ScooNews September 2016 by ScooNews

Volume 1 Issue 5

September 2016 IGNITING MINDS

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think Margaret Mead

THE

LEDE Editor Juhi Shah Assistant Editor Meenal Singh Reporter Hridya Narang Website Team Varun Bodhwani, Umang Sharma, Harish Badlotia Contributors Damodar Prasad Goyal, Deepak Kalra, Manjari Singh, Meenakshi Uberoi, Nisha Jain Grover, Pooja Singh, Shobhita Rajagopal, Suhasini Patni, Vinay Singh Art Direction Rexsu Cherry Design CP Sharma Editorial Advisors Shobhita Rajagopal, Meenakshi Uberoi Pics Pressfoto - Freepik.com; Rexsu Cherry; Vaibhav Ramchandani

CEO & Co-Founder Ravi Santlani Asst Vice President Sales Vanya Lodha Asst Manager Sales Jaspreet Kaur

EDITORIAL OFFICE EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur 302004 India Email: editor@scoonews.com FOR ALL SALES QUERIES Ankur Verma: +91-9057409515 sales@scoonews.com FOR SUBSCRIPTION +91-9057409501 subscribe@scoonews.com PRINTED AND PUBLISHED by Ravi Santlani on behalf of EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd PRINTED AT Navpack & Print, Dainik Navajyoti Building, Amrapali Circle, Vaishali Nagar, Jaipur 302021 India, www.navpacknprint.com and PUBLISHED AT EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur 302004 India Published for the month of September 2016 Total number of pages 96, including Covers

The good, and the ugly ur September issue focuses on the ScooNews Young Star Awards to recognize young talent on the national stage. It is a novel initiative. (And worth recording, even if we say so ourselves.) After all, apart from the annual bravery awards given away on Republic Day, what other such platform exists? A modest beginning, it was a humbling experience for all at ScooNews to witness firsthand the powerhouse of talent and energy that resides in our schoolchildren, who turned up from across the length and breadth of the nation to receive their awards on Independence Day. Some may question the need for such an award. To those I would like to point out that children tend to get hugely motivated by this external recognition of what may after all be routine tasks of school life. When viewed in the larger perspective, however, they become markers for achievement and foundation for building their personalities and hence 100 per cent necessary in their journey towards self-fulfilment. In the meanwhile, the old woes continue to hound our education ecosystem. A report tabled in Parliament shows as many as 1,05,630 elementary and secondary government schools in the country are at the mercy of single teachers! Private schools may not suffer a similar fate, but here too the issue of quality of education is debatable, with under-qualified teachers ruling the roost. And I do not mean that in terms of the requisite degrees. If the same state continues, with under-qualified (read: insensitive, untrained, prejudiced, mediocre) persons masquerading as teachers in our schools, we have very little hope of rightly harnessing the talent inherent in our children. We need to do a quick rethink and shift gears ASAP. We need to have the very best of our society taking up teaching as a profession. And for that we need to move from our blinkered obsession with material success and leave this race towards cash-rich career streams. We need to bring back the nobility to teaching. Points to ponder, this Teachersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Day?

FIND US ON

September 2016

CONTENTS

22 SYSA 2016

Young & winning!

IN THANKSGIVING: Dear Teacher...

EDTECH4YOU: A tool for the new classroom

44 TECH IT OUT

EDTECH & THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT

News you can use

38 MUSINGS: Schooled with care What do you call a gurdwara that doubles up as an orphanage? A home, a school? ScooNews visits one and comes away impressed

46 JUST BLOGGING You can take a horse to water... OPEN DOOR: Learning disability is just that... not a curse PRINCIPALS ON BOARD Dear principals, your views matter to us. Do write in.

Rewards or bribes: Are we handling our children right? You can send 150-200 word responses to editor@scoonews.com, along with your photographs. Please do mention your name, school, address and contact details.

September 2016

YOURS TRULY FREEDOM OF IDEAS! Let’s celebrate freedom! And let’s give a new meaning to freedom. For our children, this time. Don’t the children look the best celebrating? This independence day, let’s give them a freedom of ideas. You hit the bull’s eye if you ask me how. Well, that’s exactly my point here. Children should be given freedom… to explore, with proper and welltimed guidance from parents and teachers. Explore and fail, explore and fail, explore and learn, explore and fail and learn. Explore and get ideas. They’ll thus grow-up and learn in the most natural form, without growing-up and learning their parents wishes and desires! Let’s celebrate freedom… of ideas! Damini Mukherjee

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY? Here is Independence Day again. Schools will hoist flags, perform some cultural programmes, and long speeches will be made. As I write on 4 August, street vendors are already selling flags. On the other hand, the markets are now full of rakhis, girls are thronging stores for new clothes, boys are wondering about gifts, and feeling harassed, well almost! While we are busy celebrating, there’s a family which has lost its reason to celebrate. That of the Bulandshahr rape victims. Apart from those whose girls who face eve-teasing or other kind of abuse, girls no more than 10 years old. As a mother of two, a girl and a boy, I feel I have lost my independence. I can’t be at peace till as long as my kids are

out of their secured zone. I feel at a loss when Rakshabandhan approaches. Other than tying a thread, what else do I teach my kids about this festival? I am sure there are many more like me, not just mothers, fathers too, parents of not just girls but boys too. These festivals give us a reason to think and act. How about replacing the boring speeches in schools with words on safety, marchpasts with self-defence shows by girls? No, I am not saying we should completely forget the importance of all these symbols of freedom, but just that we should prioritize with the current situation. And we do know what’s important and what not! Parminder Kaur

level, with Google Classroom that takes the entire classroom online and thus both students and teachers can revisit their classes at home, students can stay organized, start conversations with teachers and other students. There are more reasons to embrace these advancements. The low costs, for one! Yes, using these apps and gadgets can reduce the money and time a school spends, yet provide individual attention to each student — things become simple and collaboration becomes immediate! The classroom ‘keeps getting better.’ Jatin Verma

