I have reached a stage where I have started accepting the hierarchy in student-teacher relationships. I sometimes fancy myself believing that it is necessary. I went for school observations today. The basis of this entire exercise is rooted in hierarchy. I sit at the back of the class while my students teach. With the current…
One of the key things that I learnt from working on field projects early in my career is the importance of teacher communities. I realised quite early that regular training and updating of skills for teaching, organised by the government, was a far-fetched dream. Although things have since changed at school level, many have often…
In this chapter, Kumar raises fundamental questions on the ‘patterns of response’ that are evoked by texts. Acknowledging that response is person-specific, the author goes on to highlight that texts as any other media tend to evoke responses that publishers and authors count of capturing. Some of the links in this post may be affiliate…
Sainath. 1996. Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts. New Delhi: Penguin. ISBN: 9780140259841 This is the Way We Go to School: Getting Educated in Rural India (pp. 47-68) Published in 1996, Sainath’s book captures stories from India’s poorest district. This section on education, presents three stories that represent the diverse settings in which education…
It is a little weird to ask this question because we tend to take schooling, and therefore teaching, as a given. We do not sit and wonder about whether it is necessary at all. In a teacher education programme, this is even more so. Everyone in the department is a teacher- a student teacher, a…
This article is inspired by my experiences of observing teaching processes in secondary school classrooms. Over a period of years I have observed the general tendency for teacher educators to repeatedly emphasise not relying on the textbook in the classroom. In sharp contrast lies the somewhat archaic method of teaching by reading and underlining text…
If there is anything that teachers hate the most, I think it is assessment. Correction work is the most difficult to manage. It is endless, it is repetitive, and it is so boring! On top of that, not only am I giving the same comments year after year, to countless students, I am also writing…
I am again writing on a holiday. It is a bit disappointing that we continue to work on holidays, and yet, it seems so natural. My attempts at keeping work and personal life separate have gone for a toss. A few years ago I made a strong decision to not make work calls to people…
It is a little disturbing that this is my first day of writing on this blog. I would have preferred a happier reflection. It is the middle of the day and it is not like the work is over. I still have a ton of work left for the day…. both academic and administrative. Balancing…
Ranjan, A. 2011. On Terrorism: Illusion and Reality. Lucknow: Rahul Foundation. pp.35. ISBN: 978-81-906415-6-2. The essay elaborates on an understanding of terrorism with special focus on comparing it to people’s revolution. The emphasis is on tracing the history of people’s movements and comparing them to what are labelled as “terrorist movements”.It makes an important distinction…
