In this second of this two-part series (the first part appeared in March 2012 issue), I bring to your attention those molluscs that secrete only a single shell to live in. These mollluscs are called gastropods and the shells they create for themselves are nature’s most exquisite architecture in lime. Gastropods may be found on every conceivable habitat on earth, from mountains to deserts, rainforests to deep sea oceans, freshwaters and soils; but they are most familiar for us from our beaches. There are land snails, tree snails, besides the ones in fresh and marine waters. They may be grazers, browsers, suspension feeders, scavengers, detritivores, and carnivores. In size there are many yet to be discovered ones in the range of 0.5 mm and many large ones are already the prized possessions of several shell collectors. Syrinx aruanus, or false trumpet, 91 cm long and weighing 18 kgs, is the largest living shelled gastropod in the world. These are found in the waters of Indonesia and Papua New Guninea.

There being so many varieties, it was a struggle to decide which ones to include in this article and which to leave. I have chosen those that you can collect on the shores and a few that hawkers sell on beaches.

Gastropods have a spirally coiled shell. Coiling is generally right handed (dextral) except in a few cases, – the celebrated and revered Shankh – where the spirals are left-handed (sinistral). Hawkers generally pass off a dextral white conch shell as the sacred Shankh to unsuspecting tourists; so be warned when you look at the shell. Identify the conch by its aperture which will always be on the left in a sinistral shell and on the right in the normal dextral one. The land snail shown has a sinistral spiral whereas the conch has a dextral spiral.

The author is a consultant for science and environment education. She can be reached at scopsowl@gmail.com.

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Pushpa stood dismayed in the middle of her class – she was at a total loss to understand how she would manage the class today. In the MG Government School where she had been working several years, she was considered a senior teacher. Hence on days when the others were absent, or as was often the case, when vacancies were not filled, she was expected to handle over 40 kids. This would not be as much a challenge as she was used to handling these numbers and more – but on these days, kids from all other classes would be bunched together – ranging from pre-primary to middle school – giving her what the technical experts called a multi-grade classroom. She needed new methodology to handle these classes. Such classes existed even earlier, but in those days it was sufficient if she just “minded” the children – kept them quiet – it was not so important to ensure learning. But now with new educational policies and parents getting more aware, it was important to ensure that the students also learnt. She was really in a fix as to how she could teach children of different age groups together and yet make sure that all of them learnt something.

Today she had already planned some English work for the Grade 5 students and some math work on fractions. She needed to keep the younger ones in the loop too. This is what she decided.

English: The concept that she was handling for the older students was adverbs. She now modified her original plan and decided to do the same thing but in a slightly different way.

She got out a chart with a comprehensive picture of the environment somewhat on the lines of the one given below.

She asked the Grade 1 and II students to carefully look at the picture and draw pictures of the things in the picture that they also saw near their home or school. For instance, if there was park near their home or school, the children had to draw a park. She made them sit together in a semi-circle so that she could see them all and the children could also see the picture clearly. She also gave them permission to colour the pictures that they had drawn. There were some in the group who were quicker and so she told them that they could write the names of the things they drew beside their picture. While they settled down and turned busy, she gathered the Grade 3 and 4 students.

The author is a partner at Edcraft, Hyderabad, a firm engaged in making teaching-learning materials, conducting workshops and providing consultancy services. She can be reached at sheela.ramakrishnan@gmail.com.

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As coordinator of the science department, we are planning to organize guest lectures for our high school students. We think this will help them understand a little more about what subject to opt for when they go in for higher studies. It will also give them an insight into something richer than the textbook world. What can we do as a school to make the experience enjoyable and rewarding for both the guest speaker and the students?

I am delighted to receive this perceptive question because most educational institutions in India host a series of guest lectures when they find that they are ‘done’ with the syllabus and have some funding left at the end of the year to ‘invite’ a guest who is ‘available’ and will be willing to come for a small or no honorarium. The school/college often handles the lectures as chaotically as other things, showing scant respect not only for the speaker but also the subject! Remember, the speaker has to take away a positive image of your educational institution; your students too must remain driven enough to attend more such sessions and ask for more! So keep the following in mind.

