Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Summers 2010 at Druk white lotus shey, ladakh
The most amazing summers I had in my life. Always wanted to go to ladakh, so the summers of 2010 gave me an opportunity to fulfill my long awaited desire. But I never thought of interning in a school and live with a ladakhi family for a month. The school, the principal, teachers and most importantly students made the whole experience even more wonderful. The always smiling innocent faces ( turned red coz of sun burns) and the simple living of the people is the most attractive feature of ladakhi culture. You can just feel the purity and warmth in the air ( and the chill during the night :P ). Must visit place in one's life time.
As we all know about the cloudburst in the leh. The schools of ladakh also have faced the brunt of nature's fury. In case you want to help druk white lotus school in particular, please log on to www.dwls.org for further details.
School Library...
Today I took my students to their first library period and it was a great experience to see them more interested in reading the books rather than looking here and there. The shear happiness to come out of the classroom and going to a special room and to read new books was quite evident from their beaming eyes. Also they discussed about importance of books afterwards. So few advantages which they shared were: books gives information, knowledge( finally they started using these so called big words). They help us to score good marks and learn. Most funny or rather deep was from Abbas ( the critical thinker of the classroom)
"Bhaiya, we should take care of the books." I replied why Abbas? He said,"Bhaiya when we grow old and want a job, the company will take a test. So if we tear our books or lose them, we will not read from them and will score 0 in marks and not get the job.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Backward Planning-Patience-Role reversal!
One of the most heard and "internalised" word so to say in past few months for me is Backward planning. Yes, as we fellows have limited time in the classrooms, we try to plan rigorously to achieve our daily, weekly or monthly goals.You have to create Unit, weekly and daily plans for sure.It gives you a basic structure and framework around which you work to achieve the mastery over certain objectives. As per my exp. as a teacher one surely must gave a clear idea in mind. The thought process over a period of time should be focused. To break it even more, one must have a logical,sequential and most importantly simple process to follow over a period of time. Too many changes never help students. As they take their own time to get in terms with ongoing activities.
Patience is one quality which you will defo. learn here. The processes/strategies you design to increase the student achievement in classroom take time, specially when you are working with primary grade level students.
Basically if i draw a parallel, teacher is like a sales man; Topic/objective is like a product..and consumer is the student. But as in market we all say Consumer is the king, Sadly in our schools, students have no say in the process. In a classroom there are different kind of students as there are different types of consumers.
As a salesman designs his pitch as per the consumer, a teacher also needs to apply differentiation when it comes to teaching a class of 50 kids.
As a teacher my biggest learning,the point when things started changing for me( its still in process) is this very fact of understanding the expectation of a kid from me and then balancing my expectations with that.
Teacher must understand what a student expect from him/her. What a student expects out of 6 hrs of school time? What goes on in a young 7 year old mind when one concept after another is bombarded on him? what is his struggle when he cant read normal english story, when he is not able to score marks in a very simple test?
So as some one has rightly said, EDUCATION IS LEARNING,NOT TEACHING. A teacher must learn with his/her students. Teaching all the times sometimes hides the basic essence of education.Trust me, i have learnt alot from my young devils.(specially about the latest cartoons from NInja hatodi to choota bheem..from BEN 10 to many more..) They think...But for that a teacher must first allow,ask and encourage them to do the same.
Patience is one quality which you will defo. learn here. The processes/strategies you design to increase the student achievement in classroom take time, specially when you are working with primary grade level students.
Basically if i draw a parallel, teacher is like a sales man; Topic/objective is like a product..and consumer is the student. But as in market we all say Consumer is the king, Sadly in our schools, students have no say in the process. In a classroom there are different kind of students as there are different types of consumers.
As a salesman designs his pitch as per the consumer, a teacher also needs to apply differentiation when it comes to teaching a class of 50 kids.
As a teacher my biggest learning,the point when things started changing for me( its still in process) is this very fact of understanding the expectation of a kid from me and then balancing my expectations with that.
Teacher must understand what a student expect from him/her. What a student expects out of 6 hrs of school time? What goes on in a young 7 year old mind when one concept after another is bombarded on him? what is his struggle when he cant read normal english story, when he is not able to score marks in a very simple test?
So as some one has rightly said, EDUCATION IS LEARNING,NOT TEACHING. A teacher must learn with his/her students. Teaching all the times sometimes hides the basic essence of education.Trust me, i have learnt alot from my young devils.(specially about the latest cartoons from NInja hatodi to choota bheem..from BEN 10 to many more..) They think...But for that a teacher must first allow,ask and encourage them to do the same.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Exams Time! How to make the best use of it!
After all the fun and dance on republic day, there come the EXAMS. Yup students have their 4th Unit test from next monday. So final touches to syllabus and notes in Workbooks and notebooks is going on!
