કોન મરી?

કપડાંને ગડી કરતાં આવડે છે?
કપડાંને હાથમાં લેતાં જ ખબર પડી જાય છે કે તે કોનું છે?
જો તમારો જવાબ 'હા' છે, તો તમે કરોડપતિ બનવાથી કેટલાક ડગલાં જ દૂર છો.
કેટલાં ડગલાં?_યુ ટ્યુબ ચૅનલ માટે જોઈએ એટલાં.
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આમેય ગરવી ગુજરાતણને જશ નસીબમાં નથી. એક ટચુકડી જાપાનીસ મહિલા દુનિયામાં ધૂમ મચાવે છે અને આપણી ઘરકી મુલગી.

બહેન નામે મરી કોન્ડે લોકોને કપડાં કેમ વાળવા તે શિખવે છે. મૂળ પદ્ધતિ જાળવી રાખી, કપડાં ગોઠવવાની પદ્ધતિ તેમણે 'નવી' વિકસાવી છે. એ પદ્ધતિનું નામ પાડ્યું છે, 'કોનમરી'. પોતાના ઘરનું કબાટ કે ઑફિસનું કૅબિનેટ ગોઠવવા આ બાનુને પોતાને ત્યાં બોલાવવા છ-છ મહિનાનું વેઈટીગ ચાલે છે!

નેટફ્લિક્સ થકી અમેરિકાને હિલોળે ચઢાવનાર આ સન્નારી કેટલીક ચીજો રદ કરાવે છે. અમેરિકાની દાનની હાટડીઓમાં એકાએક ઉછાળો આવ્યો છે. મરીબેન બતાવે ત્યારે લોકને ખબર પડે, "આયહાય, આ સાડી તો એક જ વાર પહેરી'તી."(લગ્નવાળી સ્તો!) મરીબેન ખુબ બધા પ્રેમ સાથે કહે,'તો એને જવા દ્યો!' અમેરિકનો અને જાપાનીસ જવા દે. આપણે તો સંઘર્યો સાપ કામનો. નીતાભાભીની લગ્નની સાડી ઈશાની સાડી ટુંકી પડતા કામ લાગી કે નહીં! હઈશે! જાપાનીસ તો બધું બોન્સાઈ કરવામાં પોતે ય હોમો સેપીયનનું બોન્સાઈ વર્ઝન બની બેઠા છે. બેન 'મરી' એનું 'જીવંત' ઉદાહરણ. એટલે, ઓછું એટલું સારું એમ માની કબાટ ખાલી કરે. પણ,અમેરિકન! નવી નવાઈના આ 'ફગાવો'ને ત્યાં ફુગ્ગામાંનો પદાર્થ જડ્યો છે. મંડ્યા છે અમેરિકન ભાઈયુબેનું કબાટુ ખાલી કરવા. અને એ બધું જાય છે દાનમાં.

મરીબેને ત્રણ પુસ્તકો લખ્યાં છે. ચાલો, એ તો ગુજરાતી માટે નામ કે નાણાં કમાવામાં ખપનું નથી. પણ, મને લાગે છે કે આપણી મહિલાઓ મરીબેન મરી પડે એવા એવા ગૃહ સફાઈના કસબ જાણે છે. એકાદ દિવાળીએ એમને તેડાવીએ? શું ક્યો છો? આ મરીબેનને જોઈને જ આપણે ત્યાં 'મગનું નામ મરી' કહેવત આવી જણાય છે. જે વ્યક્તિ " 'મગ' જેવી સુપાચ્ય વ્યક્તિ" ને " 'મરી' જેવી સુઘડ સન્નારી" એમ ઉપમા આપી ન શકે એ બીજું કરી શું શકે જીવનમાં, હૅય! કમાણી કરવા નામ પણ ના બદલે એ ગુજ્જુ કુંભમેળે જ શોભે.

આ મરીબેનને કપડાં વાળતાં જોવો એક લ્હાવો છે! જે કામ તદ્દન રિફ્લેક્ટીવ ઍક્ટની જેમ પ્રત્યેક ગુજરાતી નારને શબ્દશઃ હસ્તગત છે, તે કામ આ બહેન પુરી ફૂરસદ અને ઢગલોએક સ્મિત સાથે કરે. એટલી વારમાં આપણી મમ્મીઓ ઘરના બધા કપડાં વાળી દયે અને દરમ્યાન ચા ય બનાવી કાઢી હોય! એ જ ફર્ક છે બહેનો! મરીબેન અબજો લઈને કપડાં વાળે અને તમે વાળો તેમાં! અને એટલે જ તમારી કદર નથી.