1. Invite a speaker whose subject is relevant to your students and who has the ability to come down to the level of your students. Your speaker has to be a person who will be able to unlock a new door of experience for your students and kindle more interest in the subject.

   Invite your speaker once the dates are firmed up. Do not keep sending messages or mails announcing a postponement or advancement of the date. Lack of planning is a serious reflection on the institution, and makes the speaker regret accepting the invitation. Decide firmly what you would like the speaker to share with the students. Do not keep changing the topic by offering lame excuses such as: The principal decided this would be a better topic or the head of the department felt this would be more relevant. Such messages either irritate or dishearten a professional speaker because she understands how ill-coordinated your institution is, and she wonders what kind of chaotic session will follow.

2. Call the speaker over the phone and then reconfirm over mail. Do not keep disturbing the speaker with various kinds of requests or information. It can be most annoying to keep getting calls from the school with bits and pieces of information or requests. Extend the courtesy of picking up and dropping the speaker back. Do not cringe on the costs. This would be more appreciated than a bouquet or a token of appreciation. A day prior to the session, reconfirm the pick up details.
3. Enlighten the speaker on the number of students she will be addressing. Find out what kind of facilities the speaker will need, and the kind of seating arrangement that she deems productive, and oblige accordingly. Find out whether the speaker is planning to distribute handouts. Offer to keep them ready for the speaker instead of saying, “If you could bring in the photocopies, we will reimburse you the amount!” (Believe me, many institutions say this without the least trace of embarrassment!)
4. Check to see that all the equipment is in place and is working. Have a technician at hand in case of a problem. Hold the session at a time when there is ‘normally’ no power cut.
5. Ask one of your artistic students to make a poster giving details of the speaker’s name and the topic. Paste the poster on the door leading to the lecture hall. This is definitely a welcome sign to the speaker and also lends a personal touch.
6. Prepare the students by having them read up on the topic. This will help them understand the subject and will keep their interest sustained through the lecture instead of showing signs of restlessness which will then tell on the speaker’s performance. Furnish the students a brief background about the speaker and impress upon them the fact that the speaker is coming to their institution for their benefit and therefore the least they can do is to listen in a focused manner.
7. Tell the students that in order to show respect to the speaker and their institution, they must be on their best behaviour. Insist that they be seated before the speaker makes his entry. They rise when the speaker walks in, greet the speaker, write down points that are relevant, nod, maintain eye contact and continue looking interested.
8. While making the introduction, pronounce the speaker’s name correctly. The name must be practised days prior to the lecture and not on the stage! Relate the speaker’s background to the topic in focus instead of rambling on. Just as the speaker has taken the time and energy to make a presentation, you too should have made time and energy to practise the introductory note. (Some introductory notes are so full of flaws and grammatical mistakes that the speaker literally cringes!)
9. Tell the students to be prepared to ask questions. A speaker always leaves with a heavy heart when there have been no questions, because most of the time it implies that either no one was listening or no one was interested!

As the staff of the institution, make the event a pleasant and well-organized one. You do want people to talk well of your institution and you do want to invite more people to share their knowledge with your students, don’t you?

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

For netizens, Skype is ubiquitous. Until recently, I used Skype for making calls to cousins and friends in distant lands as it is super-easy to use and free too. A little later I started using it to video-conference with colleagues in different cities and also to call mobiles and land line numbers. I’ve now found a new way to use Skype to connect with teachers and teaching professionals all over the world. Yes! Skype has started a new feature, ‘Skype in Classroom’ to help teachers and students all over the world to connect with each other.

Let me tell you how this cool service works. All you have to do is go to http://education.skype.com/ to register with your Skype id and create your own profile. In your profile, don’t forget to mention the subjects you teach, your interests and demographics. There are two ways to make best use of Skype in Classroom. One, you can look at the 1299 projects listed on the site and connect with teachers who have created these projects to get their perspectives or clear doubts or even to suggest different ways to tackle the project. Two, you can look at the member directory, which has 19,671 members (and growing), make note of subjects they teach and their interests and partner with them. Once you’ve zeroed in on a project or a teacher, you can connect with them through Skype and get going.