CONGRATULATIONS ON SYSA

While reading your article, ‘Small wonder, big apps,’ I fell in love with these multi-dimensional kids. How creative children are today! At their age, they do what we only thought of doing as grown-ups. They are entrepreneurs, run NGOs, they programme applications... in short, they these kids utilize their time. But I have a question. Is playing, spending summer vacations with grandparents, eating mangoes, climbing trees, etc, a waste of time? Why have we limited the definition of success to professional only? When do we get time to teach our children the basics of life and relationships, surely more important than their gadgets? Vaibhav Chaturvedi

I have an education background; have been teaching for past 25 years. And this is the first time in my knowledge when students will be awarded at a national level for their achievements, except of course on 26 January. I really appreciate the efforts your team is putting in recognizing meritorious students. Kudos for that! Although I am sure that the good news has already reached millions of students, I wonder if there are students from government schools applying for these awards. Or, if they have a clue about ScooNews Young Star Awards. They might be incapable of paying for the magazines or gadgets, it thus lands on people like you and us to try to dig talent out of those schools, too. These shy, Hindi-medium students too need some encouragement to do more. A hopeful teacher Ashutosh Gupta

ED & TECH GO HAND-IN-HAND Great that you thought technology can be the centre of attraction for your issue! Yes, edtech is here to stay, for long. The industry is too young as of now in India. Technology in education has been beautifully accepted in other countries, especially in the UK, where a minimum of one computer has been designated for five students. Google has launched several programmes to take education to the next

SMALL WONDERS, BIG APPS = LOST CHILDHOOD?

SORRY, BUT I DON’T AGREE! Love reading your magazine, yet there are instances where as a reader I feel critical. The editor asks if we can afford expensive edtech when we face issues providing mid-day meals. Yes, we do have several issues, mid-day meals, poor quality education, in fact, a complete lack of it. But should that hinder growth for others? We would set ourselves back by several years if we don’t already start embracing technology in schools. When technology is bringing people closer? For sure, we need to focus on mid-day meals, quality of education, etc, but we should also welcome technological advancements and be ready to bear its cost. Darpan Singh

TALK TO US

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September 2016

TRENDING

Google can give wings

Google can give wings, to those who use it regularly. And also to those, who don’t. For example, China has restricted usage of Google and so the country keeps innovating to compete with and provide things at least at par with Google. And thus a competing VR by Xiaomi. Called Mi VR Play, the headset might not be as expected, but it surely is getting reviews better than were expected. Easily fitting a 4-5.7 inch smartphone, it is a light and comfortable headset made of lycra with a zipper that keeps smartphones all cozied up and secure. Packed in pinks, florals, leopard prints, denims, lotus, night sky and camouflage colours, the exteriors are a plus point. So what do you with this latest entry in the world of VR? Youku, the Chinese version of YouTube, is one of the partners, so experiences and games of Youku and other partners can be enjoyed, VR Hotcast, Conde Nast Traveler, etc, too will be provided. Though, Daydream incorporation is still under question. Guess at what price! RMB 1, which converts Rs 10. At this price, there have been innumerable bookings, though it will be launched only later this year.

Owning a YouTube channel is no big deal now. But when a child of 5 years owns it, it does become a big deal. Nihal Raj, lovingly knows as Chef Kicha, a student of KG in Kochi, has a channel to his name, Kichatube, where the li’l chef displays his outstanding cooking skills. When children his age are struggling with alphabets and numbers, this child has learnt three things pretty well, virtual world, technology, and recipes. Quite a lot of his success can be credited to his advertising professional father and a home-baker mother, but a dekko at this child’s cooking skills and you’d know not all can be credited to them. Mickey Mouse Mango ice cream is what put him on the world map. Kichatube had his video uploaded preparing this ice-cream, which bowled over Facebook and thus the child earned an amount of, hold your breaths, US$ 2000, or `1.5l, from a casting company of Facebook to acquire the rights for this video, astonishing the family, though the child was always more than comfortable in his kid apron and chef hat. He definitely wasn’t clear what `1.5l meant!

This 5YO chef earned `1.5l from FB

CBSE is introducing short answer type questions carrying two marks each for class 12 math and will cut down the number of controversial higher-order thinking skills questions (HOTS), hence making the exam simpler than before. Moreover the HOTS questions will further be divided into two sections of four and six marks. “Shorter questions require less time to solve and will help students in completing the paper on time,”said one of the teacher.

