For most people mathematics is a mystery; a subject they are afraid of and treat with reverence. If you have a flair for mathematics, people believe you possess extraordinary abilities. As a matter of fact, mathematics can be related to many of life’s situations and thereby made easy to comprehend. Teachers can use such situations to help children relate to maths and therefore to grasp it easily; in fact, in the primary classes, they might easily be able to instill a love of mathematics.

Most children in school are answer-centered rather than problem-centered. Practically everything we do in school tends to make children answer-centered because right answers are a payoff. They see the problem as a kind of announcement, as if far off in some mysterious answer land, there is an answer that they are supposed to find. Some try to get the right answer out of the teacher. Little children often appear so baffled that the teacher will usually tell them what they need to do.

The volume of work given to children also forces them to an answer-directed strategy. When the work load is less kids are willing to do some thinking. So called higher standards in the school results in children who are too busy to think! Here are some ideas that you can use to shift the balance.

The author is reader, GVM College of Education, Goa. She can be reached at aneena2007@gmail.com.

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Malavika Kapur’s Learning from children what to teach them is based on her interactions with teachers, politicians and the general public. She has gathered together a great deal of information about the quality of government schools for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. She has analysed the policies, programmes and commitments made by governments during the past five decades vis-a-vis ground realities.

As the title aptly suggests Malavika Kapur is convinced and in turn convinces the reader about the “child teaching the teacher” theory. She has clarified that the approach, which has so far always been unidirectional, need not necessarily be so. The teacher has to be a catalyst to facilitate learning and children are their own sources of creativity.

Kapur has presented the book in two parts. In the first part, she talks about promoting the psycho-social development of children with a focus on cognitive stimulation. In 2002–2003, projects were carried out in 19 schools and involved 1200 children from Classes I to X in Mysore district in Karnataka. The author spent a considerable amount of time observing tribal children in this region and analysed how cultural backgrounds influence the learning abilities of a child.

The second part of Learning from Children has relevant and useful suggestions which a teacher can use in her day-to-day teaching. Kapur lists both her own original ideas as well as older ideas that teachers may have known but have forgotten. The book, therefore, helps refresh the teacher’s memory.

If a review such as Kapur’s were done by all concerned and the necessary steps taken, it would certainly have a very rewarding impact on setting up a uniform value-based education system in the country. The book makes for quick reading and I would suggest it as a necessary inclusion in the reference section of every school library.

The reviewer is Principal, Vidhyanjali School, Hyderabad. She can be reached at sashigupta2000@hotmail.com.

Apparently, most people in India believe they can teach children, and/or administer a school – there can be no other explanation for the number of schools that dot the landscape of our cities, towns and villages! While all schools promise a good education, they seem unable to decipher the difference between a school’s scholasticism (a ‘good’ school) and its economism (a ‘well-run’ school). Most schools execute practices that can help administrators make the school a successful venture. This commercial aspect takes precedence over everything else. What constitutes a good education and a good school? This large and perhaps unanswerable question is what Arun Kapur, director of the Vasant Valley School, addresses in his book, Transforming Schools, Empowering Children.

Kapur’s expertise in the field is evident in the organisation of this book. The author has ensured that every single element that can and does make for a good, outstanding educational institution is discussed here. Kapur’s understanding of the purpose of a school is large and gives scope for the creation of an educational institution that does far more than merely impart education to children. An ideal or great school, according to him, succeeds in imparting skills that children can use in their negotiations with the society they live in.

Kapur invests the mechanics of a school with a social relevance and locates the institution within the larger context of the world. That, perhaps, is the first lesson that other educators need to learn – how to look beyond the narrow and limiting purpose of the existence of an educational institution. Kapur, with these basic assumptions in place, proceeds to highlight and discuss each of the elements that he considers vital for the development of a ‘great’ school.

The first chapter presents the reader with a practical assessment of the place of schools in society today, and makes for a thought-provoking read. Kapur rejects the education system of a majority of schools in India, showing how a multi-dimensional individual will emerge only as a result of a more dynamic and practical education system. His other suggestions proceed from one basic premise – that the role of schools in an Indian reality is based on creating individuals who will prove an asset to society and turn into active nation builders and decision-makers.

