Sleight of Teaching
by Meghana Rao
Magic in a classroom? Yes! Could there be anything more fascinating? Use magic in the classroom to liven things up, build a rapport and to teach.
by Meghana Rao
Magic in a classroom? Yes! Could there be anything more fascinating? Use magic in the classroom to liven things up, build a rapport and to teach.
On a recent trek I came across an old fallen log covered with moss, ferns sprouting out of its various nooks and crannies, its hollow occupied by a variety of wildlife small, tiny and conceivably, microscopic. My more knowledgeable companion – an eight-year-old – told me it was a nurse log, a dead tree trunk that serves as a nourishing substrate for a variety of life forms, its dead trunk offering shelter to small animals. A lesson in nature’s means of sustainability and renewal. As we move through the month of October, we have many opportunities to think about these issues in our own lives. Gandhi Jayanthi gives us a moment to think about teachings in non-violence, discovery of the self through education, and an assertion of a national identity that is not restricted by religion, caste or social class. Ramzan is a time for us to vanquish more physical demons and discover within ourselves unknown reserves of energy and creativity. Dussera is both celebration and reflection; the conquest of evil, the joy of art and craft and music and their role in taking us to a higher plane. So what is the connection between all this and the nurse log? From the passage of time comes the opportunity to seek lessons from experience, to look into the nooks and crannies of events and interactions for ways to think differently, to learn afresh, for spaces where new ideas may have nestled and taken root. The mind is something like a nurse log; instead of allowing memories and experiences to decay and disappear as the days fall away, we need to use them as frameworks within which new ideas can take root and be nurtured. We need to use opportunities for reflection to breathe life into these germinating ideas. This issue of Teacher Plus explores topics as far apart as child psychology and magic, cricket and mathematics, our pages serving as a nurse log that you can take into your classrooms to grow new teaching approaches!
Kamala Mukunda Day in and day out, teachers engage with children’s minds. Surely the topics of child development and cognitive psychology must excite the curiosity of any dedicated teacher. More than any other group of professionals, we need to know about how children’s minds develop and learn. And a teacher could benefit even more from a deeper understanding of the roles of emotion and motivation in learning. Are there any ‘must-knows’? This is an assumption, and it would be good to question it. After all, most of us know there are important dimensions to teaching that lie in the ‘present moment’, or in the learning space between student and teacher – empathy, affection and respect, sensitivity to the cues of understanding or boredom – all of which can make or break the teacher’s effectiveness. I do not think that knowledge of psychological theory can contribute much to this ability to be ‘present’ with the student, to create the learning space. One cannot acquire this sense simply through extensive reading or knowledge in any area. If we’re agreed on that point, then, are there any ‘must knows’ for a teacher, apart, of course, from the content of her subject area? Does a teacher have to know anything about child development, child cognition, learning, the human brain and so on in order to be effective? The answer is yes, in the following sense. A good teacher is imaginative, innovative, inspired (and therefore, effective). She is someone who can reflect on the act of teaching, and is interested in education as a discipline. For her, teaching is a vocation. She has an investigative, curiosity-driven approach to education. Many teachers I know frequently ask questions like – why do my students find this difficult? Why can’t they remember simple facts? Is there another way to approach this topic? Why is this student unable to perform to her potential? Why is that child so distracted? Should I wait or teach this now? They wonder about things like this and talk about them with other teachers outside the learning space – my fellow-teachers and I do this sort of thing all the time. Our questions usually fall into the broad area of child and cognitive psychology. Now psychologists publish large quantities of research every month on these same topics. They are asking the same questions that teachers ask, but when they write up their results, their intended audience is other psychologists. However, their findings would be (more?!) fruitful if conveyed to
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