તો, યુટ્યુબ ઝીંદાબાદ ને!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TfoP7-LVgHs

https://youtu.be/KdUAUQT8E9g

Annual Exam

Each year, we count on few lives. We wish, desperately, to be a medium to make some developmental changes in their lives. Nirali starts crying with smaller incident, to generate pressure. Yashvi is misbehaving cz she has serious trouble at home. Bhoomi-the brilliant, craving for love, tastes our limits. Bhoomi (std-6) , being differently abled, needs care. Diya misses her grandfather and we can never fill up that space. Krishna has running nose but she's not working on it-as on her handwriting and hair. Menka, it took a lot to bring her to school and she is a regular student now and we should make her regularity worth. Bhumika, no parent, living with grandmother who is earning as a maid, should go from here with useful lessons for life.
Wish, Nemat would be allowed for college. Wish Kajal wouldn't be send to her in-laws so early. Wish we could show right path to Sangeeta.

Mittal has improved health and education wise. Menka's performance is so very satisfying. Indu is shining brightly so we should include her in more tasks. Nisha and Neha too displayed development and wish they continue it.

This is what we 'talk' at school , while we check answer sheets and 'grade' our work. This is what we think aloud and plan our actions accordingly, together.

Each year, preparing annual mark sheet becomes as emotional as exhausting for us. We read answer sheets as if we read lives. We, with our limitations, get angry, frustrated, often feel helpless. Yet, discuss new plans for next academic session and for specific girl.
We, quite very aware that we are not doing enough, that we are trying to stitch the torned sky, yet, we, reliving our frustration and burden of non-action through gossip-like chat, move forward.

Yes, we are paid for what we are doing and are quite decently paid. We are not into any charity. But, it hurts when we see 'our' girl living at below human standards. And we are aiding that.

ત્રાજવું

ત્રાજવું.

ઓરડાની હવા તંગ અને ખાટી થઇ ગઈ. મારા ચિત્તમાંથી ઝમતા સત્તાના મદની આ અસર મને ગમતી પણ હતી અને અણગમતી પણ. ગમા-અણગમાનું ત્રાજવું સંતુલિત હતું પણ મારી સમજણનું પલ્લું અહં સામે ઉંચે ચઢેલું.

જો કે, કોઈ પણ સારો અધિકારી કરે તેવું કાર્ય મારા પલડે જમા કર્યું'તું. મેં સુચના આપી'તી : ફર ફર ના કર. બોલ-બોલ ના કર. સ્થળ-સમયનું ભાન રાખ.

પણ, તે કશા કેફમાં હતી. કદાચ છેલ્લા સમયને દાંત વડે ખેંચીને લંબાવી લેવા માંગતી હતી.

'હું મારી જવાબ-દારીમાં બંધાયેલી હતી' એ દલીલ બીજા બધાને ગળે તરત ઉતરી જાય તેવી સ્વાભાવિક હતી પણ એ મને ખટકતી હતી. તેની સ્થિતીથી હું વાકેફ છું ને ! ખુશ રહેવાનો, પોતાની ક્ષમતાઓ પ્ર-દર્શિત કરવાનો મોકો તેને માત્ર અહી જ તો મળતો હતો ! અને તે તેનો વટ્ટ મારા પર કેટલો ચાલે છે એમ પણ ગાઈવગાડી જતાવવા ઈચ્છતી હતી.

અને મેં જાહેરમાં સાબિત કરી દીધું કે તેના સ્નેહને વશ થાઉં એટલી દ્રવ્ય હું નથી.

હું તેને વઢી,તેના મિત્રો સમક્ષ.

હંમેશની જેમ, પસ્તાવો પ્રગટ્યો, પાછળથી.

મન રમતું રહ્યું : સોરી કહેવું જોઈએ.

