Pooja Birwatkar
The online classes and forced shutting down of schools has had one positive effect and that is children owning the responsibility of their learning and creating their own knowledge. Now with schools across the country slowly reopening, what is to happen to this trend? Will children accept and go back to the conventional style of learning? Or will they resist it? How can we as teachers ensure that they continue on the exciting journey of learning that they experienced during the Covid lockdown?
Year: 2021
Energizing and enlivening the online class
Anuradha C
It is now almost the end of the academic year, and teachers have spent it teaching online. While most have learnt the basics of online teaching by now, not all have been able to teach like they did in physical classrooms. Here are a few tips on how you can bring your online classes alive.
Think like a musician
Aruna Sankaranarayanan
In the second of this four part series on how art forms can positively affect developing minds, the author discusses music and its benefits. Because different aspects of music are handled by different regions of the brain, children who receive any form of musical training, even if only for a short period, display a marked improvement in the way they process information.
“While” away at the window
Adithi Muralidhar
The pandemic forced all of us to stay indoors for long periods of time and this was certainly challenging for many adults and especially the children. But, a few hours by their windows with a little bit of ingenuity on the part of the adults is all that the children need to feel refreshed and not trapped indoors.
Mind games for mindfulness
Deepali Barapatre
Living, in the present times, is like travelling on a bullet train. Nobody has a moment to sit down, to reflect, to ruminate. Unfortunately, we are passing on this need for speed to our children as well. If we are not to lose sight of our goals, if we are to capture the essence of living, then we have to learn to slow down and what better way to do it than through fun-filled mindfulness activities?
Sadfishing
Neerja Singh
Many of today’s young adults live alternate lives on the social media. So long as they know when and where to draw the line, things are still fine, but when they get addicted to and start feeding off their online identities, it becomes our responsibility to stop them. And yet, when the online world is home to both the genuine and the fake, how do we know who really needs help and who is simply pretending?
Entertaining, educating, enriching
Geetha Iyer
Once upon a time, books for children on Indian plants and animals were hard to come by. Today, however, there are local organizations and publishers that are trying to fill this vaccum and Kalpavriksh is one such. Their books combine learning and fun and will help our children see Indian animals, birds, insects and even animal poop in new light.
What one thinks they want vs. what they really want
Prakash Iyer
After a series of articles on the philosophy of education, Prakash Iyer turns his lens on a new set of philosophical ideas; these are ideas that are relevant to all of us both as teachers and as citizens. In this month’s article he focuses on the abstract and complex nature of ‘freedom’ in a democracy.
The many ways we can cut waste
Seetha Anand
Waste management has become the need of the hour with the huge amounts of waste that we are generating. Our survival on this planet is now dependent on our waste handling skills. It is, therefore, important that we train our children, right from a young age to reduce, reuse, recycle and upcycle. Since the school is the microcosm of the society, why not make a beginning from here? We present you with several suggestions as to how you as a school can manage your waste.
Small steps can make a big difference
Usha Raman
According to the World Bank, India is among the top few waste generating countries in the world. Unless we take drastic measures, it is believed that India will soon produce double the amount of waste it is now producing. This month we bring you the stories of a few schools that have taken up the challenge of going zero waste, in the hope that they inspire many more to follow suit.