CBSE MAKES MATH PAPER EASIER NOW

‘Dear Modi uncle, you are so popular that people come to your rallies in their own vehicles. In fact, I used to fight with friends when they used to tease me that people are ferried to your rallies. But now I feel that they were right. You always urged students to focus on education and career. So, please ask the chief minister to ensure that our school is not closed,’ wrote Devansh Jain, 13, studying in Vidhyakunj International School, Khandwa, to the prime minister ahead of his rally on 9 August marking the celebrations of 70 years of independence. Then what? The district administration revised its orders and asked the schools to stay open. So, do we assume governments can listen to common people too?

September 2016

A SCHOOL THAT BANS NATIONAL ANTHEM! NOW WHAT? This Allahabad school which banned singing the national anthem, Vande Mataram or Saraswati Vandana on Independence Day celebrations calling it ‘un-Islamic’, has been in the eye of a storm. It led to the principal and seven other teachers of the MA Convent School in Sadiyabad locality of Allahabad district resigning in protest. The school’s manager Mohammad Zia-ul Haq, on the other hand,

Odisha slum boy lands up at Bayern Munich

Chandan Nayak is proof that where there is a will there is a way, beyond all external support or the lack of it. All of 11 years, belonging to the slums of Sabar Sahi in Bhubaneshwar, Nayak has been selected for a two-month training at Bayern Munich, the much sought-after football club in Germany. His expenses while being trained will be borne by the club. Says his coach, Jayadev Mahapatra, that the boy has had a tough childhood, with his father deserting the family some years ago and his mother having to work at various places to support her family. Yet, once he was spotted three to four years back, he gave his best, as did his coach, and got selected to play for the state junior level last year at age 11! Yes, the age limit is 14-16 for juniors, yet as his coach requested for special permission, Nayak went on to stun everyone as he played the statelevel. Michael Ballack, Bixente Lizarazu, Thomas Muller, Oliver Kahn are some of the other top players associated with Bayern Munich.

justified the decision taken on the objections of Muslim parents. “The national anthem has a line, ‘Bharat bhagya vidhata’, which is against Islam as Allah is our bhagya vidhata. How can we say Bharat has made our destiny,” Haq said. “In the national anthem, the country has been described as being bigger and more important than mazhab (religion) and khuda (god), which is unacceptable for any true Muslim,” he added.

TIME TO UPDATE OUR EDUCATION POLICY OR IMPLEMENT IT? “In our country, the education policy is not properly implemented as it was first made in 1962 and then it was revised in 1976. However, no successive government took the initiative to revise it in all these years. We are now inviting suggestions to introduce changes according to the current challenges,” says Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union minister of state for human resource development (HRD). While India grapples to keep up with quality education, as many as 8-10 lakh posts of teachers are lying vacant in school and higher educational institutes throughout the nation, the government has suddenly woken up and is now inviting suggestions to update the education policy! In the meanwhile, here are some facts to shock you (as reported in ToI): 1. A solitary teacher is running the show in as many as 1,05,630 government schools. 2. MP is the worst state with 17,874 schools having just one teacher each. 3. Bihar, which was in the news after the infamous ‘topper scam’ surfaced in June, has 3,708 single-teacher schools, thus performing better than MP, UP, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, etc. According to RTE guidelines, there has to be one teacher for every 30 to 35 students in government and private schools and we all know what a mockery has been made of that particular guideline!

September 2016

TRENDING Bags too heavy? Call the press! A press conference held by two class 7 boys. And they don’t even own a startup! Or a fresh, new idea. They have something more, probably. Two 12-year-old boys of Vidya Niketan School, Chandrapur, Maharashtra, recently walked into the local press club, telling them they wanted to call a press conference, which stunned the mediapersons present. What was the conference about? Their heavy bags! “We carry a minimum of 16 books for 8 subjects daily and sometimes their number increases to 18 or 20, depending upon the classes for the day. Our school bags weigh 5-7 kg and it’s exhausting to carry them to our classroom on the third floor,” they explained. Parents have to help children carry their bags to the classrooms, said the two boys. They had requested their school principal to reduce the weight, they said, but in vain. Looks like the Bombay HC directive earlier this year to reduce the schoolbag weight has not borne fruit. The boys, unaware of any such circular, had to hold the press conference. What next? Well, they say that if this won’t bring a change, they plan to go on hunger strike!

After much research this summer, I am trying something new. Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year. Research has been unable to prove that homework improves students performances. Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early. — Mrs Brandy Young This is a note that a Texan teacher wrote to her students’ parents mid August. Shared by mom Samantha Gallagher on her FB page it quickly became viral with 71,680 shares at the last count! What a refreshing approach... to build stronger, better relationships than just ‘homeworking’ towards a better career. Go, Brandy Young!

4YO in class 9; 15YO a PhD scholar

So, one of the hottest news this month is about Ananya Verma in class 9. What’s so hot about that, you may ask. Well, Ananya is all of 4 years as of now! Her family informs her exact age to be 4.9 years. And she is all revved up to appear for UP board examinations in the next two years, which, if she clears, will break the record her sister Sushma had set. Sushma, who? Okay, so she buzzed the education world last year by getting enrolled as a PhD scholar at age 15; she had cleared her class 10 board exams at 7 years of age. St Meera’s Inter College, Lucknow, sure must be proud of its prodigies! Well, the family is quite used to it. Shailendra, the eldest of the siblings, completed his BCA at 14.

