A Teacher’s tribute to her dear students

Teaching is the passion, and luckily my experience as a teacher has been beautiful, emotional and fulfilling. Over the years, I’ve watched the student-teacher equation evolve: From guru as God, guru as all-knowing - “Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara, Guru sakshat, Param Brahmn tas mai Shri Guru vai namaha” - to guru as friend and equal, as someone who doesn’t always know best.

Today’s guru and shishya are partners in the process of teaching and learning. We inspire, motivate and learn from each other; if I don’t know, I can admit it to my students. The teacher is only a facilitator; one who will help the student grow to her potential, become a self-learner. The teacher is only one of many sources. Not infrequently, there is a role reversal. With children being so tech-savy, often I am the student and they are my teachers.

Has teaching changes the way I think? Yes, most certainly. My students have shown me how to manage time. I marvel at how deftly they juggle sports, academics, dance, theatre and pottery, for instance. I have learnt how to accept failure as I see my students taking success and failure with equanimity, I admire the confidence of my students who can go up on stage and speak extempore. I see them contesting an election, lose it and yet work with the winner for the common good.

I have observed students working in teams, giving suggestions, disagreeing politely, coming to a consensus even if it means giving up one’s original idea. They go ahead, never claiming: “That was my idea”. I see them sharing everything - their history notes and lab coats, their problems and joys, their ice creams and food, with such ease.

It is wonderful the way they appreciate their classmates’ talents. If you ask them “Who do you think should be given the this task?” you can be sure they will pick the most suitable person. Their loyalty to friends disconcerts me at times. Will their selflessness last as they grow into adults?

Students are so good at solving problems creatively. The other day as I was walking out of the school gate, I saw something interesting. One girl, recently elected senior most student leader, was motivating her fellow students with an amusing game - to amazing response. When I questioned her she told me it was an activity to energise them so that they could put in their best for the forthcoming Teacher’s Day function. How innovative!

My students have often shown me how to keep cool during a crisis, with a “Don’t worry Ma’am, it can be done!” I am often amazed at their openness, at their ability to think critically, accept reasoned answers. What has struck me most is their daring - to chart unknown territories, to be constantly redefining rules, unafraid to be original.

My students make me think constantly. Last week I told my class,”In these 10 years of teaching from this book, no one has asked me this question!” I have to be always ready for surprises. I know they are not testing me- though they do, sometimes. They ask such basic questions that it stumps me.

I have taken so many things for granted. Students remind me that my learning is not complete and never will be. Above all, my students have taught me to be young, to never grow old. I have to be up-to-date in everything, in order to keep up with them.
Source: The Speaking Tree, Times of India, March 2008

News Bite

• Reading is a fundamental skill
• Keeping plastics at bay, Kerala school shows way
• Japan wants Indians to teach them
• NASA names planet after Kerala professor of Mathematics
• Education dept to impart education through theatre

Reading is a fundamental skill

To advocate a new approach to teaching of reading in early primary classes, NCERT has developed a ‘Reading Development Cell,’ under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) with the support of the ministry of human resources development (MHRD). The cell’s aim is to focus on the teaching of reading in early primary classes and to create awareness about the learning needs of children of classes I and II. Besides collecting and developing reading material for children, the cell also orients teachers in different and innovative ways to teach reading….

Keeping plastics at bay, Kerala school shows way

The next time you land up with a plastic bag at the Calicut Orphanage Lower Primary School you will be greeted by a kid wearing a blue cap and a badge politely asking you to hand it over and get a cloth bag instead. These children are members of the school’s anti-plastic squad. The 10-acre school campus remains unblemished with plastic refuse that is quiet contrast to the surrounding areas. Every month, squad members are changed so that all the students become a part of this initiative.

Japan wants Indians to teach them

Japan may soon open its gates to Indian primary schoolteachers specialising in Jmathematics for it is believed in Japan that Indians are the best in the world when it comes to teaching this subject. The deputy leader of the visiting Indo-Japan Business Co-operation delegation, Ryuji Inamura, expressed that the Japanese are extremely interested in the way this crucial academic subject is taught in India.

NASA names planet after Kerala professor of Mathematics

In a rare honour, the US space agency NASA has named a ‘minor’ planet after a Kerala zoology professor in appreciation of his environmental research. Sainudeen Pattazhy, who teaches in a college in Kollam. The planet was discovered in 1989 by US-based scientist Rajmohan, who - on coming to know of the research conducted by Sainudeen on many ecological and environmental issues - proposed that the planet be given Sainudeen’s name.

Education dept. to impart education through theatre

Chandigarh City -The Education Department has decided to impart moral education and other core subjects in the syllabus through the help of theatre and drama, making it more interesting for the students to grasp things and arouse their interest in theatre and art. Theatre will be introduced as a subject in the syllabus, and the plays will be prepared according to the syllabus. Indian

Teacher’s Bite

Mrs. Neela Desai,
Principal,
Kola Saraswathi Vaishnav Senior Secondary School, Chennai

Education system in India
Change is inevitable for the growth of any country. India today has made considerable progress in the journey towards becoming a developed nation. It is all the more important now, that we focus on education so students are able to realise their potential in a globalized world. As educators, we need to incorporate activities that support the all round development of each student. In academics, the aim should be to help students learn with understanding.