પણ,હવે તે ક્યાં મળવાની હતી? હવે તેને અહી આવવા ક્યાં મળવાનું હતું?
આ માહિતીથી મેં અજંપો અને નિરાંત અનુભવ્યા. સમપ્રમાણમાં. આ સમતા નથી, બિમારી છે એમ જાણવા છતાં હું અજંપાવાળા પલડાનું દળ વધારતી રહી.

વચ્ચે એક દિવસ તે આવી ને જતી રહી. મને મળવા ના આવી.
તે ય મારું પ્રતિબિબ પડઘાવતી હતી. એક શિક્ષક તરીકે હું ખોટો આદર્શ પેશ કરી રહી છું તેવું જ્ઞાન મારી પાસે હતું, કોઈ પાઠ્યપુસ્તક જેવું. બસ, તે બાબત સમજણ નોતી બની.

છેલ્લા પેપરમાં મારું સુપર-વિઝન તેના ખંડમાં હતું. પેપર વહેલાં લખી રહ્યા પછી તેણે વાતો કરવાનું , બીજી બેંચ પર જઈ રમવાનું , કેરીના કટકા ખાવાનું-વહેંચવાનું શરુ કર્યું. મેં તેને ટોકી, કેટલીક વાર ટોકી પણ બે-અસર. પછી શું ! મેં સત્તાધારી અવાજે હૂકમ કર્યો પરીક્ષાને અનુરૂપ વર્તન કરવાનો. અને ઓરડાની હવા તંગ અને ખાટી થઇ ગઈ.

સાથી શિક્ષકે આ વાત જાણી મને ટોકી: શું કામ છેલ્લે દિવસે બિચારીને વઢયા! બીજા શિક્ષકે મારા વર્તનને વાજબી ઠેરવ્યું. પલડું સંતુલિત.

તેનું પરિણામપત્રક લખતી વખતે ભાવુક થઇ જવાયું. 'ઠાલી ભાવુકતા',મેં મને પીડી.

પરીણામ લેવા તે આવી. એકદમ મારી સમક્ષ ધસી અને પોતાની નોટ ધરી : "જો મેં કેટલીક ગઝલો લખી છે. આ એક દિકરીના જીવન વિશેની છે." તેના અવાજમાં ભેજભરી ધ્રુજારી હતી. હું તો પાછલા અઠવાડિયાથી એ ભેજને ખાળી ખાળીને અભિવ્યક્તિને કોરી રાખવામાં સક્ષમ બની ગઈ'તી. મારી પાસે ય તેને આપવા એક નોટ હતી : જો, આમાં લખજે. તારા વિશે,તારી લાગણીઓ વિશે. કવિતા કે વાર્તા કે ડાયરીરૂપે. લખજે.

નોટની લેવડદેવડ સાથે પલડું ફરી સંતુલિત થઇ ગયું, અમારા સંબંધનું.

#6@¥4

૧/૫/૧૬ 

My Choice

Just a few days back, we have to take special 'class' for three of class 8 (age14) girls. We 'caught' them exchanging nonverbal talk with boys around. We are convinced that at this age, attraction to opposite sex is normal. But do the society and particularly the male segment agree with our conviction? A girl has to subdue her biological urges if she wishes a 'good' life ahead. There is no such demand for a boy. Ours is a girls school and we enjoy privilege of a disciplined creed. The teachers at boys' school know it well. But, doesn't the problem lie very much in this system of division? In schools with co-education, girls and boys never share same bench. These 'preventive' measures (at school and in society ) themselves are causes of the problem. I always make it a point that a boy should have girl-friends and a girl should have boy- friends. But, I have to be extra cautious as I am aware how my statement can be misinterpreted. Particularly, when the young minds with no friend of opposite sex. (They do have brothers and sisters but NOT friends.) And what does a girl get out of a 'real' friendship with a boy? Other boys find her easily available. Mind you, I am talking about age group 13-16. It requires tremendous courage for both the girl and the boy to maintain 'normal' friendship with inner (biological) and outer (social) pressure. Though, I have witnessed that at college level, 'healthy' friendship spurs between two sexes and parents too become 'open' . But, most of the girls of my (school)community are not going to reach at that level, given the educational ability. And thus they are not going to have experience of such friendship. They travel from daughterhood, sisterhood to motherhood without realizing their selfhood. Guys, you cannot imagine the social pressure they have. The number of mothers feeding their family while the man spending her earnings on liqueur and adultery is considerably high. You talk of #myChoice? We don't have any. Sorry and pity that you don't know > 80% of India. Every year, I get minimum one girl who try to go beyond regular line of life most of the girls entitled with. I am counting on those gems. Every year, my fear for these lovely innocent minds is- gosh! I want her happy after marriage. I cannot wish more than this, practically. I do not see remarkable change in social and man mentality. Educated male have learnt to talk in a language that help them to cover their motifs. They still keep the passbooks of their wives in their custody. I don't blame educated women when they follow 'regular' roles. One has to consider the pressure and the sense of being protected in this pressure. The market economy does provide us a chance of economic equality, but as it has deep roots in the mentality of power play,specifically male kind of power, it wants us as subjects. It becomes fashion that entertains a male eye. So is the visual treat of #myChoice. Do you see the double trap?