Best thing about exams is revision and focused approach on getting all the kids to 100% level. As lots of formative exams gives you time to work on the students who need to catchup with the rest of students. So you can revise a topic for few minutes and then give an assessment. While other students are doing that, you can focus heavily on a small group of students. Also the urgency and intensity in the classroom during exam time helps the cause. Students are more vigilant and attentive as One thing every student knows that good marks in exams have great results in school and at home too :) incentive system!
For me exam time is helpful for sure.Practically it gives you lots of time to plan and arrange new activities as you are not busy in teaching during these days. I mean the work load is less.
Also it gives you a quantitative measurement of student's learning which is also a very important factor. It also helps students who were absent while you finished with few topics. The complete revision and teaching the same thing in different way helps the students in getting a deeper understanding of the topic. Also you can provide lots of extension to higher order students as they know the usual stuff already.
Overall the intensity,environment and urgency in class during exams can be cashed in many different ways!!
Trust me,When a student gets good marks because he studied hard and put that extra effort, the beaming smile of happiness on his face cannot be discounted with anything. I know marks are not very important but for that little kid its an achievement, success of his hard work.I seriously feel relating hard work to success, The basic idea of developing I CAN, I want in a student should be the primary goal of every teacher. Once the kid is invested in studies,he or she behaves likes a clay which can be then molded into a learning and growing young mind.
Best thing about exams is revision and focused approach on getting all the kids to 100% level. As lots of formative exams gives you time to work on the students who need to catchup with the rest of students. So you can revise a topic for few minutes and then give an assessment. While other students are doing that, you can focus heavily on a small group of students. Also the urgency and intensity in the classroom during exam time helps the cause. Students are more vigilant and attentive as One thing every student knows that good marks in exams have great results in school and at home too :) incentive system!
For me exam time is helpful for sure.Practically it gives you lots of time to plan and arrange new activities as you are not busy in teaching during these days. I mean the work load is less.
Also it gives you a quantitative measurement of student's learning which is also a very important factor. It also helps students who were absent while you finished with few topics. The complete revision and teaching the same thing in different way helps the students in getting a deeper understanding of the topic. Also you can provide lots of extension to higher order students as they know the usual stuff already.
Overall the intensity,environment and urgency in class during exams can be cashed in many different ways!!
Trust me,When a student gets good marks because he studied hard and put that extra effort, the beaming smile of happiness on his face cannot be discounted with anything. I know marks are not very important but for that little kid its an achievement, success of his hard work.I seriously feel relating hard work to success, The basic idea of developing I CAN, I want in a student should be the primary goal of every teacher. Once the kid is invested in studies,he or she behaves likes a clay which can be then molded into a learning and growing young mind.
Monday, January 25, 2010
'Bhangra' by kids on Republic day!
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Kids gave a scintillating performance on republic day celebrations at school.I am so very proud of them:)
Not able to post everyday, just gets too hectic. But i am working on first chapter of my TFI experience. Hopefully will post it very soon!
Kids gave a scintillating performance on republic day celebrations at school.I am so very proud of them:)
Not able to post everyday, just gets too hectic. But i am working on first chapter of my TFI experience. Hopefully will post it very soon!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Republic day function
Just a quick update.. As part of celebrations of republic day at our school, my students will be representing the state of PUNJAB. So now the big task.
Teach the kids Bhangra (folk dance of Punjab) in next 6 days! Its gonna be interesting, tiring and loads of fun for sure..Lets see how it goes..
Teach the kids Bhangra (folk dance of Punjab) in next 6 days! Its gonna be interesting, tiring and loads of fun for sure..Lets see how it goes..
Monday, January 18, 2010
Dental Check UP
Today my students had their dental checkup! So they were curious and a little apprehensive at the same time. A kid asked me innocently,"Bhaiya, doctor will break my teeth naa and i was like why you saying this?...He replied, Bhaiya i know my teeth are not good.. i eat chocolates :)...So i gave them a demo of what will happen in that mobile dental checkup van. Also used the opportunity to reinforce all the good habits and things they should do everyday to take proper care of their teeth.
finally students confidently got their teeth checked and were also asking answering and questioning the doctors!
Pic of the Day:
I have requested the doctors to come in my classroom tomorrow and interact with kids. To give a head start to the process of Role Models in the classroom. So here is an invite to everyone out there. If you belong to any (decent:)) profession to which my students can connect, Please get in touch with me. My students will love to interact with you and ask many questions!
finally students confidently got their teeth checked and were also asking answering and questioning the doctors!
Pic of the Day:
I have requested the doctors to come in my classroom tomorrow and interact with kids. To give a head start to the process of Role Models in the classroom. So here is an invite to everyone out there. If you belong to any (decent:)) profession to which my students can connect, Please get in touch with me. My students will love to interact with you and ask many questions!
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