I know what your next question will be, “So how does this help?” In a lot of ways, for starters, if your next history class is on the French Revolution and you want to add a dash of zing to the class, you can try this; connect with a history teacher from France and get her to talk to your students about how the revolution changed France. Isn’t that fun! There is also a huge repository of links, resources and ideas that teachers can use. You can also create your own projects and invite other members to help you develop it.

There is one hitch though. Using Skype in classroom in your class is a long process. Finding a partner for the project, planning and also matching time zones could take a long time. But the best feature of Skype in Classroom is the ease with which we can connect with teachers all over the world. A few years ago, this was unimaginable, only the remit of rich, corporate schools. The site is interactive, easy to navigate and even works in classrooms with low bandwidth. Happy surfing!

“Dear God, Who draws the lines around the countries?” asks Nan, one of the many children whose utterances are gathered in a book called Children’s Letters to God compiled by Stuart Hample and Eric Marshall. It is such an innocent question, and such a poignant one. I wish more adults were asking this. They would, perhaps, if they felt the futility of borders.

I was in Lahore recently, as part of ‘Exchange for Change’, a programme jointly run by Routes 2 Roots, a Delhi-based non-profit organization and the Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP), which has offices in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. We were a 21-member delegation from India, comprising students and teachers belonging to four different schools – Shishuvan and Gandhi Memorial School from Mumbai, and Sanskriti and St. Paul’s School from Delhi.

Nan’s question is one that I too asked as a child, when like many other children, I was being raised to think of Pakistan as enemy country and Pakistanis as terrorists. I continued asking all through school, college and university, and through terrorist attacks, bomb blasts and cricket matches that were made to look like wars. I earned a mix of flak, suspicion and incomprehension. I was told I was being too optimistic, ridiculous even, worse, a traitor. I continue to ask.

I am glad, however, that things might be different for my students, three of whom got the opportunity to cross the Wagah Border near Amritsar and spend five days in Lahore. All three of them – Siddharth Gopal, Mahesh Sakhalkar and Aditi Shah – are ninth graders. The other two who went from Shishuvan were Kavita Anand, the director of our school, and I.

This visit to Lahore (Feb. 16-20, 2012) was only one in a series of interventions planned under the Exchange for Change programme. The reciprocal visits of students and teachers from Pakistan to India and from India to Pakistan were preceded by an exchange of letters, picture postcards, photographs and oral history recordings with grandparents having memories of Partition to share.

The idea was to help students from both sides of the border appreciate the possibility and merits of sustained dialogue in order to gain a clearer understanding of their shared history, culture and lifestyles. This material was exchanged, hoping it would clarify misconceptions and dispel misinformation about historical events. It would hopefully also empower children to reject inherited prejudices and form their own opinions based on personal experience. It was a year-long programme that involved 2400 students from Karachi, Lahore, Delhi and Mumbai. Did it make a difference?

This is what Aditi thought of Lahore before she crossed the border. “I expected a lot of women walking on the streets wearing burkhas. I also thought it would be ancient, with all those lovely tiny lanes and I really didn’t think there would be a church in Lahore.” After the visit, here is what she writes, “Well, Pakistan is a lot like India. Lahore has a little bit of both Mumbai and Delhi in it. They are like us. They aren’t terrorists. That is just stupid – saying one particular country is filled with terrorists. It’s not like people don’t get killed at all in India, you know! Also, Lahore has amazingly delicious naan! And their newspapers are very interesting.”

We are back from Lahore but the conversations continue, in school, with family and friends. It is important that they do. People want to know what things look like on the other side of the border. They are full of questions. When we walked on the streets, did we come across as foreigners? How did local people like shopkeepers and rickshaw drivers respond to us when they got to know that we came from India? Does Pakistan have people from non-Muslim communities? Does one find vegetarian restaurants there? Do women work? What is the general level of education? Do they have freedom of expression? Do they have offices and modern infrastructure? What are their views about India and Indians? These are just some of the questions that came up in a discussion with a colleague. I am sure there are more. I love questions. They keep dialogue alive.

