- दी व्हिसलिंग स्कूलबॉय और अन्य कहानियाँ

11^th January 2026

Book Reading- My Family and Other Animals
Book Reading- दी व्हिसलिंग स्कूलबॉय और अन्य कहानियाँ

18th  January 2026

We aim to inspire young minds, helping them navigate their dreams and aspirations as they embrace their goals. 

The YES workshop on Communication with Kartik Bajoria

Book Reading- What You Are Looking For Is in the Library

25^th January 2026

Book Reading- My Family and Other Animals

Book Reading- दी व्हिसलिंग स्कूलबॉय और अन्य कहानियाँ

The Teachers Academy

Learning Forward Saturday
Early Childhood Development training sessions for teachers at 2:00 PM every Saturday - Hosted by Brinda Ghosh and Neelashi Mangal. You may join the cohort from The Teachers Academy website www.DilJeeto.com

Saturday Masterclass 
Read And Lead at 5:30 PM: Co-hosted by Gurdeep Kaur and Sandeep Dutt, for subscribers only. We are reading The Courage To Be Disliked. Sign up on The Teachers Academy website at www.DilJeeto.com.

GSA Meetings and Events

GSA Squad

We review programs and plan for the coming week.

At 5:30 PM every Monday on Zoom - GSA Coordinators, Volunteers, and Mentors. #JoyOfGiving 

Brewing Knowledge Friday
Fridays at 5.30 PM: Book Reading with Neelashi Mangal, entry by invitation from The English Book Depot. We are currently reading: What Did You Ask At School Today: A Handbook Of Child Learning.

Meet and Greet 
5:30 PM on Zoom on January 9th 2026
With Neha Negi, author of When Birds Talked

Folklore of the Hills | Illustrated Himalayan Folk Tales of Birds & Nature | Uttarakhand Legends Filled With Myth, Magic & Transformation

#BrewingKnowledge Hosted by The English Book Depot

Governing Council Meeting

The meeting will be held at PYDS Learning Academy, with hospitality provided by the Fig Tree Cottage in Dehradun, on January 19 and 20, 2026. 

Sunbeam Ballia and Arthur Foot Academy Exchange
Three girls and one teacher from Sunbeam School, Ballia, will visit the Arthur Foot Academy from January 19th to 23rd, 2026. They are volunteers for the Jaanbaz Kishori Project of the Learning Forward India Foundation.

AFA Monthly Review 

Zoom Meeting for Arthur Foot Academy Special Projects Review: 4th Friday of Every Month

Good Schools of India

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Enjoy the latest edition of the Weekly, the last one of 2025!

Good Schools of India by Sandeep Dutt

Joy of Learning Weekly #45

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A Purpose, Reinstated!

 

When I decided I wanted to teach and dedicate a significant part of my life to students, learners, and curious minds, I was in my early 30s, reasonably well settled in a media career in Bombay. I did not know what I would teach. I did not know how I would teach. I did not know where I would teach! 

 

All I knew was that I wanted to interact with students. It was this deep desire that made me forsake what would ostensibly evolve into a successful stint in ‘Bollywood’, perhaps including directing a film or two, and move back to my hometown in Jaipur. Why move back? Because crossing this existential bridge in the Maximum City is painfully expensive. And because having been away from home for the better part of two decades, I suspected, quite strongly, that a return home would help centre me.

 

Perhaps a cosmic conspiracy played its hand when, during the first school summer holidays since returning to Jaipur in the winter of 2013, a friend graciously hosted a fairly rigorous Communication Skills Workshop with her own high-school daughter & son, and a few of their peers, at her primary school.

 

That month-long workshop was twelve years ago! It is difficult, if not impossible, to encapsulate my journey into and out of Education since. Suffice it to say that the years have brought wisdom, understanding, insight, and a clarity of purpose. That, truly, my entire teaching & mentoring endeavour has been a uniting of two profound influences in my own life. First, a deeply emotionally deficient relationship with my biological father has led to a fractured self-concept. Second, and subsequently, my Master's at The Doon School, which didn’t serve merely as subject-teachers but rather as life-mentors, creating an environment of completely uninhibited self-exploration, and then a self-exemplified ethos (not a preached or theoretical one) which espoused courage of conviction, to doggedly pursue passions one had unearthed through the aforementioned self-discovery!

 

More recently, and in case you’re wondering why I am essaying a mini-autobiography, I have had the privilege of knowing Jugjiv Sir and Sandeep Sir. Sandeep Sir is someone I have known for many years. At some point after my return to Jaipur, he’d generously invited me to The Fabindia School, where I was most struck and inspired by the incredible work he’d done. Would have loved to visit and interact routinely with the students had it not been for logistical limitations. Jugjiv Sir, I met more recently in the context of another education-allied project. And as I became more invested in the work that My Good School (MGS) has been doing, the plans & projects that are active, the vision of the organisation, the collaborative spirit of the cohort, I got the same feeling I did, many decades ago, as a young student at The Doon School, all over again. I could feel palpable excitement from these two senior gents, who were refreshingly exuberant and passionate, untarnished by life's numerous drudgeries and challenges. It awakened a renewed sense of purpose in me, and a small step they allowed me to take was to start a series of interactions at and through the Sunday My Good School sessions. 

 

Those have been some of my most memorable sessions, and, if I may say so myself, amongst the literally hundreds I’ve mentored now across schools, NGOs, colleges, and hallowed institutions like the NIFT and the Indian Institute of Crafts & Design. Why? Because the children who attend these sessions of The Sunday School, their investment, their ingenuity, their self-motivated zeal, their hunger & curiosity, are infectious. Because all the external resources and domain-experts who associate with MGS bring with them, in addition to the given heightened subject-awareness, a sincerity that is nowadays seldom seen. And because the manner in which this entire entity is in singular service to ensuring quality education to those who need it, and arguably deserve it the most, is intensely inspiring.

I am so honoured to have been made a member of the alliance and look forward to contributing in several ways. I’d be lying if I didn’t share my recent and growing dismay looking at any number of the allegedly ‘best’ schools out there. Now, however, with MGS, I am of renewed hope, vigour and purpose.

 

Kartik Bajoria is a member of the Good Schools Alliance #JoyOfGiving is a Jaipur-based Writer, Educator, & Mental Health Advocate