As part of their Project Based Learning (PBL), Surana High Tech International School, Besant Nagar, conducted various activities including a gallery walk, on ‘Trade and Friendship as a Tool for Colonization’. Students of Class 7 researched the real motives behind the explorations led by different European powers and the strategies they adopted to colonise the lands in the name of trade and friendship. “In the process, they came across the dark side of colonialism such as apartheid, slave trade, man-made famines, mass murders, draconian administrative policies etc.,” explained the school about the project.
They extended their learning by drawing a comparison of former colonies and their current growth. They concluded that colonisation was a form of oppression and exploitation and left the countries behind by many years. However, with education, determination, right governance, economic strategies, and policies on public welfare, nations have slowly and steadily risen, grown and now stand shoulder to shoulder or even surpass their former colonists. The best example of this is India, explained the students.
The students shared their learning with their peers, juniors, teachers and their parents through a gallery walk which they had curated using documents, images, photographs and news reports published during the Colonial rules in different parts of the world.
“It was a very fulfilling and rewarding experience for me to see learners being so passionately involved and empathetic to the events that happened in a time different from theirs,” said Sharanya Sriram, the Project Coordinator for the Middle School.