September 2016

IN THANKSGIVING

Dear Teacher...

September 2016

EDTECH4YOU

A CLASSROOM TOOL FOR THE NEW

With teachers being tasked with more complexity than ever in the classroom, Nearpod has been built around their needs. It is an interactive presentation and assessment tool that is changing the way we have been teaching so far

ScooNews Correspondent writeback@scoonews.com

o you teach in a way that is interactive, engaging and interesting at the same time. Are your students well connected with you all the time? Well, if no then don’t you think it’s the dire need of the hour in today’s digital world. A solution to this is Nearpod. An interactive presentation and assessment tool that is changing the way teachers have been teaching till now. Founded by former Stanford fellow Guido Kovalskys, former Accenture executive Felipe Sommer and Emiliano Abramzon, Nearpod is multiplatform app that is

September 2016

available on App Store, Google Play, Nearpod web app, Windows Store and is accessible from all devices. Through it, you can access available lessons, upload your own lesson for class, have a group of students join live sessions or homework sessions, and lets teachers monitor and measure a student’s performance by keeping a check on his/her assessments and level of participation.

Easy for beginners For beginners, the easiest way to use the platform is by accessing or downloading the already available content from the content store of the app. For that, click on

the Explore option on the home page. By clicking here you’ll be directed to the page that contains thousands of lessons for all the grades and subjects curated by experts. You can filter and find lessons of your choice by categorizing what you are looking for. The lessons searched here can be downloaded to your library. And the next time you want to revisit the lesson, all you have to do is click on My Library.

Create Click the create tab to create interactive Nearpod lessons out of your teaching resources. If you’re used to making notes for students, this is almost the same. Now, you can create the notes digitally, making it visually engaging for your pupils. While Nearpod lets you create your stuff in a

number of ways, for beginners, we suggest uploading an existing presentation from Powerpoint, Keynote, Google Drive, or any other programme created on your personal laptops and then dragging and dropping into the Nearpod app. Once the presentation is uploaded on the app, one can begin to edit it with the various interactive features of Nearpod which include the following. Slide: The slides could either be a PDF or image file and so if you want to create something complex then they should be made somewhere else. Once you become familiar with exporting slides as image files however, this becomes a simple process. Slide Show: A series of images as a slideshow as opposed to one per slide in the presentation.

Poll: Questions used for survey with no option for correct/incorrect answers Q&A: Quick way to know how much your students have learnt Quiz: Instead of a single question, have students answer a series of questions at their own pace. Video: Insert an MP4 (must be uploaded) to playback on devices. Draw it: Lets students draw over a blank canvas or over an image Browse the internet (upgraded feature): Lets the user share web pages with others. After you are done with the changes, you can publish the presentation, publishing means sharing it with only your students. The presentation then can be viewed in real time on a second device. Click on My Library to see your published presentations.The next step is to launch the presentation, which can be done for teachers through live session and for students through homework. Once a presentation is launched, one can see a PIN code in the upper left, using which students will be able to access your session.

Create or download interactive multimedia presentations.

Join

Monitor and measure student results on an individual and aggregate basis.

Shate your interactive Clicking on live session generates a pin, lesson and control the stu- when students enter this pin they will get dent’s activity in real time. connected to teacher’s device and their activity will be synchronized with that of the teacher’s. Clicking on homework also generates a pin, but this option lets students navigate at their own pace and on their own time.

Your students interact and submit responses through any mobile device or PC/MAC.

But, how does it work?

To begin with, open the Nearpod app in a new tab or window and sign into the app. You will find the following options to get started -

1. My library where one access all his/her Nearpod’s lessons

My Library

2. Explore where one finds curative lessons by expert teachers and education partners

Explore

3. Join where entering a pin number lets you join another Nearpod lesson

Join

4. Create where new lessons could be created

Create

5. Reports this lets you access the performance of the student

Reports

Reports Clicking on report lets you analyze and assess student’s performance. Class quiz result, students performance, responses from all students can be seen on reports. It offers a way to teachers to reflect on their performance and hence improve them. Well, this was just a glimpse of Nearpod. The actual usage has a broad spectrum which also includes Nearpod VR that lets you explore different architectures in the world, planets, cultural artefacts, etc. Nearpod’s VR is an amazing product, it not just behaves like Google Street view but also integrates with the company’s other digital learning content. Talking about it, the company’s co founder Felipe Sommer said, “We’ve been studying the field, and there’s so much traction on new devices. The tech is now ready to deliver those experiences. In the case of Nearpod specifically, we realized that the

