3-2-1 Tuesdays with Ms Niv

Issue #008/ August 1, 2020

Low on data and storage while teaching and assessing? Use WISE app. It is free. One of the great stories featured in Atma Nirbhar Bharat, meet Mubeen, the young social entrepreneur and educator. Synchronous online classes? Find some strategies to ensure student engagement. Having trouble communicating with your child’s teacher? Get some quick tips. The onus of making a child attend his classes from home seems to rest on the parents.  The teachers are struggling to switch to a newer method of connecting with the students, dealing with technical challenges, where most of the children score a brownie point. How do we approach this quagmire? Read the guest column to get some advice from Mohana, a counsellor.

Three images of the week

For Educators/Parents/Students. The holy trinity of education.

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Two Thoughts For The Week

“Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher that will be the biggest honour for me.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

“I have always felt that the true text-book for the pupil is his teacher.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Happy Teachers Day!

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One Video For The Week

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Guest column :

“ It is easier to land on the moon than to change the school system”.  I couldn’t help thinking how true this statement is, more so in the days of today, when even a normal activity like going out is plagued with anxiety.      As I  have worked in various schools, I got to experience the different schools of thought one had  about education, but one thought was global: The responsibility of education seemed to rest on everyone else but on the children themselves.  And so, the more the children were loaded with learning material, the better the adults felt they were doing their jobs well. But was learning happening I wonder?  And taking this perspective in this day of Online teaching, things have only become worse.

The ultimate goal of education system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his education, said John Gardner.  But are we doing that today?  The onus of making a child attend his classes from home seems to rest on the parents.  The teachers are struggling to switch to a newer method of connecting with the students, dealing with technical challenges, where most of the children score a brownie point.  So the only way the teachers can cope is to just flood the children with enough work to keep their noses to the grindstone, even when the computer is turned off. Children are so frustrated and overwhelmed by the deluge of work that some of the parents end up doing projects for them.  They do not even seem to have time to watch a show, and if it is not classes online, it is tuitions online.  And with so much of mandatory screen time, do you honestly think they would be allowed to watch entertainment shows on TV? So this conflict results in a lot of power struggles at home, leaving both the parents and children highly helpless and frustrated.  Parents do not have the option of suggesting outdoor activities for these children, even if they make out time from their academics.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what he has learned in school.  It does not need a genius to recognise that, but a genius said it for sure. Albert Einstein was incredibly frustrated by the mechanical discipline of the schooling system.  I wonder if it is any different today?

I have been suggesting board games, like Taboo, Ludo, Scrabble, Cleudo, card games that are mentally stimulating, and a lot of pencil and paper games, which the family could get to play together. This also helps in bonding – a fact sadly lacking today in times of both parents working and latchkey children. With the working parents also stuck at home, it is also a way of de-stressing for them.  I have had parents who have come back to me extremely grateful that they have been able to devise ways of weaning their children away from video games, and thus also getting to spend family time together. One mother excitedly messaged me saying she did not even know she had half a dozen of these games tucked away in their study, received as gifts but never opened!

How is this connected to education you may wonder? Well, as John Holt said, Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of the learners.  And what is lacking in today’s education system is just that: Learning.  Learning life skills, social skills, and soft skills of healthy competition, learning to give in gracefully when losing a game, learning to step aside to make way for the less fortunate and the like.  And while a child may not score A+ in his assignment, he definitely goes to bed less stressed, more happy and more connected with the world than a child who is taught that the only way to get ahead in life is to compete: not with self but with all the others around him.

So can we also have our teachers make learning more interactive and interesting?  An experiment in  a school in Mallapuram Kerala, using augmented reality to teach children, is a case in point. They are able to have children wanting to attend classes, where they see the solar system, learn about astronomy, and other facts which would otherwise be dull and drab if just taught from a text book.

Instead of complaining about how education is happening today, why don’t we take advantage of the situation and make it more interesting for the children?

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Parent Speak :

Rekha Srinivasan, a parent and a marketing professional 

From a strict mother to a cheerleader   

Born in a big family of 4 siblings and 25 cousins, I grew up in a strict atmosphere but my life was filled with fun, sacrifices, giving, adjusting and compromises.  Whatever I am today is because of the strict and disciplined upbringing of my mother. 

When I became a mother, I had a strong conviction to bring up my daughter with great discipline.  I decided on the dress that she wore, her hair style, her hobbies etc.  My girl was such an obstinate youngster; she would consistently fight back even at that age and I would constrain my sentiment on her.  There were days when I would get calls from the school that my little girl is grumbling of stomach pain; however the explanation would be I had put a hairstyle which she didn’t like.  She would come home with her rubber bands pulled out and I would get mad at her!  At every step there was a challenge and my YES would be her NO. 

Soon, I got so drained that I abandoned battling for little things. I began to change myself as opposed to evolving her.  I slowly allowed her to do what she liked.  My attention changed on imparting great qualities in life instead of focusing on insignificant things.  I started talking her language, discuss her likes and dislikes and gave space to do what she liked and at the same time explained the consequence of a particular action and left her to decide and make choices in life.  I had instilled lot of fear about me in her heart and I worked out to remove those fears. I understood that the only way I can draw her near is to converse with her as a friend. I would listen calmly to her crushes, her feelings of fear, and her questions and clarify everything with a fair-minded and non critical demeanour.  She began to share everything uninhibitedly with me. The nights would be the best time of sharing with laughter and fun.  Slowly, I started becoming her cheer leader appreciating, encouraging, acknowledging and empowering for what her identity is!  Today the bond that we share is something different. 

As she will approach her sweet 16 this December 31st, I am overjoyed to see how she has evolved as a wonderful young lady making her choices independently, while sharing her thoughts with me and asking for my suggestions. As her life progresses, she may fall and fail but I would always stand by her as a cheer leader. 

My 2 cents for all the mothers – give your child their space, in that space teach them values and be their cheer leader at all times.

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Student voice :

Esha Dutt penned this while in the 10th Grade.

She is now in grade 12. 

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Showcase:

Wise App: Making online teaching more effective and hassle-free. Works on low internet bandwidth. Free of cost!

WISE App is a digital tool set which enables teachers to conduct online teaching in an effective and comprehensive manner. It enables a teacher to take live classes, send/receive homework/assignments, facilitate discussions and share study material all at one place. Additionally, after every class it generates a downloadable attendance report. It is extremely simple to use and works on low internet bandwidth. It is free of cost.

WISE was created by two IIT Bombay Graduates, Bilal Abidi and Mubeen Masudi. While Mubeen has ben an educator himself for 8+ years, Bilal has worked across multiple tech start-ups. WISE has been created with an aim to democratize education by empowering teachers with the right set of digital tools. WISE has been designed in a manner so that any teacher in India can comfortably use it. WISE was launched in last week of July and currently more than 2000 teachers from across the country are using it to teach their students online. It has been lauded by the Education minister of the country and the MHRD, India. It is Government of India’s one of 74 “Atma Nirbhar Bharat” stories.

It is available for download from both, the android’s playstore and the iOS’s app store.

Download the application
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wise.app
Apple: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1525875644
Web: http://www.wiseapp.live

Go through the videos on how to use here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu8h72x3qD5DbAtM6JMtOsw

And Finally :

If your teens (or yourselves) have had enough of sudoku/online games/puzzles, take a break for some highbrow colouring. Museums and libraries around the world make colouring books based on their collections. 

http://library.nyam.org/colorourcollections/

There are more than 500 colouring books you can print out as pdf that will tickle your right brain 🙂

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