few reflections

I am attentive not to be biased in the classroom. Here I put some incidents in my classroom that I see as the expression of that particular student.


Jigisha makes me happy most of the time as she often associates classroom learning to real life and across subjects. I found a leaf at school backyard, carved by insects. I brought it in the classroom and asked students, what is it? Well, at the end Hetal and few other want at the back yard , returning with leaves other than the one I brought.(there were more carved leaves on the same plant.) Hetal shouted with joy, I found it, displaying the wrong one. Now, here is JIgisha, “Huh, Hetal found America and considers it India. Our Columbus .”

Jigisha has tendency to reflect incidents into her dreams. Every day she got a dream which is related with school incidents. One day we had talk about how copier machines (Xerox) work and a video I have seen depicting possibilities of making copy of bones. Next day she came up with the dream : she was afraid of returning home, she asked her friends to come with her but they could not as they both have to reach home. So, she went to the Xerox center and made a copy of her friends. And…

Jigisha is a lovely compo pack of innocence and intelligence. Whereas Krishna makes me worry with her perceptions to the incidents. She is quite influenced with the explosive display of relations and has tendency to take benefit from the flow of other. It displays in her stores and plays she writes. Her family is quite into education with her brother and sister attending colleges. Her father is a well managed person, particularly economically (this is quite different in the community they belong to, these people are good at ‘wrong’ spending.) She is confident and good scores good. I could not gather the reasons behind her tendency.

But, I understand the reasons for Divya’s competitive nature. We had election for class representative.( My class has no class representative-monitors. I ask all the students to become monitor of themselves. But, there is an activity in English and Social science, so we did it. We had funny incidents as the candidates asked : can we vote? As they wanted to vote for their friends.) Divya loose. She was shattered. She could not believe so I offered her to count the votes on her own. She took all the ballet chits to her house and counted them again, finding one more vote to her credit but still short to the winning number. At class, she would re-declare my instructions differently creating confusion among students. She is also a scorer so the class trusts her interpretation. I often talk with her, trying to help her. Her father is a stubborn fellow, working occasionally; her mother feeds the family with a sewing machine also attending social demands (which are very very demanding). Recently, the owner of the shop has asked her father to evacuate and once again her father is work-less. Though they have farms, which are a big support, I assume her father might not be working there. Divya is the best in creative writing and her frustration does not reflect in it, unlike Krishana. She re moulds poems, stories and choreographs songs, too.

Nisha, writes in a very small letters. She is an inward person with socio-emotional maturity. She is a typical girl child, helping all but not own self. She is a black beauty with lovely eyes. Every time I have to ask her to show me her work n when I praise her, a shuttle bright light shines through her eyes and face. (I just love that.) she is fearful and obedient, never displaying her likes or dislike. Often I get irritated, seeing the potential possibilities in her, I wish her to explode, but she never does.

Bharti is the other girl who catches one with her eyes and different way of expressing her regards. She would come up with, “why didn’t you looked at me?, I came with the home work, you didn’t checked it, you didn’t asked how is my father now…”in replay, I repeat her question removing ‘why’. She has slowly and steadily improved in educational skills. Particularly in Maths.

So is Sania, for the first time in her eight year of schooling, she wrote a paragraph completely on her own-the journey of a cloud, after an activity for essay writing.

I have 106 students in standard 8, where I take classes but we have 550+ students in school and each day one or the other girl makes my day lovely with a crystal clear expression of a child’s world, loaded with many many interconnections and a possibility of developmental change.