He proposes a complete overhauling of the present education system in order to facilitate the emergence of more broadminded and far-sighted institutions. In addition to a well thought-out curriculum, a sympathetic and far-sighted management and good infrastructure, the school also requires teachers who are attuned to the needs of the children.

Kapur identifies the need for good, inspiring teachers, and suggests various ways in which their jobs can be made easy and they can be provided relevant support. He stresses the importance of involving teachers in creating the curriculum, thus reinforcing their relevance in the creation of a great school. Teachers not only have to inspire students and encourage learning, they also need to do this keeping in mind the various needs of the students. Kapur’s analysis of the role of teachers also takes into account a varied demography of children. Some model lessons plans offer teachers various insights into new avenues that can be explored while teaching.

Kapur’s ideas are backed by eminently practical suggestions on how to implement these. Thus his analysis of the role of curriculum in the creation of a great school examines the lacunae in the present day curriculum and offers suggestions on what it ought to possess. Kapur follows this with a discussion of the kind of revamped assessment structure necessary in order to chart the complete development of students.

Ideas and their effects follow each other in sequence through the book, ensuring that all of the reader’s queries are answered. The use of case studies enlivens the narrative and Kapur makes abundant use of pictorial representations in his discussion of various key issues. The significance of the title cannot be lost on the discerning reader and a concerned teacher and parent – Kapur links the transformations of schools in India to the empowering of students. He presents evidence to show how a school that adopts measures to ‘transform’ itself will be doing its students a great favour, since these policies will automatically create an atmosphere that will help empower children and make them stronger, more effective citizens of the world.

Kapur’s findings and ideas are all framed in relation to Indian schools, and the curriculum and assessment that children face through their school years. This makes it easy for educators and teachers to put into effect his suggestions. However, one cannot help but wonder how the schools that operate out of cramped, ramshackle buildings and are staffed by a floating population of often unqualified teachers, can follow the suggestions outlined by Kapur, such as in his chapter on ‘Technology’. On the other hand there are schools that actively advertise their use of technology in classroom teaching and use this as a ploy to extort large amounts of money from parents. Kapur’s analysis of the uses of technology ignores issues like the dangers inherent in permitting children to randomly access information through new technologies. Despite this, Kapur’s suggestions are timely, in an age when both parents and teachers are beginning to question the purpose of education.

Transforming Schools, Empowering Children is a thought-provoking read for students, teachers, administrators and parents – in short, anybody interested in schools and scholasticism.

The reviewer is a freelance writer based in Hyderabad. She can be reached at nandsnayar@yahoo.co.in.

“If we had had a teacher like you in school, we would have perhaps acquired more confidence.”

This is what a lot of young adults had to say at the end of a four month course in business communication and soft skills. This course was meant to instill the same kind of confidence in science graduates that engineering graduates projected. Many of the trainees were from places other than the metros, and their self-esteem, despite their innate intelligence, was very low. Their communication skills in English were poor and they struggled to utter coherent sentences. These students maintained a studied silence when they found that the trainees from the metros were not only fluent in English but were also very confident. They felt squashed, useless and almost wished they could disappear when called to give presentations. Some would rise, look at their fellow students, mumble and then make a beeline for the safety of their seats.

On the face of it, it was the lack of good English that made them feel that they were useless. But was it only the lack of language skills that made them feel so? I may be a bit harsh on myself and teachers in general when I say this, but most of us focus so much on “Knowledge” that we do very little for the individual. At this point, I felt it was important for me to try and do something that would address these low confidence levels.

When students made presentations in my class, the audience was always ready to give them feedback. However, I realised that most feedback focused on the negative. I asked the trainees to note the positives first, in the student and the presentation he or she made, and this helped the group look for what was good in the individual rather than what was wrong! This was the turning point for those who shied away from making presentations. When they were told that their body language was good, or that their factual presentation was good, their voice was good or that they had come well dressed for the presentation, it boosted their confidence. The group too started changing its attitude towards these speakers. They realised that there was something good about each presentation and that they only had to look for it!

