Free school under a bridge


Rajesh Kumar Sharma, a shopkeeper, and his colleague, Laxmi Chandra, write on black boards painted on a building wall at a free school run underneath a metro bridge in New Delhi, India. At least 30 children from the nearby slums have been attending and receiving a free education from their makeshift school for the last three years.

The  children attend class for two hours each day where they learn math and basic reading and writing skills. His greatest achievement is changing the attitude of his students' parents, many of them now encourage their children to study.

Most students are registered in nearby government-run schools, but attend Free School's classes because the teaching helps them understand formal syllabi. Moreover, they don’t have to pay any money.

“In the Free School, we are assisted in completing our homework and understand what we were taught at school. Also, the time sharma spend here would have been otherwise wasted in roaming around or gossiping. The school is of great help”.

Rejected by IIT,now CEO of a 50 crore company

Faced discrimination due to his disability early on in life. After he was born blind, his parents were advised by the villagers in Sitaramapuram in Andhra Pradesh to let him die.

At school too, he was excluded from sports and pushed to sit in the last bench away from the whole class. But Shrikanth topped in Class 10 Board exams.

At the intermediate level, Shrikanth wanted to study science but he got a rude shock when the Andhra Pradesh Education Board refused to grant him permission, stating that Arts was the only stream the blind could opt for.

Not one to give up, he filed a case and after a six-month long wait, the Board agreed to let him pursue Science. At the end of two years, Shrikanth topped Class 12, securing 98%.

Shrikanth wanted to study engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology but he was denied an admit card to the IIT entrance examination.

He then proceed to apply to schools in the United States for an undergraduate programme and ended up securing admission in MIT, becoming the school's first international blind student.

After graduating from MIT, Srikanth felt the need to do something about the lack of opportunities for the disabled in India. Thus, he gave up lucrative corporate opportunities in America, he returned to India and started Samanvai, a non-profit organisation based in Hyderabad with the aim to provide 'individualized, need-based and goal-oriented support services to students with multiple disabilities.

Shrikanth is the living example of the fact that talent, hard work and determination can get you past any difficulties.

Now Srikanth is the CEO of Hyderabad-based Bollant Industries, an organisation that employs uneducated disabled employees to manufacture eco-friendly, disposable consumer packaging solutions, which is worth Rs 50 crores.

Importance of Pattern Recognition

Do your children have the ability to recognize patterns and spot opportunities and potential threats? Chances are they don’t.Believe it or not, many 4th graders are stumped when asked to count simple multiples likes 100s, 1000s, and even 11s.The ability to recognize, identify, and create patterns not only supports mathematical learning, it also contributes to broader social development. By understanding patterns, children are able to make predictions about what should come next. 

Patterns can be found in ideas, words, symbols, numbers, and images. They can also be found in behavior, routines, and in nature.

Nearly every desirable occupation requires pattern recognition skills. Doctors often read patient histories and charts to make diagnosis and prescribe treatments, attorneys study case histories before they present their case, analysts study data to predict future price movements, and salespeople use patterns to sell products.

Knowing how important it is to spot existing and emerging patterns, one would think educators would begin training students in pattern recognition at very early ages and would continue developing these skills into adulthood. Sadly, most do not. In fact, recent studies show that most schools are failing to adequately teach important patterning and critical thinking skills.

How to Improve it: Many child prodigies appear to be born with a highly accentuated ability to discern intricate patterns. For the rest of us, patterning skills are taught by interaction with our parents, family members, friends, and the natural environment around us.

There are many teaching techniques available which can help children identify patterns by making them more noticeable. Many web sites offer instructional materials you can download and print which make target patterns stand out visually from surrounding words, letters, and numbers.

• Learning musical instruments teach children important patterns which have been proven to strengthen mathematical ability from an early age.
• Dance classes teach children important movement patterns along with musical patterns
  

Ref:www.mathrise.com

Significance of Basant Panchmi

Basant Panchami is celebrated to honor the Goddess Saraswati, the goddess of learning who bequeaths the greatest wealth to humanity, the wealth of knowledge.
Hindu mythology describes Goddess Saraswati as a pristine lady bedecked with white attire, white flowers and white pearls, sitting on a white lotus, which blooms in a wide stretch of water. The Goddess also holds Veena, a string-instrument, like Sitar, for playing music.

The four arms of Goddess Saraswati represent the four aspects of human personality in learning: mind, intellect, alertness, and ego. She rides on a white goose (swan). The swan is known for its peculiar characteristic of separating water from milk, indicating that one should possess clear vision and knowledge to discriminate between good and evil.
It is believed that Goddess Saraswati was born on this day. Students worship the goddess on this day.
Children are taught reading and writing their first words on this day - as it is considered an auspicious day to begin a child's education Students keep their notebooks, pens and educational items near the statue of Goddess Saraswati and distribute sweets among the devotees.
The celebrations:
'Yellow' is the dominant color of this festival as it signifies the ripening of fruits and crops. The mustard fields in North India blooms during this season giving a yellow coat to nature. People wear yellow clothes, offer yellow flowers to Goddess and put a yellow, turmeric tilak on their forehead. They visit temples and offer prayers to various gods. New clothes are purchased for this festival and many delicious dishes prepared for this particular occasion. 