Importance of teacher training
Teachers have the tough task of developing the skills needed to teach with understanding. To sharpen these skills, EI provides much needed training to the teacher. Each of these programs helps the teachers face everyday challenges in the classroom effectively.
On ASSET
Our school has taken up for the last three years and I do see a sea change in the approach of our students. The ASSET test taps their inner capability of reasoning and makes the learning more interesting.

Karnataka to introduce new technology to beat exam cheat

Technology is coming in to address two of the biggest issues that education in India faces: leakage of question papers and forgery of marksheets and certificates reports the Times of India, Institutions like Bangalore University and Visveswaraya Technological institute are considering a technology that will enable them to print question papers at the examination venue just an hour before the test.

As for the forgery prevention technology that involves putting barcodes on marksheets, the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, implemented it last year, and several others like Bangalore University are now planning to adopt it.

In the traditional question paper distribution method, these papers are printed at a central site and sent out to different exam centres where they are expected to be kept in “safe” custody until the exam date. The trouble is that leakages happen either at the central printing site or the exam centre.

With the new technology, the question paper is converted into a digital format and encoded (so that nobody can read it). This is then stored in a server as a PDF attachment in an email.

A special printer is installed at the exam location. The printer, connected to the internet, will locate the email from the server, decode the attachment and print the desired number of copies.

Humour

Teacher: Tomorrow there will be a lecture on the Sun. Everyone must attend it.
Raju: No madam! I will not be able to attend it.
Teacher: Why?
Raju: My mother will not allow me to go so far!!!

Unique Indian art books for children

What is a Professional Learning Community ?

……………………………………………………………in continuation from last issue, March 2008

Big Idea #3: A Culture of Collaboration
The powerful collaboration that characterizes professional learning communities is a
systematic process in which teachers work together to analyze and improve their classroom
practice. Teachers work in teams, engaging in an ongoing cycle of questions that promote deep team learning. This process, in turn, leads to higher levels of student achievement.

Collaborating for School Improvement
The author describes the teaching-learning process in one of the schools- The school’s five 3rd grade teachers study state and national standards, and student achievement data to identify the essential knowledge and skills that all students should learn in an upcoming language arts unit. They also ask the 4th grade teachers what they hope students will have mastered by the time they leave 3rd grade. On the basis of the shared knowledge generated by this joint study, the 3rd grade team agrees on the critical outcomes that they will make sure each student achieves during the unit.

Next, the team turns its attention to developing common formative assessments to monitor each student’s mastery of the essential outcomes. Team members discuss the most authentic and valid ways to assess student mastery. They set the standard for each skill or concept that each student must achieve to be deemed proficient. They agree on the criteria by which they will judge the quality of student work, and they practice applying those criteria until they can do so consistently. Finally, they decide when they will administer the assessments.

Collaborative conversations call on team members to make public what has traditionally been
private-goals, strategies, materials, pacing, questions, concerns, and results. These
discussions give every teacher someone to turn to and talk to, and they are explicitly structured to improve the classroom practice of teachers-individually and collectively.

For teachers to participate in such a powerful process, the school must ensure that everyone
belongs to a team that focuses on student learning. Each team must have time to meet
during the workday and throughout the school year. Teams must focus their efforts on crucial questions related to learning and generate products that reflect that focus, such as lists of essential outcomes, different kinds of assessment, analyses of student achievement, and strategies for improving results. Teams must develop norms or protocols to clarify
expectations regarding roles, responsibilities, and relationships among team members.
Teams must adopt student achievement goals linked with school and district goals.

Hard Work and Commitment
Even the grandest design eventually translates into hard work. The professional learning
community model is a grand design-a powerful new way of working together that profoundly
affects the practices of schooling. But initiating and sustaining the concept requires
hard work. It requires the school staff to focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively on matters related to learning, and hold itself accountable for the kind of results that fuel continual improvement.

Excerpt from” What is a Professional Learning community?” By Richard DuFour, Educational Leadership

News Bite

• Corrective measures leads to absenteeism from exams in UP
  
• India soon to make education a fundamental right: Minister
  
• Spend 6 percent of GDP on education: Economic Survey
• No bags for Chandigarh primary school children
• Jharkhand offers money bait to check school dropout rate

Corrective measures leads to absenteeism from exams in UP

The revamping of the board examination system in Uttar Pradesh had an unexpected impact. Over 141,000 students of Class 10 and Class 12 have not taken their examinations as copying and use of unfair means was made difficult by the strict measures in place. Many students are said to have fled from the exam centres and have decided to take the exams next year. Copying during board exams is a sensitive issue in Uttar Pradesh.