At the end of the course, my students told me that this whole idea of looking for something positive in everything had totally changed their perspective because they discovered that critical appreciation did not necessarily mean criticism. This environment made the diffident trainees discover the positives about themselves. Once they started on this journey of self discovery, they became more confident. A trainee summed up his course at the end saying, “I know that my language skills still need to improve, but I am now more confident and this has helped me understand that I have the ability to learn.”

What was it in the learning process that propelled students towards greater heights? It was empathy – on the part of the trainer and on the part of the group. If we could inculcate empathy right from school, learning would become smoother because students wouldn’t fear either their classmates or their teacher. Students will trust their classmates to express a balanced opinion, and to point out mistakes in a way that wouldn’t make them feel bad. Isn’t this what we want our students to do when they join the workforce? Why not teach them empathy and kindness by being a model ourselves? By finding out what is wrong when a child doesn’t perform well instead of coming down strongly on her?

The objection normally raised by teachers to this is that the number of students in a class is too large for such skills to come into play. What we have to understand is that we are the driving force behind the empathy, and over time we gain the support of 50 other empathetic people, thereby making the process not so tough. In my experience, empathy makes students understand and appreciate one another; it also makes them more confident and thereby motivates them to learn enthusiastically.

A few years ago, on the last day of training senior management engineers, one of them came to me and said, “Thank you for answering our questions patiently.” When I told him that was what trainers were meant to do, he said, “You never became angry or made us feel stupid when we asked you what to you must have been the stupidest of questions. That is why we learned a lot.” When engineers between 30 and 35 can feel so deflated what about children in school? Are we responsible for frightening them out of their wits?

The next time you feel like telling your student, “How stupid!” or “Haven’t you studied the lesson?”, stop yourself, because you are snuffing out the spark in the child and you are responsible for the sniggers of the other children in the class. Empathise with your students not to just make them feel good about themselves but to help them improve themselves and their knowledge.

The author is a teacher educator and language trainer based in Chennai. She can be reached at manaswinisridhar@gmail.com.

Do what you can – and the task will rest lightly in your hand, so lightly that you will be able to look forward to the more difficult tests which may be awaiting you.
Dag Hammarskjold

The coming year is particularly exciting for me, my colleagues and all the children of the school since we are moving to our own school building. On the one hand is the excitement and the newness, on the other we are fully aware of what it takes to fill a place with life and love. Gardening from scratch, painting the new walls according to the needs of each class, getting oriented with the new spaces, helping children who dearly loved the old school (which was green with age old trees) to cross the rainbow and feel love and responsibility towards the new place! It seems to call for a lot of mental and emotional preparation! Apart from this is the academic and administrative work!

For a teacher in a Waldorf school every year is a promotion to a class higher – for the teacher accompanies the class from grade one to seven or eight, teaching as many subjects as possible. One can imagine the apprehensions involved – but the advice we all get and freely give is – to take one year at a time!

Come summer and we have the time to plan ahead for the year – have an overview of the year and gradually go into the nitty-gritty of lesson planning – and experience a range of emotions from love for what we do to fear of can we do it well!

To begin with, every year sees new subjects being introduced. As I prepare for the block on plant life, I begin to observe and draw and read. Did I know that every intricate growth in a plant or a tree is preceded by a growth in the root structure? Of course not. And to think how easily we cut trees! The work seems incomplete – I have planned a holiday in an environment where I can experience the richness of plant life as part of my preparation. The wonder that was lost when forced to learn labels as a student is found thanks to this kind of preparation.

Going through pages of a book on Ancient Cultures seems to transport me to another time and place – if not for the heat and the mangoes, I might have found it hard to touch earth after mulling over mythologies from various cultures.

Preparing for geography seems interesting – specially the physical features, terrain, climate and so on.

An everyday singing session with my daughter ensures that I’d be adequately prepared with songs for the year… I wish learning poetry, verses and speech exercises by heart were that easy… as if the climate was not sufficient to sweat it out!

