The King's Speech : A real difference between a teacher and a tutor.........!!

It somehow did not become possible to watch this movie though it was there in my pc for long time. Finally I managed to watch it with subtitlles as English movies sound quite different than the American movies.

Man is a seeker of knowledge. Sometimes it comes from within but rest of all times it is imparted. Modern day education has changed the very meaning of knowledge and now in the so called educational form what Man receives can not be considered as knowledge.

Knowledge can be of many types. It can have different forms. Someone seeks knowledge of music while someone is asking for knowledge of religion. It's matter of self learning. One has to elevate oneself to the extent of satisfaction and possession. But it comes eventually and not in a few days, weeks, months or neither in some years. It's life-long process.

Actually if we believe, though it's hard to believe the words of Swami Vivekand, he says knowledge is always there within one's self. Nothing is outside, everything is inside. Knowledge can not be gained. It's gifted to each and every soul from the nature. More important is the realization. Teaching is the process of that realization and a teacher is the one who helps the unknown soul to know it.

The King's speech has this philosophy. It's underlying wave is the realization of one's self, realization of the knowledge which is always there. The teacher/doctor (Geoffrey Rush) who is not a teacher/doctor by degree or qualification but so by his qualities and experience helps the King (Colin Firth) to realize his hidden strength through his own ways. Acting by both actors makes this monotonous and heavy story going smooth. The story is woven and directed in very realistic and simple way. The movie is worth watching.

Some thoughts have surrounded my mind. I call myself a teacher but by profession or even by the efforts I put can not justify the label. I only help students get more marks and score high. I don't make them realize their inner strength. Making them ranker or scorer is not what a teacher is meant for. It's a tutor's job.

Considering that I work in private educational field and that's why I can not be a teacher is not one hundred percent correct. Even almost all those (with very few exceptions) who work in a school can not claim to be a teacher. They are also just tutor. Helping students to master over the subject, not over the inner self.

Are we tutors really deserving of the wishes of Teacher's day or Gurupurnima? 

The mind finger connection : 9_not another movie review

Just finished watching 9. I am completely speechless. I think, why the hell I avoided such a superanimated movie for so long while I downloaded it long back. Really stunning. The new era of animation movies have completely taken hollywood in the new realm of film-making. Avatar is path-breaking in this category and rest of others like Up, How to train your dragon and 9.

But I am not going to review this movie as reviewing this movie is doing a potty over any bank of the river and making the water polluted. I really mean it. This movie is like a flowing water of lot of salts, minerals, stones, aquatic lives. This movie is a flow of technology cum creativity.

How the story writer thought of writing each and every scene, each and every dialogue, and then shooting the same as written. I am so influenced with this movie that I can not control myself of appreciating it. But wait……….!!

The thoughts pissing my mind are just at the surface to come-out. They are as usual pinching me so hardly and itching is everywhere on my body. Being an Indian is really a matter of pride but sometimes I really wish of having my share of breathe come from west. Why? The answer lies in the air of west. The air of west is full of creativity. And that is exactly what I need. Creative thoughts result in the creation of movies like 9. In thermodynamics, there are two words. Source and Sink.

The source of creative thoughts is of course west and their movies. And as one can guess with the movies like Housefull and Kites and many more, Bollywood fills the position of Sink. Oh…..it ain't that bad. Anurag Kashyap and Sriram Raghvan and many more can divert the flow and they are trying at their finest level. But, when one of them when come up with movie like Paanch or No smoking, either it got banned or it has to accept the title of worst movie of the year by our so called film critics.

If I can get a chance, I would definitely like to show my students such a creative work like 9 or movies like fight club or tweleve monkey or memento. But I am helpless. My students and many students of India or let us call the future of India is busy in watching Indian Idol. Their about to become idol is about to sing all blockbuster songs of established singers and judges are about to comment on whether their singing is close to the original work or this replication work is missing something………!!

Ha ha……!! Where the hell is creativity? Individuality? Can't we start some shows where students compete with each other for making some science project or photography competition or short film making or something which can at least take out their imaginations in front.