September 2016

EDTECH4YOU virtual field trip will increase engagement in the classroom, which is one of our major goals as a company. We’re excited to take people to new places. Travelling is a simple activity that, once we started studying the field and how it would integrate with our products, we saw a huge opportunity to create lessons in virtual reality on core subjects. For example, one of our math lessons is called ‘Geometry is everywhere’. Students observe buildings around the world and find the geometry in each one. It’s not the whole lesson, but it’s a fun part.” Nearpod’s VR, real-time feedback, synchronizing of lessons and post session reports are something that can take teaching to some other level while making it exciting at the same time. Such an impacting app it is, that so far 100,000 teachers in 10,000 schools have used the app with 1.6 million accounts currently on Nearpod app. Recently Nearpod said it raised $9.2 million of Series A funding in a round led by Reach Capital and joined by Storm Ventures, Rothenberg Ventures, Marc Benioff, Deborah Quazzo of GSV Advisors, AGP Miami, Arsenal Venture Partners, the John S. and James L Knight Foundation, Krillion Ventures, Intuit co-founder Scott Cook and his wife, Signe Ostby, and Stanford’s StartX fund. About the app, Co-founder and General Partner at Reach Capital, Jennifer Carolan said, “Nearpod embodies the great potential of education technology by amplifying the impact of the teacher, connecting classrooms and facilitating learning that is truly responsive to the student. “With personalization, technology integrations and growing populations of students with specific needs, teachers are tasked with managing more complexity than ever in the classroom. The team at Nearpod built a product around educator needs — the result is a platform loved by educators and students that responds to the complexity of the modern classroom,”she added. What we have talked about so far is only an insight, to completely know how various activities can be incorporated into Nearpod lessons, how advanced technology can make learning fun and how simple presentations can engage students, one has to explore Nearpod oneself and all one needs for it is one tablet or PC/MAC and at least one other device (tablets, smartphones, Chrome books, PC/MAC), both running Nearpod. So are you ready to use Nearpod? The free or the silver version is a must for all and you must try it if only to satisfy your curiosity about the app.

Pricing Plan

Price

Details

Silver

Free

Up to 50MB of storage space, up to 20MB of presentations each, up to 30 students per live session, web & Twitter support options, PDF reporting.

Gold

$11.99/ month

Up to 3GB of storage space, up to 40MB of presentations each, up to 50 students per live session, web/Twitter/email/phone support options, PDF & CSV reporting, extended features on the apps.

School

Details can be taken from Nearpod

For 5+ teachers per school, up to 10GB of storage space per teacher, up to 60MB of presentations each, up to 100 students per live session, dedicated Nearpod specialists for support, PDF & CSV reporting and advanced options, extended features on the apps.

District

Details can be taken from Nearpod

For 10+ teachers per school, up to 20GB of storage space per teacher, up to 80MB of presentations each, up to 200 students per live session, dedicated Nearpod specialists for support, PDF & CSV reporting and advanced options, extended features on the apps.

Upgrade to Nearpod Gold Edition!

$11.99

In-app purchase.

Various content

$2.99

In-app purchase.

September 2016

EDTECH4YOU

30, and

RARING to go Meenal Singh meenal@scoonews.com Why should students come to APTECH/MAAC? Aptech entered the field of learning and education 30 years ago and has cemented its position. Having established its expertise in IT education, Aptech expanded its footprint across sectors as well as geographies. With over 1300 centers globally and having trained over 7 million students worldwide, Aptech has earned credibility in the market. This credibility calls for Aptech being the first choice for students when it comes to animation and VFX training. Moreover, the curriculum followed at Aptech and MAAC is prepared in tandem with industry experts to keep students abreast with the latest technological changes and trends of the industry. Add to it, the constant focus on giving students real life industry experience through projects and competitions that are adjudged by animation and VFX stalwarts of the world. How do you train students to face the field? Courses are designed to include a combination of theory as well as practical application. Through its course curriculum Aptech ensures that it bridges the gap between traditional teaching methods and potential careers by enabling students to develop into job ready professionals. You began 30 years ago. What is the difference in students then and now? In 1986, when we set up our first computer training institute, career avenues and opportunities were limited. The computer boom had just hit the country and computers as a career option was beginning to gain ground. However, students were still more inclined towards traditional careers. Over the last 30 years technology has evolved and IT training is become an essential requirement for other fields. Competition too has increased and students now feel the need for supplementing their regular education with vocational training courses to build up their CVs. Today, IT skills is an essential part of any job profile, and upskilling has become necessary to further one’s growth prospects.

With K-12 education seeing $50 bn spending in India, APTECH, which entered the space 30 years ago, is set to go further afield, says vice president Shrutidhar Paliwal

the e-commerce industry is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 35% for the next five years. The industry is expected to touch the $100 billion mark by 2020. Such an unprecedented growth spurt has compelled various market leaders in the e-commerce industry to pull together their resources to push for an institutionalized training infrastructure and create incentives for training by creating certifications across levels. The trained manpower will be having necessary skill to enable e-commerce vendor ecosystem from day one. It is in this context that Flipkart has turned to Aptech and initiated a mutually agreed upon training module that will expedite the rate at which professionals join the e-commerce ecosystem. With a strong pedigree of building skilling and training systems, Aptech is well placed to provide this training ecosystem.

the top five in terms of favourite courses? Study of humanities is particularly close to my heart. I have personally always enjoyed studying history. Math takes the last of my interest and yet I know, to have a fulfilling career, one needs to study math till class 10, if not more. If I were really a school-going student now, I would look at physics with a keen eye and perhaps focus more on animation studies, which involve story-telling, modelling, and basic creative bent of mind, et al.

