Prakash Iyer
Why are humans drawn to art that generates negative emotions like sadness, melancholy, horror, fear, disgust? Shouldn’t we avoid art that depicts behaviors and attitudes that we find reprehensible, or abhorrent? Beginning a new column.
Jennifer Thomas
When teachers try out new methods or engage in experimenting with a particular lesson plan in the classroom, how do they get to share their experience with other teachers? Do they reflect on whether their new ideas found favour with the children or not? Here is a story of how teachers turned reflective by writing blogs and how the experience helped them get an insight into the various teaching- learning moments.
Sunita Biswas
Staff rooms in schools are spaces with endless possibilities for fascinating journeys. While they can mean different things to different people —- either a sanctum for communication and collaboration or just simply a place to unwind, or a breeding ground for gossip and discord, there is no denying that staff room dynamics reflect the attitudes, values and work ethics of the school as a whole. What is important however is that the dynamics can also generate a synergy that is both productive and creative.
Usha Raman
The staff room is often a good barometer of the culture of the school. A friendly and open staff room can be an indicator of an open and friendly school, where cooperation and collaboration trump competition. But it can also be a space from which change, innovation and excitement spring, where friendships are made and nurtured, where both successes and failures are discussed without judgment.
Sangeeta Zombade and Priyanka Shrivastav
Dark skin has been a matter of ridicule for a long time. Be it home and neighbourhood or media and public spaces, young people are bombarded with messages that put darker shades of skin down and equate being fair to higher standards of beauty. This, in turn, is often used to bully and put people down. Read how some children and their facilitators helped process some of these messages and beliefs underlying them.
Venkatesh Onkar
How do children learn? The answer to this question can be found in Kamala Mukunda’s second book titled, What did you learn at school today? This book is particularly addictive reading for teachers and parents as well and can provide deep insights into how children need to be brought up.
Yasmin Jayathirtha
Children always learn better by doing. So, in order to understand how scientists came up with certain explanations for their theories, they need to work on some experiments which will help them visualize and also come up with deductions.
B R Sitaram Here are the answers to last month’s questions! Q 1. The great Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day 1642 and the great Galileo Galilee died on Christmas day 1642. But the two events actually took place on different days. How come? A. When the calendar was changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, not all countries agreed to the change, especially countries which considered the Gregorian calendar a Popish invention. Italy changed over immediately, but England did not. There was a difference of about 11 days between the two calendars (because of the extra leap days every 100 years in the Julian calendar), which is the reason Newton’s birthday would today be reckoned as falling on 4th January, 1643. Q 2. I have three photos taken of the night sky taken on three consecutive nights. One of the objects in the photos is a planet. How do I make out which one? A. When you observe the night sky over a period of a few hours, you notice that the objects in the sky move from east to west. This motion of course is because of the rotation of the earth and has nothing to do with the motion of the celestial objects. When you look at stars, they move together, maintaining their relative shapes. However, planets have a separate motion of their own, relative to the stars. So, when I look at the three photos, I will see that while most of the objects will retain their positions with respect to each other, one of them, however, will move relative to the others. That’s the planet! Q 3. Most diets are based on the idea of the calorie and talk about consuming a certain number of calories (actually kilo calories) per day. What is fundamentally wrong with this approach? A. The number of calories is estimated by burning the food item and measuring the total heat generated. This pays no attention to whether the human body can actually digest the food or not! Q 4. Everyone knows that Christopher Columbus was not given funds by many kings and queens till he got funds from Spain. If everyone at that time believed the earth was round, why was he denied funds? A. No one believed his estimates of the radius (and hence circumference) of the earth! Most people were convinced that India was much further away from Europe (going westwards) than Columbus believed, and they were right! Questions for
Shivani Mathur Gaiha and Spandana Kommuri
How can teachers address the issue of substance and drug use that not only have a psychological effect but can also impact the students physiologically?
J. S. Sudhir Markham
Learning in the classroom can be quite a challenge for students with an intellectual disability. It is up to the teachers to ensure that certain changes are made to accommodate the child’s learning needs. Here are a few tips to help the teacher make the necessary changes.
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