India soon to make education a fundamental right: Minister

India will soon legislate a law to make education a fundamental right, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh said. He said a provision of free and compulsory education for children in the age group of 6 to 14 years has already been declared as a fundamental right in the constitution. Describing education as the most critical aspect of social development, Arjun Singh said the society couldn’t afford to leave it to the private players alone.

Spend 6 percent of GDP on education: Economic Survey

India needs to double its spending on education to six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to make primary education universal, the Economic Survey 2007-08 said. The survey said that with the rapid growth of the Indian economy, coupled with the need to improve quality of life and reduced poverty, skill development is essential in schools. With the increased demand for higher quality of education, training of teachers has become even more important and out of the box thinking is required to ensure adequate supply of quality teachers.

No bags for Chandigarh primary school children

Children studying in primary classes in government schools in Chandigarh will no longer have to carry a burden on their young shoulders. The Chandigarh administration’s education department has decided to do away with schoolbags and examinations for all students from Nursery to Class 2.’The focus will now be on activity based learning. Instead of examinations, They will have a grading system to evaluate students on their performance. They will not have to carry books in heavy schoolbags any longer.

Jharkhand offers money bait to check school dropout rate

Jharkhand’s ministry of resources development (HRD) has decided to give Jmonetary incentives to students in the government-run schools in order to curb the dropouts menace. As per the plan, the state government will give Rs.100 per month to a boy student and Rs.150 per month to a girl student from Class I to X. A bank account will be opened in the name of the students where the money will be deposited. The money deposited in banks cannot be withdrawn till the students attain 18 years of age and if a student drops out midway, no money will be given to him/her, according to the proposal. In Jharkhand, the literacy rate is just 54 percent against the national average of 65.

Teacher’s Bite

Ms. Jailaxmi Rammoorthy,
Principal, Vel’s Vidyashram, Chennai

Education system in India
There have been mind-boggling changes in educational dynamics due to the
impact of
globalization and influx of progressive information technology. This has placed a new thrust on alternative and newer ways of learning. Rote learning of undigested information and focus on just passing examinations will have to be replaced by higher order thinking and learning by understanding. The schools that have felt the need to keep pace with these changes have transformed themselves into learning laboratories. They encourage higher order thinking characterized by skills such as reasoning, analysis, synthesis and problem solving; and to initiate, sustain and develop such thinking.

These developments place great responsibility on the teachers and make a strong case for teacher development. In-service teacher training programmes should be systematic, regular and well planned. Such training should help the teacher understand students’ learning better and also equip them to improve their domain knowledge using tools such as information technology.

On ASSET
ASSET evaluation is extremely comprehensive and gives the student exact assessment of his/her learning in cognitive, numeracy and literacy skills. ASSET has come up with yet another important learning aid by the way of “Teachers’ Sheets.” Ideally all students should take ASSET tests to get to know where they are, and use the assessment to improve their learning.

A Tribute To Arthur C. Clarke

The achievements of Arthur C. Clarke, unique among his peers, bridge the arts and sciences. His works and his authorship have ranged from scientific discovery to science fiction, from technical application to entertainment, and have made a global impact on the lives of present and future generations.

The visionary author of more than 70 books, was most famous for his short story “The Sentinel”, which was expanded into the novel that was later adapted for Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. He was the first to suggest the use of satellites for communication and meteorology decades before they could become reality. Clarke was the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the “Big Three” of science fiction, alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. The astronomer Sir Patrick Moore said that his friend was a “great visionary, brilliant science-fiction writer and great forecaster”. He passed away at the age of 90, on 18th March, 2008

Humour

Student: Wish I had been born 1000 years ago.
Teacher: Why is that?
Student: Just think of all the history that I wouldn’t have to learn!

“Make Them Love Science!”Says MIT Professor

MIT professor and Web star Walter Lewin swings from pendulums and faces down wrecking balls to show students the zany beauty of science.

“It took me a decade to come to the realization,” says Lewin at his MIT office, “that really what counts is not what you cover, but what counts is what you uncover.” What Lewin has uncovered is that requiring the memorization of formulas and equations is not the most effective way to teach. Teachers must, he believes, engage students with action.
One of his students, Carolyn Crull, a civil engineering major from San Diego, says Lewin’s classroom theatrics have helped open her eyes to her surroundings.
“A lot of students spend their days just staring at the ground as they walk around,” she says, “but, maybe you will look up every once in a while and see the beauty in the world.”
Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor, has long had a cult following at MIT. Now he has emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom the institute created to spread knowledge through cyberspace.

Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise.

“Through your inspiring video lectures I have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple,” a 17-year-old from India e-mailed recently.

Steve Boigon, 62, a florist from San Diego, wrote, “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes.”

Some of his correspondents compare him to Richard Feynman, the free-spirited, bongo-playing Nobel laureate who popularized physics through his books, lectures and television appearances.

Professor Lewin revels in his fan mail and in the idea that he is spreading the love of physics. “Teaching is my life,” he said.

