On 12th April, 2017 there was a wonderful book review session held on the book named “Grit to Great” written by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval. It was nicely presented by Pramanik Bhai, Dev P Bhai, Vinayak Bhai and Bhavya Bhai in the school’s auditorium at 3:00p.m. Students of class 11th Commerce follow this legacy every year by presenting book reviews on different interesting and educative non-fiction books. It was presented through PowerPoint presentation, videos and speeches.
The group was asked to first read the book and then prepare notes and the presentation. Under the guidance of Prajval Sir, Prabhudarshan Sir and Purvesh Sir, the presentation was made more effective. Students were then asked to prepare speeches and practice it repeatedly to gain confidence.
On the day of book review, the auditorium was filled with the presence of dear Principal, Teachers and the students of classes 9, 10, 11 and 12. Aayush Bhai being the host opened the session by giving a summary of the book’s central idea. Pramanik Bhai being the first speaker gave a brief introduction of the book and its authors. He also explained the first two chapters of the book. He shared amazing facts about grit and explained that one doesn’t have to be born with it. It can be learned or developed. Grit is about sweat, not swagger. Character not Charisma.
Dev Bhai explained in his speech that dreams are not that you see while sleeping, they are the ones that don’t let you sleep. We tend to fantasize about the outcome of goals rather than thinking about what obstacles would come our way and how to overcome them.
Vinayak Bhai nicely explained how to be patient and keep grit when a goal is far away. Negative experiences like failures and adversity can become positive influences as they force us to dig deep within ourselves out of sheer necessity. They can strengthen our sense of grit.
Bhavya Bhai described how grit can be developed to achieve a goal irrespective of age and how using grit for serving others gives us an invaluable gift. At last, to summarise there were four ingredients of GRIT explained – Guts, Resilience, Initiative and Tenacity.
As a part of this project we were asked to come up with an alternative cover page for the book. We made a Gritometer for the cover page that shows the time period for how long you can sustain grit and a quality or a trait you can develop as a result.
The book review gave us a unique opportunity to improve upon our language skills, public speaking ability and many more aspects of learning. The book taught us how to tackle failure with determination and resilience. The book opened our eyes by bringing a remarkable fact that efforts overtake talent in long run.
Pramanik Soni, Dev P Patel, Vinayak Patel, Bhavya Oza (11 Commerce)
