Sathya Sai School of Canada

This year, we are honoured to have received the Academic Excellence Award for Language Arts from the Fraser Institute to Sathya Sai School of Toronto as one of the top schools in Ontario for the past five years. There are 120 Sathya Sai Schools around the world and we are the only one in the entire United States of America and Canada. These schools are based upon the educational philosophy of Sathya Sai Baba, a greatly revered educationist and humanitarian. The basic tenet of all Sathya Sai Schools is to balance academic excellence with character development. The school is open for people from different walks of life. Academic excellence is one aspect of the twin goals of Sathya Sai School, the other being character development. The five universal human values, namely Truth, Love, Peace, Right Conduct and Non-violence, form the foundation of character development. The unique features of the Sathya Sai School of Toronto include an extra forty- minute period to discuss Human Values, where the value for the month is discussed at length, the Thought for the Day, and Silent Sitting to bring clarity to students’ minds and improve their concentration. The five human values are integrated into the Ontario Ministry of Education curriculum. For example; in Grade 5 students relate Transformational Geometry to human transformation. As an example of the concept of Reflection, several students wrote the following: "What is reflection? In math, reflection is reflecting a figure in a mirror line to create a congruent image. What if we looked at reflection from a different point of view – a view of values? Reflection means thinking about our actions and how we can improve ourselves. Reflection is when we flip our lives for the better, such as thinking of possibilities to build our character. Reflection does not have to be with others. It can be with our selves. Reflect on what you do and correct it so we do not do it again, if it is not right." Another example of value integration is into a Science Fair project, where a student wrote: I associate my project to the Human Value of Love because like the exchange of gases in a plant, we too need to give and receive unconditional Love to grow physically, emotionally and spiritually. Our students put into practice the values learnt at school in community projects such as: - singing choirs during Christmas and Valentine’s Day for senior citizens - making sandwiches for the less fortunate individuals of our society - raising funds for building wells in Africa and for victims of natural disasters The most important feature of all Sathya Sai Schools is that our specially trained teachers, with Character Education diplomas, teach with love.