Category: Education and World

An adoring memory of the Dasara festival is that a north Indian family invited me along with my sisters Kanya Puja when I was a young girl. We were served with sumptuous lunch and given a Dakshina of a rupee or two. I still remember the way I flinched and dragged my feet back when the lady of the house touched my feet. At the age of ten, I was amused by this tradition, which made me feel important. Now, I ponder the logic behind the Pooja where people worship Durga in the form of girls and wonder!  

Every generation prepares its successive future generation to appreciate nature and to take care of it, in the form of traditions, customs, festivals, etc., which are termed as ‘culture’. Our ancestors have transferred their culture to the younger generations. This transformation is either not happening or weak in the present day.

Studies indicate the pet you keep reflects the kind of personality you have! Dog people are extroverts, and cat people are introverts! Canines and felines have a different history of domestication, different needs, eating habits and behaviour, and different cultures treat them differently.

74 years ago, we, meaning our country India, was under the rule of the British. On 15th Aug. 1947, India got its independence.
What is independence? Who are the British? Why did they come to India at all?

Nature proved its way of setting things right once again in the form of Coronavirus when humans became reckless and profligate. The world is shaken. Lockdowns have cleansed the polluted air (Watts, 2020). The vacant highways enabled wild animals to move freely and enter the cities (Conde Nast Traveller, 2020). Corona affected man’s lifestyle irrespective of his social status, gender, age, intelligence and taught the lesson of equality. The worst affected area is the education sector, especially early education.

Colonialism and imperialism are treated as synonyms, but they are not. Colonialism is a practice of domination of one group of people over another. Though imperialism also involves political and economic control over a dependent territory, it is different from colonialism.

There is no one thing among food and beverages that have influenced Indian society as much as “Coffee”. Though coffee originated from the Middle East, the British made it popular.

Every year we celebrate Independence Day, hear speeches, enjoy the holiday and forget about it the very next day. This is because we fail to understand the importance of “Independence”. To appreciate Independence, we need to know how it is to be without freedom.

The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life. It has changed every other field but the education system. It is more so in India (Wise & Rothman, 2010). In spite of being the seventh-largest country and having the largest child population in the world, India is nowhere in the picture as far as Blended Learning is concerned (Michael Barbour, 2006). With its innumerable problems such as lack of infrastructure, insufficiently trained teachers, high teacher absenteeism and lack of teachers’ accountability and motivation, the education system in India has poor learning outcomes (Mitra, 2010). In this scenario, Blended Learning appears to be promising for both private and government schools.

The teacher is a beacon that lights the lamp of knowledge, ignites a ray of hope and inspires his students to go beyond him. He motivates them to see what he has not seen and what he has not achieved. He leads his students by setting an example on how to live. The teacher can see and enhance the “best” in his students and the strength to destroy anything that is not good.