What do you think of the recent surge in bigtime funding of edtech startups? Will this boom continue? Education is a growing market in India, the total spending on education in India – both public and private – is around $150 billion. Of this, around $50 billion is in the K-12 space. Such growth calls for support from edtech companies that use technology to create personalized learning experience for students and build solutions to enhance creative learning. India saw a new high of over 50 edtech deals in 2015, with the volume of deals up 315% from 2011. Reports indicate that the country is on track to break last year’s record, with 18 deals so far already, implying more than 60 total by yearend 2016. Of all the fields, which would you rate among

You have started offering training for sales to Flipkart. Any plans to include any such course for students too? According to a report by ASSOCHAM & PwC,

September 2016

THE INTERVIEW A school is more about warmth than an A-class infrastructure, believes Prabhat Jain, one of the directors of Pathways Schools, a group of schools that has been rated five stars

A good

teacher

is ready to

learn, always ScooNews Correspondent writeback@scoonews.com Which school did you go to and how has your education helped in the development of Pathways? I studied at Delhi Public School (DPS) Mathura road, which is first school of entire DPS society, spent 12 years of schooling there. Well, being at DPS, which was a concept school then, did help me in a lot of different ways, but when Pathways was initiated, I had already done a lot of things, learning from them... I don’t think I would be able to make connections there.

opportunities were at galore, we wondered why not a school that would prepare them for such opportunities!

How did the shift from family stone business to education sector happen? In 1999, when I and my brother moved back to Delhi to our family, we weren’t very clear what we wanted to do but we wanted to do something different. The family stone business was started by our father in 1984, importing new stone-related technologies to India, which was an inspiration for us to start something new. Health care, hospitality and education were the three sectors topping our minds. We analyzed and education seemed to be ‘it’ for us. This was around the year 2000, a time when education was experiencing a boom, lots of new paths were being created for college students, licenses and money in-flow were easy. Higher education

Do you think the middle class can afford studying in your school with such hefty school fees in a country where people cannot yet afford a day’s meal? Why are we expensive at Pathways? When RTE specifies students to teacher ratio to be 1:35, our students-teacher ratio is not more than 1:7/8, which means we have five times more teachers than what is recommended. We train our teachers, because we don’t select candidates based on their academic qualifications only, but also depending on their interest in children and teaching. In terms of infrastructure our average is about almost 200 sq. feet per student, whereas the general norm is 15-25 sq. feet. If you create these spaces, have high-quality teachers, do the

kind of teacher training that we have been doing, a very elaborate professional development budget feature throughout the year. If you add up all these costs, especially when we are not government-aided school, high fees becomes a must as all the costs are to be met. Any incidence from the days of establishment of the school that you would like to relate? On one of those several trips to banks for funding, we met the chairman of one bank; while we were very sure about the school and its high fees, he had certain questions for us, “Mr Jain have you done a standard error of zero? How would anybody pay this kind of a fee in India and how are you investing so much in a school?” It took us some time to explain him the entire concept of how the society is moving, how the country is moving and what we think was the need then, which thankfully did con-

September 2016

THE INTERVIEW vince him and he gave us the sanction. Then the next hardship came when we had to convince people to get their children admitted to our school. Fees in schools was never this high, and so the anticipation. Yes, it was a huge risk, but we had a conviction that it will work. Probably we in India already know that education is the biggest and the most important investment that one does in a child’s life. How’s your school different from other international schools of the country? Pathways’ core philosophy gels very well with the IB curriculum. I would not say we are different, but yes, we try to do things the way they should to be done. We very strongly believe that schools are institutions that are prone to complacency because at the end of the day it’s the same lesson that the same teacher has to give to different set of students year after year. It’s a teacher’s strategy that needs innovation, for which the whole organisation has to get together. You’ve said, “A good teacher is no more the one who has answers to all questions student ask, but the one who ignites students to ask such questions of which even s/he doesn’t have the answers.” How do you select such teachers or how do you make sure that teachers of your school do so? The most important thing for education is a good teacher, not the infrastructure. Pathways infrastructure has been rated five-star, but we say learning can even happen under a tree, you don’t need any infrastructure for that. The most important, and difficult, then becomes a good teacher. A good teacher, as per my beliefs, is one who is ready to learn also as he teaches. If a teacher comes as a learner herself then it’s given that the teacher will have the domain knowledge for which she is coming to teach, which can always be updated; however, nobody can change your attitude. We have very strong in-service training programs in all the three schools, thanks to

A good teacher is one who is ready to learn also as he teaches. If a teacher comes as a learner herself then it’s given that the teacher will have the domain knowledge for which she is coming to teach Prabhat Jain, Director, Pathways World School, Aravali

which we have many teachers who never had taught as a profession but are now doing really well; they have switched careers from banking, defence forces, business, etc, in their late 30s or mid-40s. They discovered their passion for teaching, what could be better than getting somebody who’s passionate to teach, give that person training that brings so much of real world experiences to classrooms... I would not say all traditional teachers are bad there are some who are good we have several such people but we also have experience where somebody with excellent CV and outstanding track record of working in some great institution have been studied in some great institutions internationally and being a total disaster inside the classroom. How far do you think that A-class infrastructure and foreign educators are necessary for schools imparting IB educations? All these things we consider are the hygiene level, but the core of the school should be the warmth that it gives. We don’t believe in the traditional set where the schools used to be opaque or parents were afraid of approaching the principals. We are offering education, so we are accountable and answerable to everyone involved... first of all the school should have the warmth to the students, to the parent and to anybody visiting the school, secondly the school should have a lively happy environment which