The professor, who is from the Netherlands, said that teaching a required course in introductory physics MIT students made him realize “that what really counts is to make them love physics, to make them love science.”

He said he spent 25 hours preparing each new lecture, choreographing every detail and stripping out every extra sentence. “Clarity is the word,” he said.

Source: http://potw.news.yahoo.com

What is a Professional Learning Community ?

The concept of improving schools by developing professional learning communities is currently in vogue. This article attempts to clarify the essence of this concept. What are the “big ideas” that represent the core principles of professional learning communities? How do these principles guide schools’ efforts to sustain the professional learning community model?

Big Idea #1: Ensuring That Students Learn
The professional learning community model flows from the assumption that the core mission of formal education is not simply to ensure that students are taught but to ensure that they learn.This simple shift from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning-has profound implications for schools.

As the school moves on these lines, every professional in the building must engage with colleagues in the ongoing exploration of three crucial questions.

• What do we want each student to learn?
• How will we know when each student has learned it?
• How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?

The answer to the third question separates learning communities from traditional schools. Traditionally, schools have left the answer to third question to individual teachers, who have responded in widely varying ways. However, the professional learning community’s response
students who experience difficulty is

• Timely. The school quickly identifies students who need additional time and support.
• Based on intervention rather than remediation. The plan provides students with help as soon
as they experience difficulty rather than relying on remedial courses or retention.
• Directive. Instead of inviting students to seek additional help, the systematic plan requires
students to devote extra time and receive additions assistance until they have mastered the
necessary concepts.

Big Idea #2: A Focus on Results

Professional learning communities judge their effectiveness on the basis of results, Working
together to improve student achievement becomes the routine work of everyone in the school.
Every teacher team participates in an ongoing process of

• identifying the current level of student achievement,
• establishing a goal to improve the current level,
• working together to achieve that goal
• providing periodic evidence of progress

The focus of team goals shifts. Such goals as “We will adopt the Great Books program” or “We will create three new science labs” give way to “We will increase the percentage of students who get high scores in language from 83 percent to 90 percent” or “We will reduce the failure rate in our course by 50 percent.”
………………to be continued in the April 2008 issue of ASSETScope
Excerpt from” What is a Professional Learning community?” By Richard DuFour, Educational Leadership

News Bite

• ‘Civic Sense’ now part of school curricula
• Projector replaces blackboard in Kerala classroom
• Children’s university as a resource centre
• Only 45 percent primary students get first division
• Progress in education will dictate the destiny of India

‘Civic Sense’ now part of school curricula

Govt school students in Delhi will now get the opportunity to polish up their civic sense. The Directorate of Education, Delhi Government, has decided to include ‘civic sense’ for students as part of learning for all grades in schools. The lessons on civic sense will be presented in the form of real life examples in manuals prepared for Yuva Programs, run by the Department. The issues relate to the everyday life of students such as personal safety, hygiene and public health.

Projector replaces blackboard in Kerala classroom

Nearly 30 students of a girl’s school in Kerala listened in rapt attention to the teacher. The only difference - the teacher was speaking from nearly 200 km away and the girls were being taught online with a projector beaming the image live. In some government schools in north Kerala’s Kozhikode district a projector is replacing the blackboard. The district administration has launched a new initiative of online tutoring to help students of government schools. This is perhaps for the first time that a district administration in India has arranged such a facility to help students though the Indian Space Research Organisation has been carrying out pilot projects in distance learning for many years.

Children’s university as a resource centre

After watching the movie Taare Zameen Par, the Chief Minister of Gujarat has come up with a plan of setting up a world class children’s university as a resource centre to study problems faced by children with special needs. It will be first set up first as Bal Gokulam to research and develop techniques to make pedagogy more interesting and effective. It will conduct research for simplifying teaching and learning.

Only 45 percent primary students get first division

A mere 45.04 percent of students passing out of government-run primary schools - up to Class 5 - in India score 60 percent marks or more, reveals new survey. Tripura and Orissa fare the worst with less than 15 percent of students scoring 60 percent or above, says the latest District Information System for Education (DISE) data collected by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry.

Progress in education will dictate the destiny of India

Noting that progress in education will “dictate the destiny” of India in the next century, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) feels there is “resistance” at various levels in the government to new ideas in the education field.

“There is still resistance at various levels in the government to new ideas, experimentation, process re-engineering, external interventions, transparency and accountability due to rigid organisational structures with territorial mindsets,” NKC Chairman Sam Pitroda said.

There was a need to create various collaborative models, dispelling mutual suspicions, he said after submitting the second annual “Report to the Nation” to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“Our country is too large, too complex and too diverse for ‘one size fits all’ solutions and decentralisation and community participation at the local level would be key to devising effective programmes for implementation”, Pitroda told reporters.

Teacher’s Bite

Ms. Jailaxmi Rammoorthy,
Principal, Vel’s Vidyashram,Chennai

Education system in India
The education system in India focuses on disseminating information to learners. The learners in turn memorise these bits of information to achieve their only goal: high marks. The system does not give importance to acquiring knowledge or foster creative thinking. So learning becomes purely superficial and is quickly forgotten once the exam is over.

