Patience and Courage - Ananta RPKM

Hope in the guise of the Maths Teacher 

Patience is one of the principal abilities of a teacher. Patience while encouraging and explaining topics to the students gives them a sense of courage and the belief that they can achieve anything. 

The same thing happened to me when I was appointed as a maths teacher in one of the schools on the outskirts of my town. 

On the first day, I introduced myself to the students and asked them to introduce themselves. Every child enthusiastically introduced himself, but one child caught my eye. He neither introduced himself nor was he curious to know about the subject. 

I noticed that he used to copy all the digits in reverse. For almost a week, I observed him, and then I understood he was suffering from dyslexia. His parents were illiterate and didn't know what the issue was with their child. 

As a teacher, I wanted to give colours to that boy's hands so that he could colour his life. 

I tried to speak with him, but he didn't talk to me. It took me another week to break the ice. Then, one day, in a playful manner, I tried to teach him about letters and digits. I tutored him during the extra periods and sometimes after school. After 2 months of practice, he finally started to improve.

I used to encourage him to participate in different extracurricular activities too. After my constant upliftment, he showed courage and participated in an inter-school debate competition. He was very nervous, but I motivated him that he could do everything he wanted to. He stepped on the stage, and with all his might, he gave his best. He didn't win, but everyone was surprised and appreciated his improvement. 

After that, he gained confidence and started performing well in academics. It took six months of patience and courage to make him what he is now. I was so overjoyed, as if I were the one who passed with flying colours. That time, I understood how a teacher's attitude towards students can mould their lives. 

Ananta @ RPK Moradabad, India

Bhawna Arora, Parul, Poonam Mehra, Ashita, Rajni Mehra, Neha, Anshika, Asha Mamgain

 

 

Humility and Appreciation - Laxmi Kant Bhatt

Children feel encouraged and confident when they are appreciated; in fact, every person feels encouraged when appreciated. To boost their confidence, I decided to perform a task which could contribute to my subject at school. I came up with an idea to make an activity related to maths which could also be fun for the students.

With humility, I walked up to the principal and explained that we should provide a maths challenge every week and divide the students into junior and senior groups. Each group gets one question. The student who comes first with the correct solution will be the winner of the challenge. For appreciation, we will announce the child's name in the assembly, and the child will be rewarded. 

My principal was very supportive of the idea and suggested that you take the winner child out for coffee, and we can call it coffee with the coach. 

Cheered when ma'am accepted my idea, we announced the challenge in the assembly the next day and put the challenge on the notice board. Good response from the children, and we did get winners of the challenge. The winners were taken out for a coffee. The children felt obliged to go out for a coffee. They were full of excitement and felt appreciated for being awarded this way. The other children were encouraged by this and were discussing and excited about the new challenge. They approached me and continuously asked for a new challenge.

I am glad that the children enjoyed my activity. This way, we found a good way to appreciate the children for their excellent work.

Laxmi Kant Bhatt

The Doon Girls' School Dehradun

JOL Cohort 2022

Happiness and Tolerance - Laxmi Kant Bhatt

Almost every student becomes angry at some point in school. After all, anger is a normal human emotion. It is not a problem if a student becomes mad if he expresses his feelings appropriately. However, it is a problem if he says his anger in a hurtful way to peers or is disruptive to your class. A student who displays angry outbursts can throw a classroom into turmoil. He can also trigger intense feelings in you. Your challenge in working with a student whose emotional temperature often reaches the boiling point is to control your own emotions and those of the student. So to ease those feelings, we should consider talking to the students and settling their problems without frustration to maintain a healthy balance and relationship between the teachers and the students.

An incident of ninth graders promoted to class 10th.
Every student in the class decided to do rigorous practice for their board exam from the beginning. The children were excited about their Maths classes, but we know that children have different abilities in a class. When I started teaching, two and three children started asking fundamental questions from the beginning, which slowed down the class's momentum. My advice to children is always to work on their basics before coming to the class. Some students seemed unhappy and did not speak in the class the next day. One of the students stopped asking any questions, and the other student started troubling and disturbing the classes. This continued for 2 or 3 days and was a little unsettling for me because I want my students to grow immensely and equally. I approached the students outside of the class and asked them if something was wrong or if something troubling them. They, too, replied they were not able to understand Maths. I understood their problem and replied, "Don’t lose faith. I will help you take extra classes for you both to reach the class level and ensure that you score good marks in your exam”. Slowly and steadily, the children seemed to be getting the concept and were happy to see themselves go with the flow of the class. 