To add to my woes I must get ready with Decimals – for someone who just about passed in Math tests and exams as a student one can imagine what all this can do! How glad I was in Class 11 when I chose the arts and humanities – swearing never again to have anything to do with the ‘M’ word! There it creeps in – the mysterious ways of mathematical destiny.

As I sit back and think of all my colleagues and their own personal journeys, a feeling that I am not a lone victim begins to grow – every one has a cross to carry – mine is math, perhaps for another it is something else – the cross is bearable only because we can seek help from one another and experience what it is to be taught without being judged. A quality that one tries to work with in the class – for every human being needs to be respected for the sake of being human – not because they may be good at Math or English. As I think of all the children in the class, and in the school a quiet rest envelops me. A surrendering trust in the words of Dag Hammarskjold seems to bathe me. Well it is not important that I teach them Math or History well – It is important they do what they can – so they can look forward to more difficult tests that may be awaiting them – in the greatest examination hall called Life!

The author teaches at Abhaya, a Waldorf school, in Secunderabad. She can be reached at vijuanu@yahoo.com.

The Physics lesson on optics – or the behaviour of light as it passes through different materials – tends to be quick and easy. A simple experiment on refraction using a pencil and a glass of water elicits a small ripple of understanding, while breaking white light into its colourful constituents probably leaves a few minds open in wonder. But by the time children reach high school they have passed this stage of simple wonder and are just swotting for the exam, with the boards looming in the not too distant future.

Many chapters in the Physics textbook have an intimate connection with the tools and techniques of daily living, and optics is one of these. This science of light, or more correctly, the study of electromagnetic radiation, has three major branches – the study of the properties of electromagnetic radiation, both visible and invisible; the study of their manipulation through substances; and the effects and applications of the properties of light. The field, though, is divided into two main approaches to study – physical optics, which is concerned with the study of light and its effects, and geometric optics, which is concerned with the principles of the image forming properties of light. Whole industries are based on the science of optics, and optics makes many other industries possible. Often children lose interest in a subject because they cannot see its relevance to their lives. They do not really grasp the excitement of discovery and invention when all they see of the science is a few laws and rules. With optics, it is fairly simple to show these connections. When you begin the lesson on optics, try to give them a sense of the breadth of the science – but having done that, focus on one aspect. Lenses are a big part of applied optics that can be made interesting and relevant.

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A classroom of their own like an alternate home, with a computer or laptop, printer, microwave oven, refrigerator, music system and sometimes, a couch and sofa, where they could set things the way they like: Indian teachers in the United States on a Fulbright exchange programme found they were in a completely new system where teachers as well as students had the freedom to choose, from how to teach the course to the clothes students wear to school. The experience was matched by the unique narratives of American teachers who took on Indian classrooms – equipped with the ubiquitous chalkboard and holding double the number of pupils they were used to.

Eight Indian and eight American teachers of math, science and English participated in the Fulbright Teachers Exchange Programme from August-December 2007. Administered by the United States Educational Foundation in India (USEFI), the programme has completed its third year, providing opportunities to secondary school teachers to learn from each other’s daily experiences and culture. “It is truly a case of stepping into someone else’s shoes. Each pair of teachers actually exchanges classrooms and teaching assignments for one semester,” says Jane E. Schukoske, USEFI’S executive director in New Delhi.

The Indian teachers were impressed with the facilities provided to teachers in American schools and found benefits in different techniques. In America, for instance, it is the students who move from class to class, to keep them from growing sleepy, and also to allow the teacher to keep materials and equipment in the classroom. “School teachers in the United States do not have to change their classroom after every period and the classrooms are provided with modern education gadgets like overhead projectors and multimedia technology. This ensures that the teacher does not get exhausted. They can also set the classroom in a way they feel comfortable with,” says Ranjini Gopalakrishnan, a math teacher from the Padma Sheshadri Bala Bhavan senior Secondary School in Chennai. He spent a semester at the San Lorenzo High School in the northern Californian town of San Lorenzo.

