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Showing posts from 2018

LET 2019 BE THE EPITOME OF CREATIVITY AND SELF RELIANCE

LET 2019 BE THE EPITOME OF CREATIVITY AND SELF RELIANCE “January 1, 2019 is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.” Penning down thoughts and ideas has been an utter source of pleasure and expression for people around the world in various fields and professions. My write-ups have been a way of connecting with the students, parents and teachers. They give me the space to show my concern, share my thoughts and ideas and motivate and encourage my students, who are the source of my pride and a reflection of the coming future. Around thirty articles this year showcased an assimilation of the above mentioned. Encouraging my students to look into their hearts and define their success through their passion, I shared with them the significance of freedom, Indian culture and values. I also got a chance to express my concern towards the deteriorating state of Indian universities. Through a few written pieces I was able to reach the parents, teachers and students regarding

FOCUS ON BASIC CONCEPTS WILL TRANSFORM EDUCATION

        “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Education aims at imparting knowledge, understanding and skills that can help one use the same for acquiring a better standing in life. But these life skills and knowledge often bear the brunt of stagnant syllabus that the teachers are forced to complete in a given time period and students are forced to learn, memorize and earn grades based on it. Martinus Hendrikus Benders observes that o ur school systems are focussed on a single objective: to produce model citizens for society in order to feed this machine and prevent its breakdown. That’s why our school systems have no interest in developing models that actually require and stimulate useful values in people, such as courage, imagination or inventiveness. “In the twenty-first century, we use a nineteenth-century school model with twentieth-century values. There’s clearly something wrong with this picture.”  The syste

Self-Directed Learning in the Classroom and Beyond

Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta is a great lesson on education. In this epic, Arjuna is the pupil whom Shri Krishna educates. He gives Arjuna no set of predefined directions but asks him to know himself and direct himself towards his duty. We all know that education is a holistic process. It is not confined to just securing elite ranks and getting high grades. It aims towards making pupils self-sufficient. Many a times we come across cases where a student gives 100% to a particular subject or concept but is unable to get desired results. The major problem students go through is shortcomings in the existing strategies and failure in developing a new approach of learning . Problems in learning arise when students fail to assess the complexity of a concept and keep on applying the same old approach every time. The book, ‘ How Learning Works ’ discusses a very important principle of learning, “ To become self directed learners, students must learn to access the demands of the task, evaluate th

Save School Children And Education

“Education is a purposive, conscious or unconscious, psychological, sociological, scientific and philosophical process, which brings about the development of the individual to the fullest extent and also the maximum development of society in such a way that both enjoy happiness and prosperity.” This suggests that education system is dynamic and requires constant reforms, speculations and assessments on various levels across the world.   Considering the world as a Global Village, a substantial effort was initiated in the year 2000, which is known as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). India and China became a part of it in 2009, for the first time. Out of 74 countries which participated that year China secured the first position and India settled for 72 nd rank. Hopeless and despair-ridden, India decided to withdraw and had never been a part of PISA since then. After speculating on this matter and discussing it on many levels, the present government has decided

Importance of Mother Tongue

The mother tongue of a child is part of the personal, social and cultural identity. It brings about the reflection and learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking. It is basically responsible for differentiating the linguistic competence. Research indicates that having a strong mother tongue leads to a much better understanding of curriculum as well as a more positive attitude towards school, so it is vital that children maintain their first language when they begin schooling in a different language. In spite of growing evidence and parent demand, many educational systems around the world insist on exclusive use of one or sometimes several privileged languages. Some educators argue that only those countries where the student’s first language is the language of instruction are likely to achieve the goals of Education for All. Rachel Cooper states that the push for teaching in universal languages such as English has been shown to hinder  children’s educational prog