Laxmi Kant Bhatt

The Doon Girls' School Dehradun
JOL Cohort 2022

Nathan Strenge "I am passionate about Education...

Listen to the podcast.

In addition to serving as USA Country Lead for HundrED, Nathan facilitates conversations with learners around the globe as a Senior Learning Designer at Fielding International

Episode # 62 Sandeep Dutt in conversation with Nathan Strenge, a Senior Learning Designer at Fielding International, works with innovative schools and educators worldwide to create environments where learners and communities thrive. In addition to his role at Fielding, Nathan serves as USA Country Lead at HundrED and is an active member of the Education Reimagined Learning Lab community. He enjoys facilitating conversations that bring together youth, educators, and community members to re-envision the future of education – he’s optimistic that all over the world people are reimagining how education can be designed to cultivate learners with agency and aspirations to contribute to a better world.  He can help schools find the right problem to solve, and illuminate the path to solve it through a workshop called Align to Thrive. He as taught high school statistics and mathematics for ten years before going into school design and innovative education. He has won a national teaching award for my work in personalized learning that focused on relationships and holistic well-being. In the podcast, he shares what youth voice is important, and the need for building learning centres where empathy and listening help change the paradigm. Nathan looks forward to connecting with people working at the forefront of 21st-century learning to make a healthier, more equitable, and loving world.

You will love the stories shared by our happy teachers and passionate educators. We grow your people's capacity to improve student achievement and transform your school into a culture of trust and collaboration in less time with fewer resources. Each person in your school contributes to the culture of your school. School culture is built on the actions and interactions of the people. You make your school stronger by adding value to others and making others feel valued. 

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/learningforward/support

If you would like to feature on the Learning Forward Podcast, share your story by email with Sandeep Dutt LF@ebd.in

Monica Kochar "1 am passionate about Education...

Episode #33: Sandeep Dutt in conversation with Monica Kochar, she is a Mathe-magician! She has given numbers a heart and abstract concepts a ground to stand upon, has taken the sting out of the learning of Maths. A doctor who cures math-phobia, Monica’s approach makes Maths not only interesting but humane. Founder of Humane Maths, it is about humanising the maths curriculum. Making it human-friendly for all kinds of learners. The focus is to create an environment where all children ‘come to maths and then maths is taken’ to all of them. The environment is created by taking teaching strategies that make the classroom mentally stimulating, emotionally appealing and physically relaxing. This is done by integrating maths with art, poetry and much more. In the podcast, Monica talks about the unconditional love between the learner and the teacher, the joy of learning and how the day is the anchor to experience real exhilaration for an educator.

More about Monica

Monica Kochar has given numbers a heart and abstract concepts a ground to stand upon. She’s taken the sting out of the learning of Maths. It is not just about acquiring the skill of playing with numbers, but a journey that makes you a more rounded person.  Maths, when combined with art and poetry, become a red-blooded poem, a splash of colour, a game on the sports ground!  Offering an integrated approach to Mathematics, the learning becomes a way to deeper and wider growth where fears are removed and fun becomes official.

Monica has applied this approach successfully in her long and colourful teaching career, which expanded after earning her M.Sc (Maths) and B.Ed at Delhi University. There was a further turn to her teaching style after she came in touch with students with special needs. She did a diploma course in Inclusive Education with the Spastic Society of Karnataka, and subsequently created successful programs for students with special needs and which helped them gain sufficient confidence to tackle mainstream syllabus.

She has worked with CBSE, ISC as well as the international curricula – IGCSE and IB – in her search for the right curricular base that could put her innermost quest to create a space for the best in a child to emerge. Finally, she found the right blend by taking the core philosophy from Indian spiritual traditions and practising style from the international arena. She continues upgrading herself through MOOCs and attending workshops by experts in multiple fields associated with education.

She can be contacted for fresh curriculum approaches, teacher-training and writing and assessment related to Mathematics for print or digital media. 

Website humanemaths.com

Simplicity and Trust - Innovators BHIS

To simplify complications is the first essential of success. 

- George Earle Buckle

Ruchi was a very diligent student and took a keen interest in academics. There was only one subject in which she was not very interested, and that was Mathematics. Maths seems to be a tricky subject for some students mainly because they are unable to clearly understand the topics, and so it was with Ruchi. She was so scared of this subject that she dreaded attending the classes. Somehow she managed to pull herself to get the passing mark, every year.

Ruchi was very apprehensive as she started her new session in grade VIII. She knew that it would not be possible to keep up her average scores if she was not able to fare well in Mathematics. Little did she know, that her new Maths teacher in school would change the way she looked at the subject all these years. 