my brother says brings joy to learning. What’s your take on government schools? There are several reasons for why the government schools are at a stage that they are today. There are some brilliant examples of government schools that are doing extremely well, especially in those rural corners of India where we cannot reach. Leadership helps these schools; if you micro check the schools, government or private, that are performing well, you’ll find that they are lead by strong leaders. They have strong leadership qualities along with a passion to do something, to run schools, the thing that makes it happen. A government school has to go through a lot, fixed funds, a lot of bureaucracy, unions, government teachers are roped in for other administrative works, which eventually hampers education, and makes the students believe this kind of education to be the only kind of education. But there has been a recent shift as now some government schools, especially a teacher or two, are now realising that education or school education is the fundamental thing that will raise this country. And what do you have to say about our education system? It needs a change. (Reinforcing) It needs a major change and I think the government also is now trying for. We do understand that there are lot of impediments because there is a sheer number that they have to deal with, making it an enormous task. However, India still is at a better position when compared to similarly large countries, like China, the U.S., the U.K., where around more than 6-7% students go to private schools, whereas in India 42% students go to private schools. Now is that the time when people like you and me, several other concerned with education sector, need to realise that it is high-time for private and government schools to work together so that the overall education level rises.

A panoramic view of the Pathways World School Aravali

September 2016

YOUNG STAR AWARDS

HONOURED GUESTS: (L-R) Shrutidhar Paliwal, Pankaj Prabhat, Suniti Sharma, Rama Dutt, Nisha Jain Grover and Sanjay Purkayastha

Young & winning!

September 2016

A celebration... of positivity. Of smiles. Of freedom. Of social responsibility. Of childhood. The ScooNews Young Star Awards were all this and more, coming as they did on Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 70th Independence Day

Vansh Vasishth

ScooNews Correspondent writeback@scoonews.com

ll charged-up. Buzzing. Energetic. Easy words to report on ScooNews Young Star Awards (SYSA). But that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work when you are supposed to report an entire event. Especially when you end up getting so lost in the smiles swarming around you that you almost forget about reporting. The awards added a bit more to the celebrations this Independence Day as the event recognized and appreciated talent in academics and beyond at Maharana Pratap Auditorium, Jaipur on 15 August. Like Suniti Sharma, principal, Maharani Gayatri Devi School, Jaipur and a guest of

September 2016

YOUNG STAR AWARDS honour, said while congratulating the organizers for the event, “Children these days are venturing into so many fields, their arena has widened so much that it becomes difficult for schools to recognize them, they do so much more than just scoring good marks.” Yes, children are venturing in fields that were unimaginable to the generation I come from, for instance students as young as 14 or 15 now work for women’s upliftment! No, they don’t plan to change the world, but do their own small bit, like regularly visiting villages to teach women and girls, with support from their family and school. Well, that’s Kavya Chandra, nominated for student of the year award. As the excited and hopeful children sat among the audience, the guests of honour, some of the top educators from across the nation — Suniti Sharma, principal, Maharani Gayatri Devi School, Jaipur; Rama Dutt, principal, Sanskar School, Jaipur; Madhu Maini, principal, Jayshree Periwal High School, Jaipur; Dr Pankaj Prabhat, director, Jaipuria Insititute of Management, Jaipur; Kamaljeet Yadav, principal, Subodh Public School, Airport, Jaipur; Shrutidhar Paliwal, VP, Aptech Ltd; Meenakshi Uberoi, education evangelist and founder De Pedagogics, New Delhi; Nisha Jain Grover, director, Vatsalya Legacy Pvt Ltd, Jaipur, Sanjay Purkayastha, headmaster Sanskriti, The Gurukul, Guwahati, Assam — found it the perfect way to celebrate Independence Day, celebrating the future generation.

dents to venture out of the mainstream and explore their hidden sides along with their regular tasks.” Adding to that, Rama Dutt, principal, Sanskar School, Jaipur, who gave away the awards for special recognition, said that the award nominations should be considered as “a catalyst to your future journey, the success of your journey towards growth, growth of children, parents, teachers, and schools. You win this award or not, be the best of whatever you become and do. Go forward with a positive attitude and a firm determination.” Dutt’s remarks about positive attitude bring to mind the several nominees who did not win an award yet posed happily holding their certificates. Tanu Singh, an accomplished dancer, nominated in the art and culture category, said, “I hope to do better. I’ll definitely try harder now on. Maybe next year too I would get to reach here.” On a similar positive note, Meenakshi Uberoi, education evangelist and founder, De Pedagogics, New Delhi, told us how she loved the ‘back-benchers’. Was she a backbencher too? No comments, she said, with a wink. So, why? Well, she said, they are the most creative students, who may not excel in studies, but manage to do a lot more than just study, coming up with new

The entire celebration of ‘studenthood’ was divided into categories, like achievement in academics for classes 10 and 12 students who had achieved 95% or 10 CGPA; achievement in sports for those who inspired others with their individual or team performance, achievement in art and culture for those who are exceptional dancers, musicians, artists, poets, etc; student of the year for all-round performers; students who yet couldn’t fit in any of these categories but were outstanding were awarded under open category. Madhu Maini, principal, Jayshree Periwal High School was glad that children were being awarded at a national level for the first time ever. “I really appreciate what ScooNews is doing, not just with this award event, but also the entire profile they have built for themselves. I think, at a time when technology is shooting up, everything including the classrooms going digital, ScooNews has designed a new arena. As for the awards, these days highlighted subjects have always been PCM and probably commerce too, but liberal arts too is now picking up, and other fields too. And recognizing these other fields with special awards will encourage stu-

