Adversity is the best teacher

Anuradha C
The last year and a half has been extremely tough going for the adults with loss of jobs, skewed work-life balance, pay cuts and most of all loss of lives. But we should know that it has not been any less anxious for our children. Their lives have been turned upside down and yet every challenge brings with it an opportunity. What lessons are our children learning through this pandemic?

Familiar but small

Aditya Rao
If you went back to visit your school, several years after you have passed out, besides the obvious stirring up of memories, what would your feelings be? As an adult, would the gates you entered through every morning, the classroom you sat in, the blackboard you copied notes from seem different? Find out what this author experienced when he visited his old school.

Music and our minds

Brendan MacCarthaigh
Does music play a role in our lives as teachers? Can it aid us in our teaching practice? Will it help if we draw our students into a world of music as well? If you are an amateur musician and a teacher like the author or simply someone who appreciates music, the author invites you to reflect on the above questions.

Learning comes from passion

Manjula Rao
How often do we think about those who help us – the ayahs, maids, peons? A school teacher with the help of a few colleagues and students decided to make these helpers’ dreams of learning to read and write a reality.

An important resource

Chintan Girish Modi
In India, when we think of a teacher, it is always a woman that comes to mind. It is not often that we stop to think of women being anything more in the field of education. The book Women in School Leadership seeks to draw our attention to the challenges, struggles and triumphs of women in their role as leaders of schools.

Can plants teach us geometry?

Nandini D
The subjects that we learn in school are seamless and therefore will make more sense if they are taught with these connections between them made apparent. Instead of compartmentalizing subjects into individual periods, it is time that we evolved pedagogies that bring subjects together. Interested in seeing how biology and math can be taught at the same time?

A sense of Summerhill

Pradita Nambiar
When A S Neill set up Summerhill a hundred years ago, he wanted to further the idea of freedom and democracy in the field of education. The school is run as a democractic community with students and teachers playing equal roles and enjoying equal freedom. With its principles of democratic education, Summerhill has inspired several similar schools across the world. The author shares her experience of being and teaching in one such school.

How relevant are schools today?

Neerja Singh
For several decades now, thinkers and educators have been questioning the kind of education that schools are imparting. Education in 2021 is not very different from education in the 19th century. Even as the demands for readying our students for an unknown tomorrow are growing louder, schools are continuing to train them for jobs that no longer exist. And now, there is Covid-19; it has shaken the foundations of school education as we know it. At least now are we wililng to wake up from our stupor?

Understanding oceans

Geetha Iyer
Recently the international community agreed to the presence of a fifth ocean in the world–the Southern Ocean. The oceans and the life systems within them are directly and indirectly linked with our lives. It is important to understand the role that the oceans play in sustaining the earth as global warming is equally affecting our oceans and the lives within them. As a first step towards understanding oceans here are the characteristics that make an ocean.