Today we live in a society which makes increasing demands on knowledge as a resource for living. Hence it is high time that education system in India is revamped to give way to meaningful learning experiences amongst the teacher and taught.
.
Importance of Teacher Training
In this context, teacher training assumes a great importance. Inexperienced teachers, who come out of the portals of higher education, fail to produce learners who are capable of thinking and reflecting. A continuous and comprehensive evaluation of teachers, similar to the one conducted for students for by CBSE, is strongly recommended. Periodic workshops and training sessions should be organized to help teachers keep up with current teaching methodologies. If their pedagogy undergoes a change and the teachers start emphasizing on higher order thinking skills then the scenario is bound to change for the better.

On ASSET
ASSET plays a vital role in activating the interest of both the teachers and taught. By studying the analysis provided after the ASSET exams, learners are able to evaluate their skills and find out their relative position among students around the country.

What ‘Budget 2008’ Brings For Education - A Special Report

Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram presented the “Budget 2008 on 28 February, 2008” in the Parliament. There is a clear focus on improving core science and developing our research capabilities. The various initiatives taken by the government for improving the quality of education were outlined in the finance minister’s Budget speech. Here are the relevant excerpts from the speech:

Education and health are the twin pillars on which rests the edifice of social sector reforms.
The total allocation for the education sector will be increased by 20 percent from Rs.28,674 crore in 2007-08 to Rs.34,400 crore in 2008-09.

Science and Technology:
We must encourage our children to take to careers in science and research and
development. Ministry of Science and Technology will introduce a scheme called Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) that will include scholarships for young learners (10-17 years), scholarships for continuing science education (17-22 years)
and opportunities for research careers (22-32 years). I propose to provide
Rs. 85 crore in 2008-09 for this inspired contribution to building a knowledge society.

The recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission, submitted from time to
time, are under active consideration. Some of them have been incorporated in the Eleventh Plan. Government has accepted an important recommendation to inter-connect all knowledge institutions through an electronic digital broadband network. This will encourage sharing of resources and collaborative research. I propose to provide Rs. 100 crore to the Ministry of Information and Technology for establishing the National Knowledge Network.

Humour

Teacher: Where is your homework?
Student: I lost it fighting this kid who said you weren’t the best teacher in the school.

Principals’ Seminar
“Helping Every Child Learn with Understanding”

Educational Initiatives (EI) organised a one-day seminar on “Helping Every Child Learn with Understanding” at Ahmedabad on February 23, 2008. Principals from forty leading schools across the country participated in the seminar. The objective of the seminar was to have a forum for principals from various boards to share their views on learning with understanding.

Sridhar Rajagopalan, Managing Director, Educational Initiatives, presented EI’s vision and EI’s view of education in our country. He talked about EI’s theory of change and where we are in our journey towards the goal of transformation. As an illustration of the pervasiveness of superficial understanding, a film “Minds of Our Own” was shown, highlighting the lack of application capability of students from even the best universities of the world.

Sudhir Ghodke, Director, shared a summary of schools’ expectations based on EI’s engagement over the last six years. He stressed the need for a deeper engagement to be looked at as a process as opposed to an event. This process-based approach would better address the key concern of Principals which is improvement in the teachers’ capabilities. One such initiative is The Teacher Sheet that EI piloted earlier this year, which is to be formally launched in June.

Vishnuteerth Agnihotri, Vice President - Test Development, highlighted the four aspects of making a good question that tests concept learning and uncovers misconceptions in children, People, Research, Process and Tools. Each point was elaborated with examples accompanied by some very interesting field videos on common misconception of children.

Delegates were of the opinion that it is heartening to note that EI is addressing learning with understanding as a prime area of concern through their pioneering work. They were happy to see that some excellent research work on school education is being done by EI. They were appreciative that the organization is open, friendly and willing to incorporate new ideas and suggestions to fine-tune their work. They were convinced about the need of diagnostic testing but felt that management, team members and teachers would need more orientation to optimally use the results to improve students’ understanding. They agreed that ASSET tests have brought about a change of mindset in teachers and students; though initial results of ASSET were shocking, it helped the teachers focus and improve subsequently. The Teacher Sheets initiative would be very useful for teachers, but the key lies in successful implementation and usage. The seminar was a great success with very good participation and rich interaction between the delegates and with the EI team.