There is no matter of crying like this and it is pointless. But still when I ask my students about something off topic, they become speechless. Is it their fault? They are busy in mugging up the course contents and in practicing the same sums from the text books as our board papers are 100% from text books. No need for further reading. No need to go beyond the scope of "text books"……….!!

Yahi pe hota hai creativity ka khun………..!! Aur jab mein 9 jaisi movies dekhta hoon to mera khun 9 times khaulta hain………..!!

Let's try to open it without spill (3)...................

And now, Let's look into those plenty of textbooks. Let's try to find out whether they do a fair justice to what they contain for students.

In one of the books for class VI science, the chapter is about purification of substances, where they have briefly mentioned the methods for purification of various solid and liquid substances using different techniques. Some of they are Sublimation, Distillation, Liquefaction, Chromatography and Electrostatic precipitations. All these methods have been described with principle, method and uses with a labeled diagram. To be specific, I can raise some questions on behalf of the students for this type of explanations...................

1. First thing first. Do the students of class VI really know the exact difference between a pure and an impure substance? Do they know the basic foundations of atom, molecule, element and compound?

2. One of my students asked me a question that "sir, what is a charge?" and I replied that charge is a kind of nature of a sub atomic particle.As we human beings have two main types of nature i.e. good and bad, in the same way the sub atomic particles have two types of charges. One positive and the other negative.

I doubt, how much that student have understood out of this or how else could I have answered this question?

Now if a student of this age is unable to understand what a charge or a sub atomic particle is all about, how would he/she be able to understand Electrostatic precipitation?

3. In the method of Distillation, the diagram shows the Leibeg's condenser. The process of condensation is still very fragile in the minds of students of this age then what is the meaning of showing them these much of apparatus?

Let's take a look in the book of physics of class VII.

1. They have a chapter about sound in which topics like intensity, loudness, pitch and amplitude are explained. Wow. These poor babies don't even  know what motion is all about and how a special type of motion called simple harmonic motion takes place and we demand them to answers to the questions related to amplitudes and frequencies and densities of the medium in which sound as a wave propagates in the form of disturbance !!

2. In chemistry book of class VII, terms like Polymers, polymerization, saponification and some types of medicines like antiseptics and analgesics and antipyretics and antibiotics are explained in a very interesting manner. But, it appears interesting for a person like me as I have a clear foundation of the basics of science but for those little kids all these are yorker and googly balls delivered by Imran Khan or Wasim Akram to the batsman like Munaf Patel or Ashish Nehra !!

***

We often shout for changing the examination systems but as a teacher teaching both primary and secondary students, I strongly feel that it is very much necessary to change the design and structure of the syllabus and most importantly the unification of the course all over the country, be it a central board or a state board.

Whenever I ask them what they want to be in the future, hardly one out of hundreds raise his/her hand to become a scientist. And its completely fair. I mean, if we offer them such kind of study materials and books which they can't even understand (digesting something is way behind........!!), how can we expect them to show their liking towards science!

Science is the most fascinating and interesting subject one can ever study in his lifetime. But the hatred of students for science is increasing at an alarming rate. In the latest movie 2012, it is shown that one very young and aspirant Indian astrophysicist first predicts the end of the world but simultaneously nobody in the climax come to save him or any Indian from the upcoming devastation. On the other hand China built 3 huge arcs/ships in which rest of the world's presidents take shelter excluding India !!

I don't know how to change this but at least I try the hardest of my potential to help students in understanding the very concepts of science. I have my limitations of which the first and foremost is the course confinement. Being in the profession of tuition class, I can not take the freedom of going off topic to explain some very interesting concepts considering the crucial factor of course completion.

But we will have to do something in favor of our future generation to keep them in the parallels to other countries.

Let's try to open it without spill............

End.

Let's try to open it without spill...................(2)

Yes, I want to discuss the most burning issue of our educational system. The course design and curriculum. I will not try to generalize it but just to mention what is going on in the schools running primary sections.

