Neha Pradhan Arora
Here is a tool which a teacher used to explain the concept of marginality. Called the ‘Power Walk’ or the ‘Privilege Walk’, it helps students to look at life situations from the perspective of ‘the other’. It brings to light issues of power, access to resources and opportunities while physically taking individuals to the centre or keeping them on the margins of society.
Year: 2019
Music and math: a natural combination
Manisha Pavi
Have you tried teaching integers with a rap song? Since math as a subject is always perceived as being difficult, the only way to get students interested was to try something that was contemporary and fitted into their scheme of things. So a rap song set the mood and the students caught on in no time enlivening the classroom environment.
Drawing from intuition
Tapasya Saha
Experienced teachers mostly improvise on their lesson plans to make sure that their students understand the concepts well.
They are also helped by their intuition to make learning happen in the classroom. However, contextualizing the concept is the main criterion. Here are a few examples of how a teacher used the surroundings to make her teaching comprehensible and impactful.
Stimulating the reading habit
Chhavi Jain
The reading habit has always been the bone of contention between children and parents/teachers. The adults want the children to develop one and the children believe there are better ways of spending time. Here are a few tried and tested suggestions for you to try and turn your students into readers.
Say it with flowers!
Ajita Banerjee
The saying goes that you learn better when you do. This teacher and her students decided to find solutions to tackle the problem of the large amounts of floral waste generated. Read about their experiences and learnings in this narrative.
Children and education: why policy matters
Anjali Noronha
Finally after a long gap of more than 25 years, India is ready to overhaul its education policy. A draft of the much needed and awaited New Education Policy was released in June this year to public scrutiny, advice and suggestions. As the committee led by Dr. K. Kasturirangan sieves through the overwhelming feedback received and finalizes India’s New Education Policy, eminent educationists look at and comment on the document for Teacher Plus and its readers.
Winds of change
Usha Raman
The draft of the New Education Policy was released in May this year. Ever since it has generated a lot of debate on what it proposes to do and what it does not. And while a lot of people are getting into this debate of the NEP, the people conspicuous by their absence are the teachers and school administrators and children–incidentally the stakeholders that the policy will most affect. While nobody may ask us for our views on national tv it is still very important that amongst ourselves we discuss the provisions of the NEP and see how we can bring some parity between our own vision for education and that of the top authorities.
The Draft NEP: Does it rise to the challenge?
Madhu Prasad
The Draft New Education Policy 2019 (DNEP) is deeply problematic both conceptually and structurally. There are several diverting statements, such as the references to the ancient Buddhist institutions of Nalanda and Takshashila (without crediting them to a distinctly anti-Brahmanical and egalitarian tradition) and the need to ensure a contemporary form of wide-ranging and equitable access to ‘quality education’.
Exclusion by design: math education in the NEP
Jayasree Subramanian
Mathematics education in general receives a lot of attention in the education policy documents as well in the curriculum frameworks because of the importance attached to the subject and also because of the difficulty it poses for learners. On the one hand, mathematics is becoming important in several higher education programmes
Catching them early: foundation stage education
Venita Kaul
The Draft National Education Policy (2019) has been making headlines on a periodic basis ever since it came into the public domain. There have been some recommendations that have raised a political controversy such as the three-language formula. Unfortunately, this is taking attention away from several very commendable reforms suggested in the policy, one of which is the concept of a foundation stage to be created in the school structure.