Can you print out this…thing?

Ullas Ponnadi
The next big thing in technology is 3D printing. Over the next few years, 3D printing is bound to create a revolution of sorts. At the school level, this exciting area can be introduced to the children, provided schools are able to afford a 3D printer. Low- cost solutions are also available with contents that can be reasonably aligned with the school curriculum. Read up on this exciting technology.

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Beware of schools!

Ashtami Rajan
Be wary of schools for they do not inculcate the spirit of liberty, fraternity and equality;be wary of schools because they operate on a model that inhibits freedom, encourages competition at the cost of cooperation and gives unequal opportunities to students; be wary of schools because they restrict movement of children, their ability to communicate and learn from each other in the name of discipline. These are some of the arguments put forward by the author. She argues that unless schools become sites where dominant frameworks are challenged and stereotypes are broken, they will remain spaces one needs to be wary of.

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A sense of oneness

Arun Elassery
The Valley School, Bangalore, has been around for 35 years, and that itself speaks for its sense of oneness that prevails in the school.

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How would you like to learn art?

Lakshmi Karunakaran
Anna Okrasko talks about her journey as a student of art, an artist and as a teacher of art in this interview to Teacher Plus. She talks about her experience in art education in Poland, Spain and the Netherlands and why she thinks teachers need to be more open to experimentation in the classroom.

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Start, Camera, Caution!

Ardra Balachandran

CCTVs in the classroom, cameras in the toilets…. can this happen in schools in our country? Make no mistake. Slowly, but surely, Big Brother keeping a watch on teachers and children is becoming a reality. This idea of school surveillance is our Cover Story this month and our correspondent spoke to several teachers and students to get their view on this invasive mechanism. The use of CCTVs in classrooms and schools may have improved safety systems, but using them to monitor teacher activity has raised a few hackles. Is surveillance or monitoring necessary to run a system? How far can one go and when does it become invasive? The questions are many and the answers difficult to comprehend.

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Learning to disagree – politely

Disagreement with the popular viewpoint is not accepted and is usually frowned upon. However, it is important that we create space for all kinds of viewpoints to co-exist in society. Having said that disagreeing doesn’t mean shouting down the other person. How we voice our disagreement is equally important. And classrooms are the best places to help encourage healthy discussions.

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Interconnecting insights

Aditi Mathur and Ratnesh Mathur

From a young age we put in a lot of effort to teach our children to be independent. But interdependence is part of nature. So while we are busy telling our kids the importance of being independent we must also help them realize how interdependent we are as a society, how interdependence is as necessary as independence.

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Building forward

B Ramdas and Rama Sastry

Based on their experience, the authors say sustaining a vision is not difficult if one understands that no two people can have the same vision and therefore if it is to flourish, one must be ready to allow another person to take the vision forward in his or her own way.

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Principle and passion

Madhulika Sagaram

This author, who reopened a learning centre which shut down earlier due to certain difficulties, believes that passion and perseverence can help sustain a vision

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By a different standard

Gurveen Kaur

Alternative ideas of education came into existence because of a reason. Alternative ideas fill the large gaps that mainstream education leaves behind. So while sustaining alternative ideas is not easy, it is important that one doesn’t give up on them.

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