Lakshmi Karunakaran
Schools across the country are preparing to welcome children back to classrooms after almost a year and a half of remaining closed. While there are many things that need to be focused upon as schools reopen their gates, there is one most critical and hitherto overlooked aspect that cannot be ignored anymore — the overall health and wellbeing of the child. The pandemic has brought health and hygiene into focus albeit more from the need for prevention of infection, it is time that schools realized that building safe and hygienic environments is linked to healthy and happy children who are ready to learn.
Category: 2021
Health and hygiene in government schools
Vignesh Krishnan, Ngawang Lakhey and Bhaavya Batra
Ocean’s deep dark zone – Benthos
Geetha Iyer
Even as man’s knowledge of outer space increases by the day and his search for extra-terrestrial life continues unabated, he remains ignorant of the myriad life forms flourishing right in his backyard. Our knowledge of the deepest parts of our oceans is still nascent but let us share it widely, especially with our children, so that we can help conserve oceans.
Redefining ‘new normal’, one phone call at a time
Richa Pandey
As a community we have now experienced both “normal” and “new normal” education. And while the “new normal” falls drastically short of including the entire student population, the “normal” wasn’t ideal either. Based on her experience of working with students in rural areas over the last year and a half, the author shares how it is time for us to redefine teaching and learning by bringing together the good from all our different experiences.
Growing is fun
Nandini D
Starting with this month, Teacher Plus, brings you a new column on gardening. Gardening is therapeutic, improves cognitive skills and helps one appreciate nature. With the green cover reducing significantly over the years and children growing up less sensitive and away from nature, we hope that teachers will use the articles in this column to get their students’ hands dirty and their minds and hearts grow.
A hypocrite
Trisha Chakraborty
Isn’t the adult community a hypocritical one? We want our children to grow up with all the right values but don’t want to practice them ourselves. Children grow up observing and learning from adults, how then do we except them to do right simply by giving them moral value lessons?
An anti-bullying strategy
Dahunlyne Shylla, Kavita V. Jangam, Preeti Jacob
Bullying is a widely prevalent problem in schools and yet there are no robust solutions in place to tackle it. The first step towards handling bullying is for schools to acknowledge its existence and then work as a unit to find comprehensive, holistic and inclusive solutions.
Democracy in the Indian Constitution
Prakash Iyer
Civics is a very important subject in school because it is supposed to teach us our rights and responsibilities in a democratic society. But does it really do its job? While we learn the concepts of democracy, liberty, rights and duties, we do not learn how to apply these in our everyday lives, we do not really learn how to become good citizens. It is high time therefore to change the social studies curriculum.
When students become autonomous learners
Neeraja Raghavan
If you are a teacher who wants to understand student-centered learning, or a teacher who wants to motivate her students to take ownership of their learning and enjoy and understand what they are learning and why, this is a research paper you must read.
Give me a date
Anil Kumar Patnaik
Numbers are fun, magical and entertaining. When children are shown this side of math, they will learn the subject more willingly. Why not then dedicate one math class to this fun game of finding out which day of the week you were born just from your birth date?