Last but not least is Gopi. She was a low confident girl who shined up this year. She comes up with minimum five questions a day, questions that are not from the text books. Other students fondly tease her, “don’t forget to ask, we teacher is leaving at five. ‘’ or “ask more as we have a holiday tomorrow.” I named her ‘savali sita.’ Due to her, I and the rest of the class get benefited of new exposures.

Night Our-2

So, we stared at 5pm on 13th April.

Asmin came first. She was all confused seeing no one at the place to wait. Then, Sania reached, it took one hour to gather all the 17 girls; understandable reasons-girls and fearful girls.

We were searching for a rickshaw and Asmin's father came up. Imtiyazbhai drop us to our venue. Girls were happy to see the wide open place and fearful also as the place is not much crowded. The first thing they do was to sweep the gallery and wash it with water. Saniya mingled up with the house lady and started asking her innocently curious questions- every day you have such cool wind?

Then, all moved to Richa's palce; a new friend they have met a few minutes ago. Richa is a standard five student and her mother offered a candy to all the girls. Few other boys and girls from the neighbouring homes came and mingled into this bonding of friendship.

We started playing games, kho-kho(differently), sunday-monday, bhajiyu, antakshari and we sung a lot many Gujarati classics learnt at school. Gujarati songs were always a joy for new listeners.

After dinner, we went for drama. It was all spontaneous. Someone suggested to perform drama and we make it a point to perform brand new dramas. So , girls fall into groups (just like that-no planning), planned their script, practiced in the group and performed. It was amazingly creative. We had 'darling' to 'getting a star' to 'cho-cho' to...

Now, it was stargazing time. Girls know a bit of it and can identify few stars and constellations. Today. we explored Leo, Mars, Saturn and Swati-Chitra. Though, it was not a satisfying experience for the girls to see them through Telescope. As , these stars and planets do not seem 'really big' through Tele, it do not amaze them.

It was already 12 and nobody wants to sleep. Teacher used her authority power and made all go to bed at least. Few fall asleep soon, but few never. They continued to visit bathroom and then to the kitchen. Jigisha, Hetal, Usha,Kajal...they did not sleep and made the teacher awake at 5am for Moon gazing.

We sat the Tele and...'wow!' The details of moon mesmerised all. The teacher asked all to speak a sentence about this moon and we came up with -like an orange/apple/nail slice.

Then, we started observing change in the atmosphere ; the colours of the cloud, the mist and chirping of birds. We guessed the point of Sun rise and the Sun has tested all our patience to rise. But once it rose...aha!

Now, its time to rush back home cz Amin and Sania have to attend madresa. So, we walked up to Chikhodra crossing for a rickshaw. It was a pleasing sight for the morning walkers-18 girls chirping like sparrows. Asmin,Saniya,Divya and Nisha went by rickshaw, all the rest went by foot(3km), without any elder around ! Because, they did not wanted to reach back home early !

Night Out-1

Night out is an activity that have become a tradition for standard seven. Since last three years, we are following this.

Staying a night at the non familiar place, without any direct relative(!) around is a big deal for the girls wrapped in social taboos. The first hurdle is ..not parents, it is the girl herself. All girls like to join in this adventure but...there are a lot many buts. Some have fears unknown to themselves, some fears of even asking their parents; and here parents means all the family members-from grandma to 'foi' to neighbor auntie. Most of the girls even don't dare to ask fearing the humiliating answers.

This year, our 'mission clasroom' was 'how to talk to people.' We have identified this mission by informal talks and then worked over it. Few real 'classroom' experiences helped us and we actually saw how we can change the point of view of our visitors by clear,determined and sweet talks. These experiences reached out to some of the girls and they are fully convinced that 'how we use language' is really very useful technique to get things done. Some of the girls had this skill ; we opened up and put it before every one's eye through classroom discussions.


Well, so, first we decide the date and venue. Then the real challenge starts, how to convince girls and then parents. Girls do not need any reason to join and parents want some curricular reasons to send their girls. Mobile phone is quite a useful tool here. It is hey easy to convince parents mostly. They do trust the teacher. Those who don't allow their child are either socially stubborn or socially fearful. Difficult part is to make the girl ask her parents clearly. most girls, as stated above, suppressed by a bundle of fears, do not even ask their parents clearly. Such girls do not try to put the things properly before the parents. It took a while for the teacher to understand this problem.

