my thoughts

In the year 2015, all UN member nations adopted 17 goals named Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by the year 2030. As in many a case, on paper, these seem to be so impressive and initially all member states expressed a lot of enthusiasm and substantial progress was made. But the onslaught of COVID-19 disturbed the pace and as of now most of the nations are struggling with one issue only and that is how to feed the population and enable them towards self-sufficiency. Though this is an important goal out of the 17 others all must go hand in hand for sustainable outputs, though they may not progress on a parallel path. Before I focus on one particular SDG (though that may seem to be a little odd for someone who expects me to share my thoughts on education mainly) let me mention all the 17 goals in brief. 1.   No Poverty- End poverty in all its forms everywhere. 2. Zero Hunger - End hunger, achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture. 3. Good Health an

“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” ― Dale Carnegie I would once again express my thoughts on the topic which is of serious concern for everyone who cares for the school going children, be it the parents, students themselves or the educators. The number of unfortunate cases happening in so called education city of a state of our country famous (for me infamous) as the hub of coaching centers. The newspaper reports/TV news are so meek that these are forgotten easily. There may be many reasons for their being so but another interesting trend has been observed in the past few years. Quite ironically, many politicians and ministers visit this city and interact with the people associated with these coaching centers. I see it as one of the reasons that people do not view the seriousness of the issue because in their eyes if coaching centers were playing with the childhood of the children then why would the politi

In the last few years, we have been reading disturbing news regarding children getting depressed and in some cases taking extreme steps. A lot of material is available explaining the causes and remedies for the same but unfortunately things are not getting contained. There are multiple factors for stress but in the case of a majority of the children, this is performance-related. In the present time, most of the goals are set by machines and by using technology we can achieve better results but when it comes to learning and performance by human beings this may not always be possible. I am not saying that the machines do not fail, they do pretty often but nobody can say anything to them and even if it is said that machines do not have emotions neither are they affected by expectations nor do they get hurt. As most people are surrounded by gadgets and machines they do think like them but when they do not achieve what they aim at, then stress takes over due to which goal becomes difficult

These thoughts are shared with my readers after a gap of two months and I think this is the first time since Dec 2010 that I could not share my thoughts in a particular month. There were personal reasons for the same and also was finding it difficult to come out with positive thoughts for all of us. But now I am forced to share my introspection, which may be contrary to my beliefs but sometimes you need to realise the reality. Recently, about 15 days back, my son met with an accident and as happens with all parents we also got scared as he lives in a different city (the one which is closest to national capital and most sought after in north India) and we did not know how serious the injury was. We rushed to his place and had a sigh of relief seeing him comfortable and thankfully there was no head injury( because of the quality of helmet which he is very particular about). But this was short lived as we came to know that he got his ligaments torn and these are to be

                       ENDEAVOURING TO CONQUER ANXIETIES   This was 12 May 2023, a usual day for all of us in school. An alumnus of our school came to meet all her teachers. After meeting the teachers, she came to me and we discussed about her progress and how the school helped her achieve what she could. She fondly talked about her participation in namely all the activities of the school (elated to mention that she was the head girl of the school). It gave me a lot of satisfaction when the importance of co-curricular activities was given due credit by her because, in the last few years, I have been made to feel that marks are the only criteria to measure an individual student’s intelligence and potential. But this was a short-lived joy because, in the middle of our interaction, we came to know that the result of class XII has been declared by the CBSE and after some time class X result was also declared ( I do not know why CBSE keeps it a top secret and not let the stakeholders kn

The annual examinations of almost all the schools/boards in India are going o n or would start / finish in a few days. The children and parents of the school-going children know nothing else to do but prepare and appear to perform to the best in their respective exams. We talk a lot ab out the stress caused due to examinations of the children especially the board exams , which is true to a great extent. The parents are found taking off from their work and trying to be with the kids as much as possible. This is a ritual which is followed every year. In this, the teachers' stress, especially those teaching board classes, is sometimes ignored. They have to perform multiple tasks and play multiple roles. They are not only expected to take care of the academic part of their students but also the emotional and psychological issues are to be given proper attention. The examination in India and probably in other countries is highlighted so much that the real aim of education is lost som