Excerpt: “Poor Rich Countries: The Challenges of Development”

A speech by Indian Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram at the Harvard University South Asia Initiative on 18th October, 2007

We have some of the best schools in the world - but they are few - and we have some of the worst schools in the world. The challenges that we face include enrolment in school of all children between the ages of five and ten, retaining them in school for at least five years, appointing a sufficient number of teachers, dealing with teacher absenteeism, and equipping the schools with books and teaching material so that the child experiences the joy of learning. Many schools, including government-run schools, do make the mark, and that is why we turn out every year hundreds of thousands of qualified engineers, doctors, accountants, managers and other professionals. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that we are not doing enough. Too many children are still out of school, too many drop out before they finish school, too many cannot read or write or do basic maths, and too many are ill-equipped to be employed. At the other end, we produce too few teachers, professors, researchers and scientists. Even in the professions, we have too few doctors, nurses, engineers and judges for a population of over a billion and an economy that is growing at a rapid rate. The reasons are obvious: the early development models that we inherited are simply incompatible with the demands of a globalizing economy. Besides, there is the inherited and widely-held belief that education is, and must be, a not-for-profit activity, despite overwhelming evidence that our reluctance to adopt new models has spawned a huge industry that has fully commercialized education and imparts education without any values.

Education - apart from healthcare - is our most formidable challenge. The failure to rise to this challenge and overcome it will affect precisely those sections of the people who have been victims of neglect for many centuries. These are women, the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, and many socially backward communities that have remained at the bottom of the pyramid. We now have a policy that promises “education for all”. We have backed the promise by increasing many fold the funds provided by the federal government for building schools, purchasing equipment, appointing teachers and providing a cooked meal for all children in primary and upper primary classes.

To conclude, India is rich because of its natural resources; it is poor because it is unable to exploit those resources efficiently and profitably. India is rich because of its native entrepreneurial talent; it is poor because many policy and procedural hurdles stand in the way of the entrepreneurs. India is rich because of its young population; it is poor because it is unable to deliver quality education to all its children. India is rich because its people set great store by values and moral standards; it is poor because of declining standards in public life. India is rich because its people are hardworking, resilient and pragmatic; it is poor because often commonsense is devoured by ideology.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is the story of a poor rich country. While my generation which spearheaded the crossover will do its best, I have faith that the next generation of Indians, and the generation after that, will eliminate the scourge of poverty and make India rich. Then, the poor rich country would have deserved its inheritance.

Book Review

Writings of Teachers
Ideas for the Classroom

Sections from the Journal of the Krishnamurti Schools, Nos. 1 to 9
Publisher: East West Books (Madras) Pvt. Ltd

One of the most critical aspects of school education is the teaching-learning process in a classroom. Real learning happens when children find their acquired knowledge meaningful in various real life situations. Hence the book ‘Writings of Teachers - Ideas for the Classroom’ brought out by the teachers of the Krishnamurti Schools with an objective to expose teachers to various dimensions of classroom teaching. The book covers ideas of teaching various disciplines - Art, Humanity and Science. It gives us an insight into teaching specialised and sensitive topics like religion or globalization. The practical tips, such as how to conduct a field study and the chemistry of everyday life, help teachers to create a more hands-on classroom.

Today the school fraternity of India is at the crossroads of change towards a better system of teaching-learning. The book is expected to add a new perspective towards this change.

News Bite

• CBSE to introduce new exam system
• Bihar girl’s inspiring story in NCERT Textbook
• Delhi Govt introduces ‘Chalta Firta’ Schools for children

CBSE to introduce new exam system

The 10th and 12th standard examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will have 20 percent of the questions dedicated to testing the student’s critical thinking skills rather than rote learning. Mr. Ashok Ganguly, CBSE chairperson said there was a paradigm shift in the CBSE from More of The Same (MOTS) system based on repetition and stereotypes to Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) with emphasis on interpretation and synthesis of knowledge.

Bihar girl’s inspiring story in NCERT Textbook

A teenage girl’s success story in educating herself against all odds while rearing honeybees for a livelihood has found a place in a school textbook produced by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Anita Kushwaha, 17, has encouraged and inspired thousands of women in rural Bihar to be self-reliant. Anita embarked on the path of self-reliance by collecting Rs.1,500 by giving tuitions to children and purchasing a box containing a queen bee. She is currently studying for her Bachelors in Arts (BA English) degree from MDDM College, Muzaffarpur.

Delhi Govt introduces ‘Chalta Firta’ Schools for children

The Delhi Government has launched a ‘Chalta Firta’ (mobile) schools scheme for children living in depressed areas of the city. Two ‘Chalta Firta’ (mobile) vans are equipped for this purpose with the basic infrastructure of a classroom along with a variety of latest teaching and learning aids like VCDs and learning kits. The objective of this project is to provide educational facilities to students who dropped out of school and those who do not have access to schools.

Teacher’s Bite

Mr. N. Madhusudan,
Principal, Bhavan’s Gandhi Vidyashram, Kodaikanal
Education system in India

Education system in India
The Indian system of education has come under severe scrutiny over the years and we can say that it has passed in various fronts. However, there is a general opinion that system of education promotes only rote- learning Other skills understanding, referencing, questioning, interpretation thinking take a back seat as both the teacher and the taught are in the rat-race to translate the information gained into marks Also our evaluation system measures a very limited range of faculties and has no provision to test other skills. Thus teachers become assembly line employees producing the same talents as engineers or doctors which is in popular demand.
Importance of Teacher Training
The success of any educational process depends on the quality, commitment and expertise of the teachers. So teacher training assumes great significance as it can enhance the teaching quality and thereby improve the level of student achievement.

