Building a culture of care

Usha Raman
Within the confines of their homes and away from the boundaries of the classroom, how are children learning? Are they distracted, anxious and worried? Has the pandemic negatively affected their mental health? In times like these, how can teachers structure care and make learning a joyful experience for children? After all, teachers have always had an additional responsibility as careers.

Learning during the lockdown

Sudha Mahajan
The pandemic has pushed teachers to come up with innovative measures to enable learning in a wired world. Simple activities to develop social and emotional skills can be taught. Educators and parents need to use this time as an opportunity to learn new skills, to easily move out of the ‘two covers of the textbook and four walls of the classroom’ and understand that the joy of education is to discover the unknown.

The parent trap

Latha Vydianathan

A corollary of the virtual classrooms has been that parents are now able to watch the teacher’s every move hawk-eyed and what is more they don’t think twice before interrupting the teacher or pointing out her flaws and mistakes. But as the parents are watching the teachers so also the teachers are gauging parents. Here is a teacher’s fun list of the kind of parents she has ‘virtually’ met so far.

How leaders make themselves

Chintan Girish Modi
We have all heard about leadership training for teachers. But does this training extend to the students in the classroom as well? What do students look for in a class leader? Leadership can mean different things to different people. The Little Leaders series of books can be a value addition to your school library, apart from inspiring conversations about young people who followed their dreams despite all odds.

Programming in that role play

Shiny Jenifer L
Can an activity-based approach be employed for teaching and learning computer science? Learning by doing helps students to internalize concepts faster and even recall them later. Here’s how a teacher used role play as an exercise to teach basic programming at the primary level.

Being in the moment

Deepali Barapatre
Beginning a new four-part series on Mindfulness. The pandemic has stressed out parents and children alike leaving them anxious and tired. So how can parents and teachers nurture mindfulness in children so that they are able to deal with the stressors in life? Here are some activities for each day of the week.

Ponds – A multipurpose habitat

Geetha Iyer
Ponds are a familiar structure to all and need no specific introduction. But their familiarity is also a reason for their destruction. People tend to take them for granted and that is the sad story of water pollution. This month’s column explores these multipurpose habitats.

Education of emotions

Neerja Singh
What would be the long term fallout of Covid 19 on school children? Has the loss of structure disoriented them? How are they managing with their feelings? Open conversations and supportive environments will help to a large extent, but there is growing evidence to suggest that social and emotional learning skills will be needed when children are back in schools.

The phenomenon of learning: beyond reason and reasoning

Prakash Iyer
How can teachers develop reasoning skills in students? Reasoning is necessary in order to learn, but learning is more than being able to reason. Learning is the transformation of our being. Real learning happens at the level of consciousness, not thought or reasoning alone.