I don't know is there any rule or circular out for all the schools of Gujarat whether or not having the same text book for primary and secondary sections. But one thing for sure that if there would be any such rule than all the schools are committing a sin in their primary sections. Let us have some details.

1. Zenith School.

For class V and VI students they have selected some private publication books of which a single book of any subject costs more than 100 rupees. This is not all. In every subject they ask the students to buy a worksheet designed by some private publication of delhi which alone costs again more than 100 rupees per subject. Suppose a student is in class VI then only for the subject of maths he/she has to spend approx 200 rupees only for books.

2.Bright school.

This school has a very unique system of course curriculum as they have two various types of text books for one single subject. For example in class VII in maths, they have selected Gujarat board text book for main course and also oxford publications for some extra chapters. The chapters selected from the book of oxford are very few but for that a student has to spend total of 139 rupees just for a single subject.

 3. Baroda high school.

In this school the whole course is adopted from oxford publication and the cost of books are on an average 125-140 rupees per subject. They don't consider our state board text book important or meaningful as they just demand only oxford publications for all primary classes. I don't know why our educational board not interfering in this matter and why not insisting this schools to strictly follow only Gujarat board text books.

4. Ambe vidyalaya

This school have gone far beyond. In class VI and VII for the subject of science, they have selected a very new publications which have divided the subject of science in three different parts viz physics, chemistry and biology. Each part has its own text book containing 5 to 6 chapters costing around 130 rupees each. So for all three parts students have to spend round about 300 rupees. And again no state board text books for other subjects as well. For mathematics they prefer NCERT book and for Social sciences some new publications.

5. Vidyani vidyalaya

This school has broken all the barriers of selecting a course material and books as they don't prefer state board text books in primary sections as well as in secondary sections. Yes, they have selected NCERT course for the subject of science in class VIII and class IX. Now what happens is when students of this school take admission in class X they have to study from state board text book of science for the examinations of S.S.C. but there is no sync of the chapters and topics of previous standard books and the book of class X.

This information just gives a surface idea of what is happening and has happened over some past years in our schools. The passive side of students' educational life is what we have seen in such kind of book world. But when the matter comes to students, how do they respond to all these ?

[to be continued.............]

Let's try to open it without spilling...............(1)

Just coming from my friend's house. There, we were discussing general issues with his elder brother and he pointed out one very important observation which completely suits with what I have been feeling for so many days in my mind. Let me share it with you.

Have you ever seen your mother at home opening a brand new Oil container (tel no dabbo) by herself without taking your or your father's help? Well, It is very obvious to take others' help in this matter because the design of that container is so odd and especially the mouth that no one can open it without spilling the oil over the floor.

Today so many oil producing companies are there in India and they provide this product in the same typically designed container without any innovative ideas being implemented over it so that even a child can open it without applying much labor. Since long the same design is making our nerves tight and fingers scraped in opening the container.

Why am I discussing this incident and what it has to do with the questions bumping in my minds??

Well, The central idea behind this is to improve the design of this container. Right? But nobody come up with a convenient solution. Why??

The answer is : Lack of creative thinking. From the very childhood of ours we are taught to follow others' footsteps. We are wrongly compared with first and second ranker of the class without noticing our hidden talents. A 10 or 11 year boy or girl is asked to sing a composition so perfectly which Lata or Asha Or Rafi had sung in a fully equipped recording studio with his or her own mood or charm. Nobody ask them to sing something original. Assessment is done on the strict comparison basis only. Individuality meets its death from the childhood. The Pakistani singers promise some innovative creations thanks to the absence of Asha and Lata there. Huh...!!

Indian scientists are least famous and earning nothing compare to Indian film stars and cricketers irrespective of their priceless contribution to the nation. Common man of India is less interested in Science and technology compare to Stock market and sensations.

Why?? I think, behind all these situations and circumstances is our EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. And I reached to this conclusion by experiencing certain very misguiding and confusing things in this system................

I am trying to figure it out one by one.............

[to be continued.........]