The way the teacher approached the class on the very first day, made the children feel at ease with the subject, even before she had started on the topics. The way she explained the sums in class, their underlying concepts, made all the children realise how simple they were. 

Ruchi was surprised that she could understand even the difficult problems easily, given the manner of the teacher’s explanations. She gained confidence in herself as she started solving problems on her own - just by following the processes taught at school. To her disbelief, 

Ruchi found herself willingly practising Mathematics at home whenever she could. Her parents, too, noticed this change in their daughter. She felt comfortable in having her doubts cleared by the teacher. Ruchi confided to her parents that she had developed an interest in Mathematics and was no longer scared of it. She was sure that her new teacher was a Maths wizard as she made every problem unravel in a simple manner. She also mentioned to them that the ever-smiling teacher never seemed to get annoyed by the various queries that the children flooded her with. She patiently answered every one of them. Hence, their class trusted this teacher a lot. 

Simplicity is a way of life. Simplicity makes for easy-going life and takes away the unnecessary worries and baggage that we carry. Trust can be built, easily, by people who have a simple yet firm outlook on life.

 - Innovators @ Billabong High International School, Thane

  Bhumi Punjabi, Vaishali Phatak, Krishnakshi RaviShankor, Smita Bhobate

Courage and Patience - Innovators BHIS

The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart- R.G. Ingersoll

Rishi is a timid boy studying in Grade 7. He has the distinct accent of his mother tongue when he tries to speak in English. It is always a thrill for his friends to make fun of his accent, the moment he starts speaking. Timid and shy as he is, Rishi chooses to remain in his shell unless forced to come out of it! His Maths teacher noticed that with each passing day Rishi was starting to lose interest in her subject and refrained from asking questions to clarify his doubts in the class. She chose to take the initiative to make this little boy turn around in Mathematics. So, she mentioned that whoever could not finish their work on time, would have to do so by staying back after school hours.

As expected, Rishi was the only one who had to stay behind to finish his work. The teacher took it as a chance to interact with the shy child and soon could make out that his problem was not with the subject but with his communication. She motivated him to muster courage and to speak. She assured him that his friends would lose interest in teasing him once he was able to overcome his fear; he could, definitely, win his game.

The session with his Maths teacher infused new confidence in Rishi. He reverted to his usual self, clarifying doubts and sharing his ideas in class. Initially, he felt upset as many students giggled, but he learned the tenacity to ignore them. The teacher happily answered his questions, and at the same time instructed the students to maintain decorum while in class. Rishi was all the more encouraged to speak fearlessly and confidently. He regained his interest in Mathematics and practised it regularly. The Maths teacher was patient with the children and continued to encourage them. It brought an immense sense of satisfaction to the teacher as she was able to enthuse this otherwise timid child with a sense of courage, by her patience and affection. There was a sea change in Rishi's attitude after this incident. He not only became active in his classroom but also made more friends in school. Soon he brought laurels to the school by participating in various inter-school events. With every passing day, he became more appreciative of the little things around him. He became more patient and courageous.

Innovators @ Billabong High International School,
 -Bhumi Punjabi, Vaishali  Phatak, Krishnakshi RaviShankor & Smita Bhobate

Home access to digital educational resources

Dear Educators:

With students stuck at home, access to digital educational resources has become essential in ensuring that children are still learning while away from school. I am writing to introduce you to an at-home learning solution with complete with e-classroom capabilities that could be highly beneficial to students in India considering the global situation related to COVID-19.

MarkSharks Learning Technologies (MSLT) is a Singapore-based ed-tech company that provides interactive maths and science learning solutions for students in classes 7-10. Our product, MarkSharks, is an eLearning tool that turns mobile devices and tablets into interactive virtual labs where students can question, explore, and understand mathematical and scientific concepts using real-world examples.

In view of today’s situation, we believe this product contains features that now more than ever would be extraordinarily beneficial to students and teachers across the country. To start, teachers can lead live online classes using our content while students follow along on their own devices at home. Moreover, teachers can quickly create assessments for their students and receive real-time student performance data to help address misconceptions immediately.

We would like to offer MarkSharks free of charge to all students until July 31, 2020. The need for creative digital educational solutions is crucial at this time and we would like to do anything we can to help. If someone in your office can contact us, we would be happy to provide more details or a demo of our product. Thank you and please stay safe.

With Compliments

The MarkSharks Team

https://www.marksharks.com/