Our duty as teachers is to encourage such dialogue. That might go a long way in building bridges. Most of our students may never visit Pakistan or meet a Pakistani. What they know and how they think will be largely based on what they pick up from school, hear or read in the media, and what they are told at home. What we can do, however, is to provide alternative perspectives, or at least build the skills to question and interpret images and information thrown at them. It is important to find a balance between the two extremes of ‘they-are-all-terrorists’ and ‘we-are-all-brothers-and-sisters’. The real stuff is somewhere in between. Not at the border but in that space where we find the courage to shed the skins we wear too comfortably.

The author teaches at Shishuvan School, Mumbai. He can be reached at chintan.backups@gmail.com.

Playing around with words, enjoying their sound and texture, allowing a free rein to the imagination, letting go of inhibitions and believing in one’s own creative potential – these are the ideals that prompted Ms. Sarika Singh to begin her Creative Poetry Writing Workshops for children. The note on the author at the back of the book informs us that she has been doing these workshops for over a decade now and with “great success” as the foreword avers. Written by none other than the Hon. Minister and former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mr. Farooq Abdullah, it compliments Ms. Singh on her poems and hopes that “her work will delight and encourage many more budding bards.” Other than attesting to Ms. Singh’s credentials as a faithful daughter of the Kashmiri soil, the foreword does little to build up anticipation in what is to follow in the book.

Ms. Singh’s book, Poetry Writing made simple is, no doubt, the outcome of her vast experience in conducting these workshops. In the book she takes the reader through a step-wise delineation of what is normally done in the course of her workshop with children. Starting from “The First Step” to the different “Poetry Styles and Techniques”, the reader is given a comprehensive picture in six distinct sections on how to ignite, sustain and then grow the child’s interest in the art of writing poetry. In ‘My thoughts behind the book”, Ms. Singh clearly states her intention for the book, “I hope that by way of this book, poetry-writing will blossom into a volunteered, fun-filled and playful joyride for students, parents and teachers, rather than a humdrum classroom task.” Right through the book she places relevant and inspiring quotes by various poets and literary figures in highlighted strips that are meant to validate her beliefs about writing poetry.

Ms. Singh attempts to demystify the art of writing poetry, taking it down from its exalted, esoteric pedestal and bringing it within the easy reach and understanding of children. (Even nursery rhymes ought to be considered as poems).At one point in the book, she narrates an incident, where in a conversation that she has with an adult friend who thought of poetry “as [a] domain of the impractical and idealistic community”, she helps her skeptical friend realize that “poetry is simply an appreciation of beauty.” Now if this is too simplistic an understanding of what poetry is must be left to the reader to decide.

The book would be a good reference source for teachers of English to consult for ideas to liven up their language classes. Even more so, it is a “toolbox” for those aspiring to conduct similar workshops in creative poetry writing. It is to Ms. Singh’s credit that she shares openly and in a fairly detailed manner, the working style and content of her workshop. After each section Ms. Singh sums up with a list of the learning outcomes from each session of her workshop and what is to be expected in the next session. What is to be appreciated is her sensitivity to all the children in her workshop. In the section entitled “Voting for a topic to write a poem” she explains how she keeps a ballot box in which children deposit their “topic ideas” on folded paper slips. Then a slip is randomly picked and considered as ‘today’s topic’. “This,” she says, “ensures no one feels favoured or ignored…” Then again, in the section “Pre-Writing: Starting a poetry web and oral brainstorming” she offers a ‘modest suggestion’ to all teachers to encourage every child even if an idea is not the best one. She invariably writes down every idea so that the child “believes himself to be an active contributor.” “Games we play” is a particularly interesting section, where exercises such as Simile Fun, Rhyme Time, Me Poem, Poetry-kit fun are designed to be engrossing activities for children to develop their familiarity and comfort with the language as a medium of expression.

While the book carries examples and illustrations of the work produced in her own workshop, thereby not only enhancing the comprehension of the readers but also making the book visually appealing, it does suffer from a somewhat less-than-thorough proofing effort (the word ‘ambience’ has been consistently mis-spelt in the book). Ms. Singh, herself, often lapses into a form of expression that might cause one to grimace: “We all feel affection for the poems we have written ourselves – it is a natural connection. And to share it with the group and fish for accolades and applauds is vertical fun and absolute encouragement.” The book ends with an endearing collection of poems penned by the children who attended Ms. Singh’s workshop and a set of Sing Along poems which are a “lungful of fresh air to tickle a child’s creative imagination.” A “poetry lexicon” is also appended that goes on to briefly explain a list of technical terms related to poetry such as “couplet”, “Terza rima” et al. No doubt, this would be a useful resource for teachers and workshop facilitators alike who would like to bring a touch of glamour to the poems being written by the students/participants by giving them interesting technical labels.