Sasi Raj, from Kendriya Vidyalaya at the Air Force Station in Pune, was also amazed at the use of modern technology he found at Gateway Regional High School in Huntington, Massachusetts. “In my U.S. school, each classroom had 10 laptops for students, who used them for writing essays and doing projects,” says Raj.

On their part, U.S. exchange teachers found that while most Indian students had a desire to learn, the huge classes made teaching more difficult. “An average class in an Indian school has about 50 students and the teacher is not able to give individual attention to the students, which they need and deserve,” says Timothy Daponte, a physics teacher from Bellaire High School in Houston, Texas, who taught at Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 3 in New Delhi.

Another American teacher, Eddie P. Grannis, describes the Indian chalk and board approach as slow. “In U.S. schools, we do not follow the lecture method. We have more projects. Teaching is more application oriented, whereas in India there is more focus on the syllabus and examinations. But both systems are now gravitating toward each other,” says Grannis, who is a teacher at the John O’Connell High School in San Francisco, California. He taught biology and environmental science at the Eklavya School in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Rodney Kleber of Gateway Regional High school in Huntington, Massachusetts, echoes his sentiments. Assigned duties at the Kendriya Vidyalaya in Pune as an English exchange teacher, Kleber checked several hundred answer sheets during a short period. Back home, he would have an assistant, a volunteer, more time, or fewer tests to grade. “I checked these papers while listening to presentations during a conference,” he says.

Incidents like these left the American teachers with a sense of awe for their Indian colleagues as they neared the end of the semester. “I feel like I have not stopped [working] since I arrived. I admire how they are able to teach, do all the grading, conduct labs, write report cards, address the disturbance of students and on top of that cook and clean and raise their families,” says Ashanti Branch, a math teacher from San Lorenzo High School in San Lorenzo, California, who was an exchange teacher at the Padma Sheshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School in Chennai.

Erin Beth McGraw, who taught at a Kendriya Vidyalaya in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, says, “Indian teachers are often given extra responsibilitiesike administrative work and organising of cultural shows apart from their teaching duties”. She feels this interferes with their professional work. Also unlike in the United States, where there are strict regulations on what work teachers can be given. “Indian teachers are not even paid for these extra jobs,” says McGraw, an English teacher at Rutland High School in Rutland, Vermont.

Overall, what did the teachers learn from the experience? “Teaching in the United States does not depend on emphasis on examinations and developing skills for retention of facts as much as on developing creativity, encouraging divergent thinking and analytical skills. These are some areas I would like to focus on in my classroom,” says Sheela Gabriel from Hindu Senior Secondary School in Chennai, who taught English at Portland High School in Portland, Maine. Gabriel enjoyed the candid views of the students. “Their independence, frankness and confidence was something that is missing in Indian students,” she says.

Branch, temporarily working in a Chennai school, says he liked the Indian system of the students being in one class together for the whole year. “Although they meet fewer other students, it helps to build trust and a community – like feeling within the classroom. I also like how students have a desire to learn. I like it when I ask for volunteers. I have to fight the students off because I have too many volunteers,” Branch says.

The teachers also got to experience life outside the classroom. Indian teacher Sheela Gabriel did a power-point presentation titled “India: Unity in Diversity” for the students and teachers of her school. “We had Indian music in the background and pakoras, papads and a variety of chutneys from an Indian restaurant were served on the occasion to give the whole event an Indian flavour.” She also demonstrated Indian cooking for an international cooking class at her exchange school.

Some Indian teachers experienced seeing their first snowfall. When Sasi Raj saw white particles falling from the sky, he thought they were from the nearby trees. Then some of his students told him, “Mr. Raj, they are snowflakes.” “I watched the beautiful snowflakes falling, painting the bare trees and the evergreen pine trees white, giving a spotless white look to nature,” he recalls.

The Indian teachers were also struck by the fund-raising activities of their American students. “Some students were spraying water on cars, while others washed them. They also sold cookies and food items to raise funds. It impressed me a lot,” says Raj. His American liaison teacher used to drive him to school and back home every day. During the half-hour drive, they exchanged ideas about the education system, their cultures, language and people.

