Pratyaksha darshan – The effectiveness of show and tell

Manek K Mistry
I think the effectiveness of an actual demonstrationdoes not diminish even now when so much information is available online. The importance of “pratyksha darshan”, actually meeting a person or visiting a place, has been accepted in our culture too.

Controversies in disciplines are useful!

Prakash Iyer
School curriculum is organized by subjects, and subject content is decided by subject area experts. In that sense, we teachers become dependent on experts. If experts change their mind or disagree with each other, it leaves us in a dilemma. Who do we agree with? This leads to even more vexatious important questions: What do we teach? Why? This is a fictional conversation between two teachers trying to answer these questions.

The scope of initiative

Navya Iyer Kannan
What is learning? Is it merely what happens in a school, in the classroom? Does it stop when one graduates? Is it something that only teachers can inspire in us? These are just few of the many unasked questions about learning and consequently, education itself.

The native flavour in learning

Anuradha C
How do we integrate the knowledge of essential, native skills into the learning process of a student? While there is no disputing the fact that universally accepted subjects such as languages, math, science and social sciences must be taught, where and how do we teach children the skills required to cope with their native habitat? Formal learning must address this lacuna.

Tackilng thoughts of self-harm

Neerja Singh
It is staring us in the face today, this alarming new frontier that our kids seem to face. A quick search on the internet will throw up the disturbing new trend of self-harm and suicide among the young. According to the latest available data from the National Crime Records Bureau, a student commits suicide every hour in India.

What we lose in the race for marks

Sunanda Ali
When all the stakeholders make learning a focus, and a priority, then success and failure fall into place. We understand that these are constructs at opposite ends of a spectrum and that all of us are in the gap between these two opposites and are always capable of moving towards our desired goals. This can happen best in supportive, nonjudgmental environments.

Looking beyond failure and learning

Nidhi Qazi
How is it that our lives have been impacted by teachers in good and not-so-good ways at different points in life? This article attempts to offer a space where teachers candidly share their side of the story, their side of ‘being human’.This was a small attempt to give us a peak into the lives of teachers and see them as humans, the hope is that these views will help you accept yourselves and also to get talking on issues and challenges around failure.

The teacher has failed

Simran Luthra
Do teachers fail at any point during their journey as a teacher? Do they have self-doubts? How do they approach or view failure and achievement? Is the so called ‘perfect teacher’ a myth? Most articles by teachers showcase successful strategies for student and classroom management, but there are very few examples of ‘teacher failure’ or even training for teachers to cope with classroom failures. How can there be opportunities for teachers to encourage growth and achievement through failure? We present three varied viewpoints that breakdown this phenomenon of ‘teacher failure’.

Training ourselves to see better

Meena Kharatmal
Science begins with observation. As Aristotle says, people value their sight among other things. The reason for this is sight makes knowledge possible for us and shows us the differences between many things. Observation therefore is a very important skill for school science learning. Here are a few simple activities which primary school teachers can conduct for their students to improve and sharpen their observation skills.

Learning from COVID-19

Usha Raman
It’s been a strange few weeks. As the panic around the new virus known as COVID-19 spread across the globe after having brought China to a virtual standstill, most institutions of learning in the country – schools, colleges, universities – decided to suspend face-to-face classes and let children stay home.