The author has been a high school English teacher and is passionately involved in the process of education in the country. She can be reached at sangmenon@yahoo.com.

Primary teachers often suffer from an inferiority complex. There is an inexplicable, implied and rampant “dumbing” down of the profession. It is as though the vulnerability and perceived intellectual level of the students in their charge automatically pegs them alongside lab assistants, no offence meant. To add to this dowdy visage, there is their punishing class schedule that leaves them with no time to be of any nuisance value.

Schools that practice the mother-teacher system in the primary place such an onus on the personal resources of the class teacher that she is done for with the very first school bell. A typical primary class teacher today handles the academic load of 40-odd children in addition to preparing daily absentee lists and keeping up with a battery of duties: bus, stay back, break duty. She is also a subject-in-charge, bulletin board-in-charge, and club-in-charge. There are records to be maintained such as the teacher’s diary, attendance registers, bus attendance registers, gifted as well as remedial cases, assessment-related paraphernalia including report cards (online and hard copy), certificates, mark lists and not to mention the information booklets for the successive class teachers at the session end. There are the annual day and sports day rehearsals to get through. Quite a merry go round! They magically find the time to pack in a dozen seminars in a year and there are the staff welfare events to attend. Somewhere amidst this whirlwind day, a reasonable amount of effective teaching-learning has also to take place.

The Sixth Pay Commission is supposed to justify all of this as also the accompanying ringing of the ears, spinning of the heads and palpitating of the hearts. And it goes without saying that there is always that universal echo permeating the busy hullabaloo, “But what does the primary teacher do the whole day?”

To begin with, the primary section is a world unto itself. A planet inhabited by raw and, unique young people who are crying for validation and attention. It is not enough here to give them mere knowledge. They need and take a part of the teacher, if not a pound exactly. A good primary teacher invests a lot of emotional energy in the classic manner she begins to identify with her class. This is a stake of a very personal nature. It is some of these crusading teachers who identify and nurture the wilting clovers, they back and showcase the tiger lilies, and they nudge and coax the humble heather. One has to hear that tinge of propriety in their tone when they say, “My class….”

Fortunately for this intrepid band, their love is returned in full measure. In many schools, the KG parent orientation marks that rite of passage, switch of loyalties. It is understood that from then on, the tiny tots will heed their teacher more than they will the counsel of their father and mother. You have to see how they hang on to their teacher’s words, how they look at her as though they will lay down their lives if asked. The flowers they make, the cards they painstakingly craft – perhaps in a primary teacher’s life, they are the only ones who say, “Ma’am, you are looking very beautiful today.” They are loyal. They are a sight the day their teacher goes on leave. Of course, there are the odd fists pumping the air at the news but for the majority, there is a sense of sails deflating, a ship gone ashore, anchor lost. Watch them how they follow their teacher blindly where she leads them.

And oh yes, they come back after years, looking for that one primary teacher, their faces beaming if she happens to remember their names.

It is here, in the primary that you need the wisest, the kindest, and the most driven amongst the teaching community. Oddly enough, the enemy is within the ranks. It is not uncommon for colleagues to ask of a particularly high calibre teacher, “What are you doing here, wasting your time?”

There have been days when I have sat in a room full of high achieving professionals, many working at far greater levels of intellectual and financial remuneration. I have always felt a curious sense of pride and have never been able to keep the smile out of my reply when someone asks what I do for a living. I find myself being very specific.

I never say, “I am a teacher.” For some reason, I like to say “I am a Primary Teacher”.