The American teachers had some amusing experiences. Daponte could not believe his eyes when he saw an elephant strolling down an arterial road in New Delhi. Despite the sultry August weather, he travelled by local bus to taste the “real” India. Diwali, though noisy and polluting, was a memorable experience for him; he and his son Matthew celebrated it with his host family.

“The Fulbright programme is so intensive an experience that I do not feel as if I am the same person who left India six months ago. I know I have to step into my Indian shoes once I am back on familiar ground but I wonder if those shoes will feel the same again,” says Gabriel. Meraj Fatima Parveen, from Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kanchan Bagh, Hyderabad, has fond memories of Vermont and its Green Mountains in the northeastern United States. “They are embedded in my memories. I have never seen such marvels of nature. I miss the ‘good morning, hello, how are you today, have a nice day,’ and so on which I got from almost every one every day,” she says.

“The exchange provides an important opportunity for secondary school teachers to learn about the host country and to share that learning with their students, schools and communities at home,” says Schukoske. So far, 38 teachers have participated in the programme. “USEFI is very pleased with the positive impact of the teacher exchange and plans to continue the programme with about eight exhanges per year for the near future,” she says.

This article has been reprinted with permission from Span January/February 2008, Volume XLIX Number 1.

For more information on the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Programme, see
http://www.fulbright-india.org/scripts/ForU.SNationalsTeachersTeachersExchange.aspx
Teacher’s Guide to International Collaboration on the Internet
http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/tech/international/index/html

The person who came up with the rather curious saying, ‘Honesty is the best policy’ couldn’t possibly have been an Indian. As a race, we are not genetically programmed to be honest, and if by some quirk of fate, an Indian is born with this gene in him, and this unfortunate individual chooses the path of the straight and narrow, then he is condemning himself to play the role of Sisyphus. For those of you who are unaware of who Sisyphus is, well, he was a Greek who was asked by the sadistic gods to push a huge rock to the top of a hill and leave it there. The only problem was that every time Sisyphus managed to take the boulder to the top, it invariably rolled down, and the cursed man would begin the neverending task all over again.

Just as it was impossible for poor Sisyphus to ensure that the rock remained on top of the hill, it is very difficult for the inhabitants (permanent or otherwise) of this country to remain honest. In order to get anything done in this glorious land of ours, we need to bribe people. It’s a practice that lesser mortals like you and me are often compelled to participate in: we pay a little extra to get a reluctant auto rickshaw driver to take us home, and we unhesitatingly hand out a ‘sweetener’ to the driver for bringing a tanker of water that had been promised a week earlier. If you go to any government organisation, nothing moves without money changing hands. In India, we sometimes call this ‘chai ke paise’, but in most other countries, it would be considered a ‘bribe’.

Whenever we hear the word ‘bribe’, the image that immediately comes to mind is that of a pot-bellied politician receiving an expensive looking briefcase containing a lot of money. But do you know that the original bribe had nothing to do with money? Money in informal contexts is sometimes referred to as ‘bread’ and ‘dough’. And believe it or not, the original bribe was exactly this – bread. The word comes from the French ‘bribe’ meaning a ‘lump’ or ‘piece’ of bread. In the old days, people who were fairly well-to-do used to carry pieces of bread in their coat and trouser pockets. These fragments were not meant for the pigeons in the park or the ducks in the lake: they were meant for the beggars who used to constantly harass people on the street. In the 13^th and 14^th centuries, the cities of Europe were infested with beggars, and they made life miserable for the pedestrians. In order to escape from a persistent beggar, people used to offer him a piece of bread; if several beggars harassed an individual, the standard practice was to grab several pieces from the pocket and hurl them into the air. While the beggars fought for the pieces, you made good your escape.

