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Showing posts from July, 2018

As much as we appreciate and need budding technocrats, we also need original thinkers, writers etc:

My Ai and robots can replace technocrats but not philosophers or social workers who can empathise or real deep creative thinkers . True. Becoming Drs and engineers has become a litmus test for proving one's intelligence. But why this rat race for provong one's mettle? It sprouts from sick hearts who seek self aggrandisement in the guise of academic excellence. What r we turning our next generation into? Self seeking people? This is a result of a society whose educational system is controlled by corporates and industrial houses. Such  systems produce aggrandised labourers instead of thought leaders. As much as we appreciate and need budding technocrats but we also need original thinkers, writers etc . Maulana Azad was a self proclaimed bunny in Maths but was cerebrally gifted enough to write philosophical master pieces as a teenager. Received as whatsaap message. Republished in blog.

Sometimes it’s best to guide children instead of giving them:

A story on parenting: Once upon a time, there were two neighbors living next to each other. One of them was a retired teacher and another was an engineer who had a lot of interest in technology. Both of them had planted different plants in their garden. The retired teacher was giving a small amount of water to his plants and didn’t always give a full attention to them, while the other neighbor interested in technology, had given a lot of water to his plants and looked after them too well. The retired teacher’s plants were simple but looked good. The engineer's plants were much fuller and greener. One day, during the night, there was a heavy rain and a wind due to a minor storm. Next morning, both of the neighbors came out to inspect the damage to their garden. The neighbor who was an engineer saw that his plants came off from the roots and were totally destroyed. But, the retired teacher’s plants were not damaged at all and were standing firm. The engineer neighbor was surpri

Are our children at school merely collecting information?

Snippets: - In our traditional schooling system children are merely collecting the data, memorizing and reproducing it for an exam. - Are they applying it in real life situations. And firstly are they given an opportunity to apply in real life situations. - What  is the problem with collection? The collection ends with gathering of information. - Which is the best way of learning? In the below article an educationist discusses in detail about a concept called 'Curation'. - How Curation is different? Curation stimulates higher order thinking, by making students dig deeper into the collection of data, finding ways to not just apply it in current scenarios, but also retain and remember it for further application in real life, any time in the future. - Collection ends with gathering information, whereas curation begins with it. Click to read full article:

Why do some preschoolers are hesitant to share things:

Snippets: - As parent and teachers we see child not sharing things among siblings and friends as embarassing. - This research has linked sharing with number counting. - It’s not that children don’t want to share. It’s that they don’t yet understand  how  to share fairly. - The reserachers point out from their recent work, that one of the reasons young children fail to share when they know they should is that they simply lack the cognitive toolbox to do so. - The children who recognise numbers well, tend to easily understand the concept of sharing and also do share too. - This research explains how closely the numerical skills and social skill of sharing is linked. - Why would sharing be related to counting? It is because children can’t share the proper number if they don’t also know how to count it. - Research also points out that, many children were actually  trying  to be fair—but couldn’t do it on account of their underdeveloped counting skills. - Example of how counting he

Science Category: Doppler Effect physics activity for students..

This activity @ Credence Learning Foundation blog is contributed by www.education.com  as a guest. Science Project:  A Visual Model of the Doppler Effect This project uses a toy race car moving through paper circles representing soundwaves to visually model the Doppler Effect. ·         >  What causes the Doppler Effect? ·        >  How does the distance between soundwaves effect pitch? Vrooooooom! Vrooooooom! Here we are, folks, in the final lap of the Doppler 500 and look at those cars speed by. Let’s cheer them on by making racecar sounds… Vroom! Vroom! Let’s do it again… Vroom! Hey, did you notice how your racecar voice starts out high and ends up low? Let’s do it again. Vrooom! That’s right, that’s how race cars really sound when they go by. But why? It is because of something called the Doppler Effect. Sound moves from the car to you in waves. Let's make a model of these waves. Materials required : ·       __   Construction paper ·      

Should our children go to mother tongue medium schools or English schools:

- This is the never ending debate we are witnessing. Some are advocating that mother tongue need to be protected. Some argue that in globalised world, english is must. - It is very clear that there is a difference between learning English and learning concepts and understanding the world. To simplify, first is the source of learning and the second is learning itself. And learning and application is end goal. And language is a tool/means to reach end goal. - Research has shown that children’s first language is the optimal language for literacy and learning throughout primary school . - Children whose primary language (refers to your native language or mother tongue) is not the language of instruction in school are more likely to drop out of school or fail in early grades. - Some children do succeed, perhaps through a language transition program that helps them to acquire the language of instruction.  - Are our language transition programs effective. In first place, have we designe