Neerja Singh
A parent – teacher meeting is always approached with a feeling of apprehension both by the teacher and the parent with the child caught in between. There is criticism and finger -pointing from both sides with little or no room for compromise. What then is the golden rule? Read on to find out.
Year: 2014
The disruptive child
Phyllis Farias
Conflict situations abound in the school, in the classroom, among teachers, and between parents and teachers and within ourselves. How can we negotiate all these differences peacefully? Can children be taught that compromise is the most effective way to end conflicts? These are some of the questions raised by our writers in this month’s cover story.
Responding to conflict
Chintan Girish Modi
When I was on a Peace and Conflict Studies fellowship in 2013, I often found myself bewildered by the term ‘conflict zones’. The tendency to reduce certain parts of the world to the conflicts they were struggling with seemed to deny people and communities the other human experiences their lives were filled with.
Identify, listen and empathise
Sunita Biswas
That a teacher wears many hats is, of course, old hat! Among the many hats, one is being used more frequently today. And that is the hat of the teacher as a negotiator, as a mediator, a moderator and as a referee. A non-judgmental, unbiased, objective interlocutor who must, when required, pour oil over troubled waters and build bridges over them.
Barriers within build barriers without
Rahee Dahake
One of the first few words, often used by a baby starting to speak, is ‘No!’ Before the verbal expulsion of refusal, she has also mastered the art of flinging the toy she doesn’t like, refusing the spoon when the food doesn’t appeal to her palate, contorting her body into a stiff arch when she doesn’t want to go or be picked up while doing one of her favourite activities and as a last resort, howling her guts out.
All knotted up inside
Jayagowri Rangarajan
An intrapersonal conflict is within us. It demands recognition, acceptance and resolution. Each of these is interlinked for unless we recognize the existence of a conflict, resolution cannot happen.
Breaking it right
Gita Krenek
Some time ago I attended a workshop for teachers, on conflict resolution. During the programme, several typical conflict situations – such as one child trying to snatch a toy from another, or two children pushing and shoving over who should go first – were acted out, with adults playing the parts of children. Participants were then asked to deal with the situation.
What keeps a teacher going?
Usha Raman
Amidst planning for her lessons, taking care of additional duties in school, handling irate parents, a disgruntled management, and bored and disinterested students, what exactly keeps a teacher going? The answer is the joy and hope she derives when she walks into her classroom and looks at her students each time.
“Let’s make noise!”
Mahananda Pathak
When a new language is introduced in school the concentration is on the reading and writing skills. But what about speech? It is equally important to be able to speak well and if started early fluency in the new language will come easily to the children and they don’t have to struggle to put sentences together at a later stage in their lives. Here are a few activities to get you started on “talking” in class.
Constructivism: A pedagogical conundrum?
Rohit Dhankar
Constructivism is a pedagogy that is gaining in popularity among educationists and practionists of today. But constructivism as defined and explained by theorists does not take into consideration the practice of the pedagogy or keep in mind the ground realities. This is quite evident in the way constructivism is defined as the theory of practice in the NCF 2005 document. In this article the author analyses constructivism as mentioned in NCF 2005 and tells us why while what the document says is worthwhile it cannot be taken as the complete truth.