Maybe the next time a politician asks for a bribe, we should give him a piece of bread! Talking about bread, if you had walked into an English bakery in the early 9^th century and asked the owner for a loaf of bread, he would have shaken his head and said, “Seriously, Sir, tell me what you need.” Why would the owner have said this? Because in Old English, the word ‘bread’ meant a ‘little piece’ or ‘fragment’; in other words, it meant the same as ‘bribe’. Therefore, when you asked for a loaf of bread, you were requesting for a loaf of fragments! If you wanted bread as we know it now, you would have simply asked for a ‘loaf’. The word ‘loaf’ has come to us from the Old English ‘hlaf’ meaning ‘bread’ or ‘loaf of bread’.

Since bread played a vital role in the life of early Europeans, it isn’t surprising that the English language contains many words related to or derived from the word ‘bread’. Take, for example, the word ‘pantry’. The modern meaning of this word is a room or cupboard where food is kept. When it was first used in English, a pantry was a place where people stored bread. The word ‘pan’ comes from the Latin ‘panis’ meaning…. you guessed it, ‘bread’. But then, man doesn’t live on bread alone, does he? Life would be rather boring if he limited himself to the starchy substance. He needs people with whom he can share his food, he requires companions with whom he can share his joys and sorrows. To enjoy life, he needs to be in the midst of good company. ‘Company’ and ‘companion’, both words like the word ‘pantry’ have bread (‘pan) in them. Is there a connection between these two words and ‘panis’? Yes, there most certainly is. ‘Com’ comes from the Latin prefix ‘cum’ meaning ‘with’ and ‘pan’ in French means ‘bread’. A ‘companion’ is someone with whom you shared your bread; the same is true of the word ‘company’ as well. But in order to share the bread (hlaf), someone has to first make it. And who is it that generally makes bread? The lady of the house, of course! Nowadays, when we use the word lady, the image that springs to mind is that of refined woman of some social standing. ‘Lady’ comes from the Old English ‘hlafdige’; ‘hlaf’ as we know means ‘loaf’ and ‘dige’ means ‘kneader’. A lady was someone who kneaded bread; she was someone who made bread. If the ‘lady’ of the household made bread, what did the master or lord of the household do? Merely eat it? Not exactly! ‘Lord’ is derived from ‘hlaford’ meaning ‘keeper of bread’. He kept it and provided it to the members of the family as and when required. Perhaps the House of Lords should be renamed ‘House of Bread’!

S Upendran teaches at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He can be reached at supendran@gmail.com.

School bags may inflect evolution of humankind in an unimaginable way. Maybe the next generations will be born with a small pouch-like opening on their backs to get used to attending school early on. And it would grow and become bigger to accommodate the various things they carry to school apart from books and notebooks. Soon this “natural pouch” would come to replace the school bag. But just like other physical features, this feature may not be the same for everyone. For some it may be perfect, with enough space to carry things of use. For others it may be too loose or large, and things may often fall out of it. It’s also possible that some may have a closed pouch that may need to be surgically opened. Others may choose to undergo cosmetic surgery to enhance the look and style of this pouch and turn it into a laptop carrier. Then depending on when college starts, they can pierce it, tattoo it or add a zipper.

This might jeopardise the business prospects of bag manufacturers and companies. They may find their production capacity underutilised as their bags – tailored to give children a big hunch – would become obsolete. The bags get bigger every day: meant to provide space for books and notebooks, all of which are not even used every day, they are a student’s nightmare. The size of the bag grows as the child grows and sometimes overtakes it. The sight of a little child carrying a bag bigger than herself is similar to the laborious ant that is naturally gifted to carry more weight than it size appears to allow. Sometimes one can only see the little head bobbing above and legs sticking out below while the rest of the body disappears behind a bag.

Perhaps this is another turn evolution might take. Disappearance of school children behind their giant school bags! Just like dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. Palaeontologists are still struggling to explain the phenomenon; school children might meet a similar fate. If this happens, then there is further economic loss waiting for us. Schools would lose out on their regular customers – the children and teachers would find themselves out of work. They would also not have readily available outlets to vent their deep-seated frustrations and anxieties. The blame game would stop and school would become a very boring place. If one wants to look at the faint silver lining in the dark cloud, national violence rates among children affected by classroom punishments and thrashings would plummet. The transport companies plying buses and rickshaws would start their own lobby in a bid to recover their losses.