This can happen only if there are periodical workshops or training programmes for teachers. Such programmes should enable teachers to think of new methods of teaching and assessment and evolve appropriate strategies for the classroom. At the same time, great care should be taken when organizing such workshops, to see that this is relevant to the real needs of the classroom, or else they become mere mechanical and futile exercises.

On ASSET
The major setback to our educational system is that we do not have proper assessment strategies. In the absence of skill based aptitude tests, it is assumed that a students have high abilities as they get ‘A’ grade in exams. The students of our school have been taking ASSET for the last three years.

Such standardized tests and the performance analysis are very useful in measuring subject-specific knowledge at school level. They also provide an insight into a child’s progress and identify areas that need improvement. The analysis of student performance provided by ASSET, can come as an eye opener to all the stake holders of a child’s education.

We need to lay more emphasis on learning by doing, learning from observation and pitting the learning to test. Self-learning and independent thinking are to be cultivated. If we can create a love for life-long learning, we can plug the loop-holes in our education system and help students march towards a well grounded success.

‘Passionate’ For Changing Lives

There are a set of students distinctly different from others of their generation. Instead of whiling away their free time, they are passionate about making a difference to the lives of the less privileged. And leading the young brigade is M.R.S.K. Chaitanya, a 12th standard student of Abhyasa International School and winner of UN award for Excellence in Community Service. He has been instrumental in re-enrolling many child laborers from in and around the village, back in school. He has also worked at setting up medical camps and AIDS awareness campaigns. One particular program that he led helped his classmates to counsel senior citizens in the village against addiction towards alcohol and tobacco. He was the only student from his State among 10 students across the world invited to the UN Youth Assembly to receive the award in August 2007.

Humour

Teacher: If 1+1=2 and 2+2=4, what is 4+4?
Student: That’s not fair! You answer the easy ones and leave us with the hard one!

Student Misconception Series
A Regular Column In Deccan Herald, Bangalore

Deccan Herald is a popular paper with a circulation of about 3,00,000 in Karnataka. It comes out every Thursday with a supplement called DH Education for parents, schools and children. Educational Initiatives contributes articles on student misconceptions based on their research study on “Student Learning in Metros”. Each article features one subject misconception along with actual student responses.

The Principal –Through The Eyes of A Student

Dear Principal,
What does a Principal do?

Ask the teachers in your school to pose this question to the students, and enjoy the responses. The students can describe their thoughts in the form of pictures and notes. Visit the classrooms and talk to the students about your work and their pictures. This could be another way for you and the students to get to know each other better. Some of the pictures can be used to make an interesting and meaningful bulletin board. Perhaps you could also create a scrapbook of the pictures to keep in your office for students, staff and visitors to enjoy again and again. Do send us a selection of these responses to bindu@ei-india.com. You may see them in an ASSETScope issue in the future.

With best wishes for a fun journey of self-discovery,
The ASSETScope Team

Advance Registration Offer- 2008

This is an invitation for your school to participate in ASSET - A diagnostic test for students of classes III to X. ASSET helps pin-point students’ strengths and weaknesses and also provides them a benchmark with their peers. Over 2.5 lakh students from over 2000+ schools across India, Middle East, Singapore and Nepal take ASSET every year. With a database of 10 million student responses, ASSET is a unique repository of the state of learning in India today.
The three special features of ASSETwhich schools have appreciated are:
• Nature and quality of its questions
• Quality of its analysis at the student, teacher and school level
• Type of follow-on support available for both teachers and students after the test

ASSET is available for five subjects: English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Hindi. The cost is Rs.300 per student for three subjects (English, Mathematics and Science) and Rs.120 per paper for optional subjects (Social Studies, Hindi). To encourage schools to plan for ASSET in advance we have designed the Advance Registration Opportunity 2008(ARO 2008) which has a year long teacher engagement plan in the form of “Teacher Sheets”.

The “Teacher Sheets” are subject-specific aids that directly relate to the concepts being covered in the curriculum. These sheets will be dispatched every month to the school, helping to not only to see patterns of misconceptions but also get specific suggestions for their resolution.

The “Teacher Sheets” are going to be offered FREE of cost to all schools that register with a minimum of 400 students, before April 30th. Schools will be automatically eligible for this offer on payment of 30% of the total fee payable, before April 30th. Teacher sheets will be dispatched to schools in June 2008 after they register with the full amount.

We plan to compile the experience and best practices from schools that implement the suggestions given in each teacher sheet. Sharing this compilation will be very useful for all the partner schools (who register in advance), and will be instrumental in bringing together all the leading schools onto one improvement platform, cutting across geography and Educational boards.

We look forward to your cooperation in this partnership for continous improvement in your esteemed school. If you have any queries, please feel free to contact us at info@ei-india.com.