The author is a Resource Center-in-charge in the Junior Wing of Air Force BalBharati School. A teacher with a background and training in media, she has worked in advertising, documentary film making and feature journalism. Her interest lies in the role of motivation, an all-round exposure and multiculturalism in the educational increment of children. She can be reached at neersingh02@hotmail.com. She also blogs at http://confessionsofanambitiousmother.blogspot.in/

The world of the classroom, and of learning, has similarly undergone both visible and invisible changes. While the structure of school, with its textbooks and timetables, may have remained untouched, the processes of learning, what we learn and how we learn, is changing every day. Each of these processes has undergone a major shift. We have accepted (though not in equal measure) that we need to move from an emphasis on providing content to providing skills, from looking at the classroom as the only point of learning to accepting that learning happens across life spaces. What we have found a little more difficult to accept is the shifting equation between teacher and student in relation to the learning process. Teachers too become learners when it comes to technology-facilitated learning. Children today (in many cases) are completely comfortable with technology, and are able to use it in a variety of ways that adults are only now beginning to comprehend. Ideas such as the “flipped classroom” (attributed to Salman Khan of the Khan Academy) suggest giving student more control of learning, moving the power centre from the teacher’s desk to the student’s fingertips and mind. Flipping the classroom may also mean more opportunities for collaborative learning among children, and from children to teacher (as well as the more conventional teacher to children).

But most of us are not quite ready for this shift, fearing that it might take away the legitimacy of our position in the system. Teachers will always be key to the learning process; they have an important role to play in making things visible, in helping children discover that they can learn. What a teacher does, and how she does it, is what changes – and those are changes we need to stay abreast of, if we are to derive joy and meaning from our work.

Over the months I have been writing this column, I have been talking about the need for doing experiments, to illustrate concepts, to build models and check them out. They are also fun to do. There are a large number of science activity books for children, both foreign and Indian, which give hands-on activities that emphasise this using words like fun, strange, curious, bizarre… bet you can! Bet you can’t! Fizzing volcanoes…

Most of them use common materials (not necessarily found in Indian homes) and do link it up to ideas of science. But all of these are aimed at the young. There is a book, which I browsed at in my friend’s house, written by a science journalist. I have forgotten her name and the name of the book, but I remember the introduction. In essence, what she said was that we go (or are taken to) to science museums and displays when we are young but replace these with visits to art galleries and music concerts when we grow up. Science becomes remote unless you are a scientist.

Then there is the ‘scientific temper’ that is talked about. It has become a catch- all phrase when superstitions or habits are discussed. It divides beliefs into ‘scientific’ or ‘non-scientific’ a meaningless division but deeply alienating to people who feel that their ideas are being put down. The idea of questioning and scepticism, not taking any thing for granted, considering the value of evidence, is not the sole prerogative of science; it is the foundation on which all learning rests and is equally important in history and literary criticism! Since education in India does not have much room for this method of learning, it leaves people distanced from the enjoyment the subjects can give. We find our way back to literature and history, but rarely do it for science, because it seems too hard. Very few magazines and newspapers have articles on science (not technology, science).

The author works with Centre for Learning, Bangalore. She can be reached at yasmin.cfl@gmail.com.

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Grade – 8
Total students – 19
Topic of study – Geometrical Transformation
Curriculum – GCSE (Middle years curriculum of IGCSE)
Material required – Computers and Internet functional
Set up – Group – Each group of 3 or 4 in size

The idea
There is so much self-study material available on the Internet that each time I view it, I wonder why I need to reinvent the wheel to teach the same topic! I feel I can grow to be an instructional designer, a facilitator, instead of the being the anchor person for the content.

I have also found that the students are most disciplined and focussed in today’s generation when the class involves ICT. This is their zone – they are the bosses!

Hence was born this idea of integrating ICT in the math lesson.

I chose this class and section for I have the best rapport with them and they go along with all my innovative ideas happily so long as they learn maths well through them!

The strategy
For any self-learning exercise, it is very important to have a clear set of instructions for the students. They (or rather anyone) operate best when the guidelines are clear:

a. Organization of groups and material
The students made their own groups, based on who they work best with. Since the class size was 19, having groups of exactly three students each was not possible. So I said each group could have three or four students.

The students were asked to bring their laptops (allowed in our school from Grade 7 up) with Internet fully functional and configured to the school network and battery backup of 1 hour (to avoid fights over sockets or multi plugs!)

The author is a math teacher in Pathways World School, Noida. She can be reached at reachmonica@gmail.com.

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