Right to Education

Almost five years ago Indian Government promised to all indian children to provide them proper education under "Right to Education".As the Right to Education (RTE) Act just completed five years of operation, it is time to take note of some facts. Kerala became the first State to achieve 100 per cent primary education, but in Uttar Pradesh, only 12 out of 75 districts have admitted students from disadvantaged groups to private schools.

Another important RTE goal is to empower teachers as key change agents in schools, ensuring their competence as professionals able to reflect on and improve their own practice. Beyond ensuring an acceptable Pupil-Teacher Ratio, RTE mandates that all teachers are professionally trained and supported to continuously assess and improve children’s learning. While it is encouraging that Delhi, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have over 96 per cent professionally qualified teachers there are other States that have less than 70 per cent.

While there are one-time investments that will make a significant difference in achieving targets in such areas as ensuring a library or functional toilet in every school, much of the pedagogic transformation called for by RTE will necessitate substantive institutional reform. Some States like Odisha have implemented innovative grievance redressal mechanisms such as toll-free helpline numbers displayed prominently on school walls, and a comprehensive school monitoring tool called “SAMIKSHA” which helps to improve accountability, identify gaps and strategies for improvement.

Just imagine India when all of its children will have completed eight years of good quality education. What better way to secure the country’s future?

Why is Phonics Reading Important to Child

It is not uncommon to find parents who question the importance of phonics reading in the education of their children. Such parents believe that children will naturally master the different sounds of human speech since the ability to use language is innate in every human being. Their view may look plausible but they are not actually correct. Phonics is a branch of linguistics where the sounds and physical properties of human speech sounds are studied. Phonics reading is highly essential in every child education.
Children have to develop more confidence in themselves before they begin to vocalize more. This begins the moment they realize that they can pronounce words correctly like older people. It is only through phonics reading that children will develop the ability to pronounce words very well
Phonics reading helps also to increase a child's fluency in reading. Fluency in this context is not limited to reading fast. It also means reading text accurately. When a child is taught phonics properly, the child will find reading easy. The child will not only read accurately but also quickly. Reading quick and correctly is another benefits of phonics reading.
The report of National Reading Panel indicates that teaching children phonics will help them in many ways in life. In the first instance, phonics reading is very important in helping children to learn how to spell words. It will be impossible for a person to spell any word correctly if the person is not able to recognize the sounds of the letters used in forming the words. When a child is taught phonics, the child will be able to recognize sounds in words and will be able to spell them correctly.
In other words, it will be difficult for a child to improve in his reading skills if the teaching of phonics is removed from their curriculum. 
Considering the importance of learning Phonic, our team has come up with a great idea of teaching phonic in two volumes for new students. 

Kids and Social Networking Sites

According to a survey conducted in 2015 by the Associated Chambers of Commerce of India (Assocham), most underage kids on Facebook first got help from their parents to create their accounts. 75 percent of the parents of 8-13 year-olds on Facebook are aware of their child signing up for the site.  Many initially knowingly allow their children to lie about their age on social networking site. Nearly 82 percent helped create the child's account.

Although a majority of the 4200 parents surveyed believed that there should be a minimum age for Facebook, 78 percent said situations like school-related activities, communicating with friends make it ‘ok’ for their child to sign up for an online service, even if he or she does not meet the site's minimum age requirement.

While Facebook's official joining rule mandates a minimum age of 13 (as per the US' Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), nearly 73 percent of children in tier-I & tier-II Indian cities between the age group of 8 to 13 use Facebook and other social networking sites. Nearly 25 percent of 13-year-olds, 22 percent of 11-year-olds and 15 percent of 10-year-olds are on Facebook, while 5-10 percent of 8 & 9 year-olds are also active on the site.

News reports cite a survey by the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) in the USA showing that more than one-third of babies in that country tap on smartphones and tablets even before they learn to walk or talk, and by one year of age, one in seven toddlers uses devices for at least an hour a day.

Chitra Varma, principal of DAV Matriculation Higher Secondary school, Chennai, agrees. "There's no question of keeping children away from the net. Nowadays, they need to use it even for school projects. But it is essential that they know of its dangers as well as its usefulness."

The Cyber Crime Division of the Karnataka police have launched an initiative to educate children in schools across urban and rural Bangalore on tips to use the internet. "We believe in prevention. We have undertaken seminars in schools, distributed pamphlets for parents. This kind of awareness is crucial," says Dr D C Rajappa, Superintendent of the Police Cyber Crime Division, who led the initiative.

Google, too, tied up with The Department of Electronics and Information and Technology and Computer Emergency Response Team-India (Cert-In) for an Internet Safety Campaign in India.  Head-Public Policy India at Google, Chetan Krishnaswamy explains, "It's important for the Internet to be a safe space for families to explore, learn and enjoy together. To enable this, we’re working to get the word out about good Internet practices and how to keep users safe online."

Ultimately, the issue boils down to a child's safety. Adult influencers - parents, relatives, and teachers should endeavour to thwart the dangers before they happen rather than rely on laws to punish the perverted.

Ref: India Together.