Jeevan Jaach
How well do we know our own mind?
Jeevan Jaanch is a cornerstone of life at Sikh Heritage Girls School. Rooted in Gurbani and centred on Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, it gives girls regular time to examine their thoughts, motives, choices and conduct with increasing honesty.
This connects closely with one of our core values, self-awareness: we are on a journey to know our mind. Girls are encouraged to move beyond knowing what the right answer ought to be and consider what is actually happening within themselves. Why did I react in that way? What influenced my decision? Was I being honest with myself? Could pride, fear or haumai be affecting the way I see the situation?
Learning to ask these questions requires resilience. As pupils mature, they become increasingly able to recognise when their own behaviour needs to change, accept responsibility and reflect without immediately turning their attention towards what somebody else has done.
How We Teach Jeevan Jaanch
Every week, the whole school explores the same core Big Question, with the depth of thinking adapted to pupils' age and maturity. This creates a shared language for reflection across SHGS while allowing the questions to become increasingly demanding as girls grow.
Across the year, pupils explore themes connected with the self and our actions, the mind, discipline, relationships, courage, resilience and our responsibility for the impact we have on others.
Each sequence is anchored in Gurbani and includes an appropriate saakhi, Sikh historical account or carefully chosen anecdote that gives pupils something concrete to examine. Discussion then moves beyond what happened in the story towards what the teaching asks of us now.
A younger child may consider whether an action was kind or unkind and what she could do differently next time. An older pupil may explore why someone can know the right thing yet still choose differently, whether pride has influenced an argument, or whether an apparently generous action was partly driven by wanting recognition.
In this way, Sikh history and saakhis are not simply stories to admire. They provide examples through which girls can examine courage, humility, discipline, compassion and principled action before turning that scrutiny towards their own lives.
Simran and Everyday Life
Jeevan Jaanch does not remain within a weekly lesson. Daily Simran is part of the rhythm of school life, giving pupils a regular opportunity to return their attention to Naam and develop greater awareness of their own mind.
The questions explored in Jeevan Jaanch are also revisited when real situations arise. A disagreement, disappointment, difficult decision or moment of success can all become opportunities to notice a reaction, reconsider a choice and think about what could be done differently.
Over time, girls learn that self-awareness is more than being able to name an emotion. It involves looking beneath the feeling to consider the thought, motive and choice that followed it, and developing the discipline to keep working on oneself.
Impact
By the time girls leave SHGS, we want honest self-evaluation to have become a habit.
Pupils should be increasingly able to pause before reacting, recognise what may be influencing their thoughts and choices, accept responsibility when their own conduct needs to change and draw upon Gurbani when considering difficult decisions.
We want girls to develop resilience not only for the challenges that happen to them, but also for the moments when they discover something difficult within themselves.
Jeevan Jaanch helps girls understand that learning and character cannot be separated completely. What we know matters, but so does what that knowledge becomes visible as in the way we speak, choose, serve and live.connection to their Sikh heritage every day.