It never happened that the whole class joined. But, we have managed to do this activity and that is important.

This year, 17 girls participated. We stayed at a completely new place for them and explored friendship with people of various socio-economic background.

diya

Diya is a lovely girl who was admitted to our school three years back. She became a darling to the teachers and senior students with to her chubby chicks, bright eyes and fast learning. She is very active in adapting new things and participating in co-curricular activities.

She used to mingle with seniors easily. She would go to class seven whenever she finds some co-curricular practices taking place there; and she would participate in them.  She strives for new learning. She is after her class teacher for-what next? By chance she has to remain absent; she would ask her class teacher for revision. Though she is friendly, she doesn’t like to perform the role of the group leader. She likes to read a lot.

But, there is a change in her this year.

Diya has a younger sister, Hina, and she was admitted in class one this year. Suddenly, Diya became mature. It reflects in her face and behavior.

Today, we were going to visit the Community Science Center at Vidhayanagar with selected students from standard 5, 6 and 7. We hired a van with a capacity of 12-15 students. The van was packed and Diya rushed to the teacher: Please, I want to join, to see.

But, it is for standard 5, 6 and 7 only. Your turn will come when you will come to standard 5.

I want to see, come.

The teacher knew that though this visit is for those who understands the basic concepts of Science, the teacher also understands that visit to such places can do wonders to the students like Diya. The teacher asked the students in the van- can you make place for Diya?

O sure!

‘Sarika also wants to come.’ 

OK fine. Take the permission from Principal madam and your class teachers.

They run to Principal-Kamalaben but could not speak. Kamalaben come to know the matter and she told, 

‘OK, Come with us .’

Suddenly, Diya said, ‘I can’t. I have to take care of my sister.’

But, we are returning in school time. There will not be any problem.

Sarika came, Diya didn’t.

geographical activity

This activity comes in the second chapter of the Geography (Std.7-Unit15) but the teacher felt that students were not ready for it at that time.

Geography is a wonderful blend of Arithmetic, Geometry and Science. The basic concepts require regular repetition with different techniques.

We explored the units in a regular method, definitions, drawings, question-answers. It was useful so far as information and examination is concerned. But, every now and then, some day due to NEWS or incidents in our routine or some other reasons, we kept on exploring the primary concepts of Geography.

Like, few days back, cloud of dust started growing from the ground and we discussed how and why of it. Also, there was dust-cover in Gujarat due to the change in air pressure in the desert of Rajasthan, and we discussed the topic. We also saw some videos and animations in between.

Today, we did an activity about how seasons change.

We used a globe, a cylinder vessel (cz we could not manage a round object) and a string.

We identified the North direction in the classroom using the position of the Sun. Most of the students can identify this. Then we put the cylinder vessel in the center, assuming it as the sun. We put the globe at the North of the Sun also tilted towards North. Then we measured that which pole is nearer to the sun; first by observation and then my measuring with the string.

Then we moved the globe 90 degree and put it to the West of the Sun. Again we measured the distance of both the poles using same methods as above.

We changed the position of the globe again, 90 degrees, and placed it at the South of the Sun, keeping it tilted towards North. We measured the distance of poles from the Sun.

Repeating the same, we placed the globe to the East of the globe.

Now, teacher asked the students to compare the experiment with the figure given in chapter 15 and answer the questions: What would be the date when the earth is in the first/second/third/forth position of our activity? We have our answers, correctly.

It is not those correct answers that show the result of the activity.  Students have already answered those questions previously in unit tests and in assignments. It is the questions from them that show why to do such activities. Here are those questions: What if the Earth is not tilted? We saw the video and the Earth doesn’t seem tilted in it, then how can we say that the Earth is tilted so exactly? Why don’t we feel the movement of the Earth? Where is the Earth located? Why don’t we fall if the Earth is round? Our land seems flat, then how come we say that the Earth is round? Where do we live, inside of the Earth or on the Earth?

Some of the questions are repeated a many times.  Repetition in the question means the concept requires more clarity and a different method to explain. So they are welcome every time.

geographical experiment

We started it on 22^nd Dec.’11 , 1p.m.; to measure the shadow of a stick.