News Bite

• 11th Five Year Plan to focus on Education
• Energy Clubs at Delhi Schools to promote Energy Conservation
• Building as a Learning Aid
• A Kerala village achieves total Primary education
• Rajasthan Mulls ‘portable’ schools to stem dropouts

11th Five Year Plan to focus on Education

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the Eleventh Five Year Plan would focus on education, particularly vocational and science education, with a five-fold increase in the spending on this sector compared to the Tenth Plan. The Plan allocation for education has been stepped up from 7.7% of gross budgetary support for the Plan, in the Tenth Plan, to over 19% in the Eleventh Plan.

Energy Clubs at Delhi Schools to promote Energy Conservation

In a bid to create awareness and promote energy conservation and utility of renewable energy among school students, the Delhi Government has launched a programme to form Energy Efficiency Clubs. Initially, 35 schools across the capital have come up with such energy clubs. With the establishment of such energy clubs in the schools, it is hoped that energy saving becomes a lifelong habit.

Building as a Learning Aid

After the success of Taare Zameen Par, which showed how a school’s infrastructure can serve as an effective learning aid, Delhi’s education department is all set to launch a project called BaLA. Building as Learning Aid (BaLA), also an acronym for a girl, is an innovative way of looking at a student’s relation with the school.

The project, to be launched by the Delhi government will focus on using the existing school infrastructure as a part of the learning process and in making education indispensable to everyday life. The project also addresses inclusive education in mainstream schools.

A Kerala village achieves total Primary education

Kerala state’s Nilambur village panchayat has achieved total primary education, possibly a first in India. The drive for universal primary education, named Jyotirgamaya, began two years ago, in Nilambur, a village with a population of 43,000. Everyone in the village is now certified as having passed an examination at a level equivalent to Class IV.

Rajasthan Mulls ‘portable’ schools to stem dropouts

Rajasthan is planning to have ‘portable’ schools. Portable schools can be moved from one place to another. These schools will be similar to normal schools except that if the management does not get enough students, the school will be closed and moved to a place where there are adequate pupils. These portable schools are aimed at bringing back school dropouts to mainstream education.

Teacher’s Bite

Mrs Saroja Ganesh,
Founder-Principal, & Secretary,
Maruthi Vidyalaya, ICSE, Bangalore

Importance of Teacher Training
The only thing that is constant in this world is change. With aggressive globalization and fast changes in all spheres of life, the role of the teacher changes from teaching to facilitating the present generation students to adapt themselves in new situation, thinking creatively and analytically and to applying their knowledge in real life situation.

Though teachers are equipped with a formal teacher training course, there is always a need for them to be made aware of the new trends in education. More over teachers’ in their busy schedule of the preparing for the class, correction work, organizing co-curricular activities the teachers find little time to keep themselves abreast with that latest changes in educational technology and innovation.

It is here that teacher training workshops come to be very useful providing teachers and schools with:
• Faculty improvement training
• Interaction with teachers of different schools
• Sharing problems in classroom teaching
• Sharing anxieties the students face
• Being apprised of innovation methods or a new technology that can be used in the classroom.

Thus a good teacher with a positive attitude towards hard work, willingness to learn and acceptance of change sets an example of being a good student – true to the teaching-learning profession.

On ASSET
This is the second year of our students’ taking up the ASSET test. The wonderful thing we have found is that the questions are based on simple basic concepts learnt by the students in their previous years. But it is the thinking process in recollecting, mixing-matching and applying the previous knowledge to the question in hand that matters. It also provides for quick thinking. It is a real test to judge the analytical and reasoning skills in student. The in-depth diagnostic report on the strong and weak skills has helped our teachers in re-structuring our teaching-learning process.

Breathing Easy?

-An Article In Science Reporter Magazine, January Issue, 2008

The January, 2008 issue of Science Reporter, a monthly magazine
with 42000 subscribers across the country features an article
about student misconceptions on photosynthesis. The article
was entirely based on research study “Student Learning in Metros”.

Humour

Teacher: Why can’t you ever answer any of my questions?
Student: Well if I could there would not be much point in me being her.

ASSET Calendar 2008

Since 2001, more than 1.5 million tests have been taken by students from over 2000+ schools. Analyzing this data enables us to identify patterns in student learning. One of many such interesting patterns relates to misconceptions, where the number of students giving the most common wrong answer far exceeds the number of students giving the correct answer.

ASSET 2008 Calendar is based on the Student Misconceptions Series. The questions selected in the calendar have been selected for their high ratio of “most common wrong answer” to correct answer responses. The objective of the data presented in the calendar is to help recognize the prevalence of misconceptions in learning as an educational challenge.

EI’s Creative Ad Nominated For A Prestigious Award

EI’s recruitment Ad published in ASCENT Times of India, 29th
August 2007, has been nominated for Pinkslip Awards – An award for Creative Excellence in Recruitment Advertising 2008 by Times Ascent.