The least affected would probably be parents who may not even notice this sudden disappearance until after a few days of its occurrence. For the first few days, they might be led to believe that their children have been at school all this while, given the rigours of contemporary education. They might panic slightly, later on, worried about their little proud investments. But schools in all likelihood would hold a press conference to assure people of the safety of their children being detained for special classes to nurture their magical talents.

In the meantime, school bags would wait in anticipation to swallow more children.

It is your first day back at school, you enter your class and see a lot of old faces smiling at you and a few new ones looking a little lost. You don’t want to launch into a lecture about expectations in the new academic year, neither do you want to open the text book and risk being called a boring teacher. The first day back in school is always one of those days when nobody really knows what to do. You’d like to have fun but you don’t want an unruly class either. So, what do you do? Why not play some games that will boost energy, bring your class together and break the ice?

Getting to know each other
You may have noticed, especially in a large class, that children tend to form groups. While they may know everybody within their group very well, they know little or nothing at all about the rest of their class. You could use the first day of school to play a game that will reintroduce the entire class to each other.

Divide your class into pairs. Ensure that you don’t pair friends with each other, for then the purpose of the game is lost. Give the pairs 15 minutes to try and find out three interesting facts about their partners. Once the time is up ask each student what he or she found out about his or her partner.

Depending on the kind of time you have you could make the game more interesting by asking each pair to enact a chat show, where one is the host and the other the guest. The host has to get the guest to give three interesting facts about himself or herself. The class could have some fun imitating their favourite TV show hosts!

What else can I use this for?
Bring any 10 things you find around your house to the class. Scarf, bangle, paper bag, an apple anything. Divide your class into 10 groups. Ask each group to sit in a circle (provided your classroom has space). Put one item you brought from home in the middle of each circle and ask the groups to come up with alternative uses for their item. For instance, a scarf could be used as a handkerchief or a hair band or even a belt. The group that comes up with the most number of uses for its item of course wins!

Games for Primary School
If you have a class of younger students you could play simpler games with them and help them relax, loosen up and be together. Bring a ball to class. Ask your students to stand in a circle. Pass the ball to a student and ask him to throw the ball to someone he knows in the circle while calling out that child’s name. This child should then throw the ball to someone else he knows again calling out the name. The game continues until the first child gets the ball back. In this way everybody gets to know everybody else’s name.

Who am I?
This is another game you could play. You will need a few post-it notes. Divide you class into groups of four or five. Again make sure you don’t put friends together. Your intention is to get the whole class to gel with each other. Invite one student from a group and stick a post-it note on his or her forehead and write the name of a famous person on it. Ask the student to face his or her group so that they can see the name written on the forehead. The group now has to help its friend guess the name on his forehead. The student is allowed to ask no more than 20 questions that will give him a yes or no as the answer like ‘Am I alive?’ or ‘Am I over 50?’ The student that guesses the answer with the least number of questions helps his group win.

Make your own labels
This will be a fun game that will need the children to draw and colour. Bring craft paper, pins, colour pencils and blunt end scissors to class. Ask the children to draw a picture of the one thing they most like. It could be a favourite food, colour or pet. Ask them to cut out their drawing with some space for their name and pin it to their dress. Your students will have fun doing their own and looking at what the others are doing for their name labels.

When children bond with each other and enjoy being with each other, learning becomes easy and fun. So get the children to start the academic year as a team, and have them look forward to a whole new year of learning with each other.

What would I be?
Decide on a group of things animals, flowers or fruits. Ask each of your students to stand up and tell you what animal they would be, if you decide on animals, and why. You could start off the game telling them what animal you would be and why. Maybe you would be a Macaw as you are always dressed in coloured clothes rather than in a uniform, or you would be a dog as you like being around humans.

You could take this game a step forward and ask the class to read up a little bit about the animal, fruit or flower they chose to be. The following day they can each share at least two interesting facts about their animal, fruit or flower.

Have a fun-fi lled and fruitful fi rst day at school!

Write and tell us about your own favourite (or worst) first day memory as a teacher or as a student!