At first we started with measuring teacher’s and students’ shadows. Then we switched to measure the shadow of a stick. The teacher raised the question : why a stick and not the shadow of a human being ?

After that, with the interval of 15 days, we continue measuring the shadow of that particular stick and noting down it date wise. The difference in the length of the shadow is minute during first 2-3 measurements, so the students became impatient. They want to know- why we are doing this? The teacher replied : I don’t know the result. This is an experiment and we can know the result only after the completion of it.

From January end, students started recognizing the significant difference in the length of the shadow. Why so? They come up with the question. The teacher wanted to manipulate the curiosity, so she didn’t answered it then.

Finally, 21^st March arrived. We measured the shadow. It was very very short from our first measurement. Oh ! Exclaimed all. We also measured the latitude of our place. Then, we opened our Geography chapter and read it. We have answers of our questions there.

revision time

It is challenging to find out ways to indulge students into educational tasks. By educational, I mean tasks where students raise questions and find ways for answers on their own, do healthy discussions and reach to conclusions, do required mechanical tasks that are required by the education system and so on. It is equally satisfying for the teacher to see such processes taking place into the classroom.
Annual examinations are knocking on the door and it is time for revision. The question was : How to make the mechanical task of revising content interesting and by which means the slow learner can also participate actively into this task ?

We worked in groups. One History lesson for each group. The task is, the group has to develop five new questions in 15 minutes. The group members will read aloud questions with answers. One mark for each question. The teacher will ask question after all the presentations and will check who remembers the answer.

The idea was, framing question is a higher task then just answering. One has to understand the answer and the pattern of the question for it and also has to read each line of the unit carefully. Students came up with difficulties in framing questions and that one to one interaction is quite useful which is not possible otherwise. Mark encourages the effort. And this time the group members have to participate actively as they are representing their group instead of the group leader, so its their responsibility to gain marks. The group leader became active differently. She framed the questions and made it sure that the members understand them and present them properly. It is self satisfactory task for her as she is a brighter one in the group. In this task, each one has a role to perform and that is according to their ability plus a little bit challenge.

Day one went this way. in next class, we modified the task a bit. The teacher asked to frame questions with 'Who' in it. Some students came up with the name of places or incidents or time and then we discussed the question pattern and re-framed the questions. One group initiated to present the questions without looking into textbook. It was given half grace mark for each question. That encouraged other groups and next day all the groups , i.e. whole class tried to memorise their questions-answers. Then we also included minus marking for wrong question pattern.


Coincidentally, Priyanka's group has slowest learners today. Still they managed to present their group work. The class asked the teacher not to consider mistakes in the question pattern and give the group full marks. Even Priyanka was given grace mark for her efforts which goes to the total marks of the group. And the whole class clapped for them.

There is challenge not competition in this task. It may be because we were able to built an atmosphere of one group as a class.

teen-teen

in uniform

 Adolescent students are a problem if viewed from moralistic perspective, but lively and lovely if we become friends.

In standard seven(age 13+), there are two-three girls who are at the starting point of adolescence phase. They find the school uniform boring, walk in a line degrading and child like interaction insulting. They like to dress up with hair style and accessories. They find it difficult to mingle with rest of the class.

hair style-Geeta 

The class teacher tries to find an in between path. With negotiation, we agree at do's and don'ts. They wear school uniform but can come with hairstyle. We have a dress code for hair style also, that is red ribbon with two palates. Usually adolescent girls like to make single open palate with rubber band. They can also wear fashion accessories like long earnings, nail polish and such. The teacher even appreciates their dressing and fashion sense. If the teacher misses to do so, the girls come up with      The girls in our school have limited economic resources and so we do not need to worry about expensive fashion jewellary.

One other thing is, adolescents like to have long nails. Health and Hygiene education suggests short nails. Here also we came at in-between understanding. They keep long nails but keep them clean.

Hiral

This year, Hiral and Geeta are passing through this beautiful period of their life. They sit together and talk with eyes. Hiral is very good at rangoli decoration and it is her responsibility to check and maintain the decoration of the classroom. They don't like to sit in the assembly-prayer so they skip it smartly on the name of classroom cleaning.

Daxa and Rupa look like adolescents by their physical appearance, but emotionally they are not. The teacher can get deceived by the physical appearance but through interaction the teacher can know this.