Srividhya Chandrasekaran
Sending her tiny tot off to his first school is always a trying time for a mother. A young mother shares her anxiety along with giving us suggestions on how the mother and the child can make this new phase in their lives a tension free one.
S Upendran
April is the fool’s month. How did the month come to get its name? Why do people play pranks on each other on 1st April? And what does Greek goddess have to do with this month?
Divya Choudary
Fullstop, question mark, comma we have heard of. Did you know that there are newer puncutation marks being invented like the interrobang and the sarc mark?
Maya Menon My mother and her much-older siblings walked long distances every day in the hot sun or pouring rain to go to school – Malayalam-medium schools in the Kerala of the 1930s and 40s. They, however, grew up proficient in English and eventually left the boundaries of their native state and set up homes in other states in a newly-independent India, bringing up children or pursuing respectable careers in the government. My father and his siblings, on the other hand, bicycled to school – an English-medium convent school in Vizag. They grew up leading a middle class genteel lifestyle, with my grandfather achieving considerable professional success as a doctor in pre-independent India, outside his native state. While the schooling that my maternal and paternal sides received was different, their cultural sensibilities and the professional opportunities they got were very similar. The latter did hinge significantly on their ease and comfort with the English language. Moving on to my generation…. Four decades ago when I was in school, the ‘convent schools’ by then at their peak, were seen as the epitome of a well-rounded western (read, good) education in India. They even had a certain snob value since the most well-off people sent their children to these schools. But there were also many children from salaried class families, like myself, who shifted schools every few years. There were still others from less privileged backgrounds who also went to these schools, receiving tuition waivers or subsidies unobtrusively. And we all learnt and grew up together, vaguely aware of our different parentage, but without it unduly hampering our interactions. Apart from fostering a very sound foundation and easy fluency with the English language, the missionary schools I went to nurtured in me a love of music, a strong work ethic, a sense of aesthetics and an eye for detail – all of which stand me in good stead to this day. That was the 60s and 70s! In the 1980s, by which time I had become a teacher, there was an imperceptible shift of favour from the convent schools to the ‘public schools’. These schools were not the public schools modelled on the lines of the British public schools. These schools were products of an Indianized elite who wanted to send their children to schools that offered a well-rounded English-medium education with equal emphasis on academics, arts, sports, and service. The convent schools, while still in popular demand, had begun to be seen as symbolic of a
Pritam Benjamin In the last decade, there has been a spurt in the growth of international schools or internationally –minded schools. Today there are schools that offer you the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), the International Baccalaureate (IB), The Ontario Curriculum, and the EDexcel. The number of genuine international schools that seek affiliation to these boards of education is increasing, mostly in metropolitan as well as in some tier 2 cities, such as Mysore, Lucknow, and Jaipur. The demand for international schools has been fuelled by the needs of NRI (non-resident Indian) families for their children and the children of expatriates who work longer stints in India. Progressive teaching methods and the ‘Whole Education’ approach to teaching in these schools, together with a multicultural environment, are attracting more Indian families too. The variety, quality, and appeal of international schools in India are growing at a surprising rate. The quality of teaching and administrative staff is a strong determinant of the “success” of these schools. It is a great challenge for an emerging international school to hire teachers who can do justice to the “new curricula”, which requires radically different approaches to the teaching-learning process. The professional education and practice of the majority of Indian teachers ties them down to systems that are regulated by syllabi and textbooks endorsed or prescribed by the National Council for Educational and Research and Training. An innovative and creative approach to teaching has rarely been called for, much less modelled, for the average Indian teacher. His/her competence is judged by the number of children who can be promoted to the next class or pass the board examinations with credit. An international school teacher, is seen by progressive thinkers in the education fraternity, as a leader for change in society, in addition to being an effective deliverer of knowledge and skills. In a mainstream public or government school not much is expected from a teacher beyond routine delivery of the syllabus in a time worn format apart from keeping records and reporting marks after term or annual assessments take place. Preparation for classes, innovative and improved methods of teaching, reference and research work to deliver activity-based or hands-on learning and professional development are optional rather than standard expectations from teachers. Teachers, in their redefined roles can now look forward to their own intellectual, cultural, and personal growth. What do employers look for? Excellent oral and written skills head the list. Motivational drive and energy are seen as assets in a teacher. Strong
Jyoti Thyagarajan International schools have been around for a long time, all the way back from the 19th century, so it is a system that is built for longevity. India has the dubious distinction of being the place where an unusually large number of international schools is born. To understand this, let us examine why this is so and what makes an international school really international. At the risk of being damned as a pedant, I must record that every school requires four basic areas to be targeted. First and foremost, it is the students that make it a school, in the finest sense of the word. Secondly, a school is a place where learning happens and not a place where students go to learn. So by an extension of this logic, students can learn anywhere. Unfortunately, however, most school developers see a school as a building, and not just any old building either. It has to be a gracious McMansion! Now most importantly, a school is made or unmade by the curriculum it teaches. Not the exams it takes, or the curriculum it chooses, but the curriculum it TEACHES. And lastly, a school must have systems and resources in place that support it as a place of learning. Does internationalism force these four requirements to be of a particularly high level? To be absolutely honest, not at all! Students who are going to leave this country at the end of their education are just as well served by an Indian curriculum, as long as it is well taught. Is it often that an Indian curriculum is taught in a way that allows the students to apply a new idea or concept? If truth be told, not very often. Almost all teachers teach to the high-stakes tests that every student in schools in India faces in Standard 10 and Standard 12. Most high stakes Indian exams are content oriented and an enormous quantity of content is packed into the syllabus (which is a really useful Indian word in English!). They do not test the application of concepts but the memory of rules. More often than not, even some exceptional schools that teach to an Indian curriculum slightly under-serve students where the application of concepts is concerned. Let us look at the McMansion syndrome. One of the best schools I have seen in this world (and no, I have not seen them all so this statement is at best an extrapolation of fact!) was one that
Learning spaces need to be accessible to all children, so that they get the opportunity to grow into happy, productive adults. But since children have different expectations and needs, a standardised curriculum may not fit the bill. So, while the RTE Act is an important policy that promises to make schooling accessible to all children, alternative spaces where learning happens must also be allowed to coexist.
Sameera Sood
Communication is an essential work and life skill. Children need to be taught to use language spontaneously and not in a laboured fashion. Here are some interesting language games for children that teachers can make use of.
Vandana Aggarwal
Eating tools are a part of our daily life and can be seen all around us. These everyday materials can be used as a study module in a very interesting manner by connecting it to different subjects. The aim is to augment traditional learning by exploring a subject in an interdisciplinary manner.
Manaswini Sridhar
We all know that parents and students are constantly under presssure, students especially. But does anyone think about teachers who are also equally stressed out having to tackle students, prepare for lectures and take care of the home segment too. How can teachers de-stress themselves? What can do they do to keep themselves motivated and happy?
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