Children should take their own decisions, hold themselves accountable for them, and work towards their decisions, without blaming others for success or failure. Suniti Sharma, Principal, MGD School, Jaipur

September 2016

I am proud of my child and his efforts. I hope he performs better still and goes on to represent India many more times and come back a winner. This is the first time, however, that he has been nominated for any such award. I am very hopeful; although if he doesn’t win, we hope he comes back here next year and wins. Sanjay Seth, father of Sarthak

Choices and questions of children are now being taken seriously. Skill has gradually become more important than books. Pankaj Prabhat, Jaipuria Insititute of Management

Congrats ScooNews for the initiative of bringing the talent among students other than academics to the front. Madhu Maini, principal, Jayshree Periwal High School, Jaipur

ideas to irritate teachers, for one! Imagine, she wondered, what new things these back-benchers could create if their energies were recognized and given the right direction right in the school without waiting for them to graduate, find a regular job and then show their creativity. Talking about how technology could be used to transform the education scenario in India, she said that since technology had become such an inherent part of our lives, we should start focusing on its benefits. Instead of trying to keeping children away from mobile phones, laptops, tabs, which is a task next to impossible, we should start thinking of developing something that would keep our children away from the negatives of internet, like a tool that would give filtered content only. While BCA, Bsc in computer sciences, MS are things of past, there could now be new courses designed to specialize in emoticons or emojis. Just like learning a foreign language is now mandatory in schools, why not innovate and think about SMS language that children end up using even in their exam answer sheets, she said!

yet, without any interest in his books, this boy, who wants to start his business, has earned 10 CGPA! While technology has been greatly underestimated, undervalued and misunderstood when it comes to education in India, sports is another field which needs better understanding, as pointed out by Kamaljeet Yadav, principal, Subodh Public School, Airport, Jaipur. A firm believer in the value of sport and physical exercise, Yadav said that though teachers and schools used to lay special focus on studies, the new trend was to give equal weightage to sports. Sports, she said, develop team spirit, discipline, physical wellness, confidence, positive attitude, sportsmanship, thus leading to an overall development of students and bringing them up to be ideal citizens. And it is not difficult to indulge regularly in sports, as attested by the mother of two young achievers, Aatrika and Aartira, both of whom were nominated for excellence in sports. Aatrika, a Jayshree Periwal High School student, who has won bronze medal in all India Real Gold Roller

And it might in fact help students like Mihir, who studies commerce and math in class 12, Sanskar School, Jaipur, but has no interest in academics, however, and finds learning languages a burden. And

Bornil Gogoi

September 2016

YOUNG STAR AWARDS Skating Championship, and silver and gold in Rajasthan Speed Skating Festival in two consecutive years, etc, took the top award for her skating skills. The mother says that the girl manages her studies and sports together really well. As much good these children do, it becomes tough for them to continue without awards and rewards, thus rendering recognition and appreciation of efforts important. Like Nisha Jain said, “It is important to help children know that efforts are more important. That their decisions are valued. And occasional rewards for efforts and success are a must; parents and teachers should celebrate ‘you did it’ moment, celebrate ‘I am proud of you’ moment, maintaining and respecting the difference between a reward and bribe.” However, both reward and bribe work almost in the same way initially, the real result shows in long run. When reward is to help develop a skill, give a motivation, bribe is given to use a particular skill. While the reward depends on parents and teachers, they should give their children the independence to choose the skill they want to excel in. Added Suniti Sharma, principal, Maharani Gayatri Devi School, Jaipur, “Children should take their own decisions, hold themselves accountable for it, work towards their decisions, without blaming others for success or failure. What they choose, how they implement should be given in their hands, with the much-needed, well-timed guidance from their guardians, teachers and schools.”

“Rewards for efforts and success are a must; parents and teachers should celebrate the ‘you did it’ moment, the ‘I am proud of you’ moment.” While students were being appreciated by some of the top educators, Ravi Santlani, the co-founder and CEO, ScooNews also took the chance to encourage the students to do more for themselves and not just for awards, while promising them awards for their achievements and advising them to “never give up.” Concluding the event, he also appreciated his team without which the awards “wouldn’t have been possible.”

This is just a bit... I have miles to go before I sleep. Vansh Vasishth, winner of student of the year award

Nisha Jain was heard saying, “reward doesn’t feel great without a struggle,” and we couldn’t agree with her more. While the entire ScooNews team had sleepless nights pulling the event off, they felt as rewarded as the nominees and winners who went back smiling!

We’ve made water and fire resistant fabric, specially for women working in kitchen, so as to avoid any accidental burning. Madhumita Bisht, class 10, The Mann School, Delhi

THE AWARDEES

Sports: Sarthak Seth & Shambhavi Kumari (winners from JKG International School, Ghaziabad and Sanskar School, Jaipur, respectively), Rishabh Tyagi (first runner-up, Gurukul – The School, Ghaziabad), Yuvraj Singh Hara & Aatrika Kumar (second runners-up from Gillco International School, Kharar and Teoler High School, Jaipur, respectively).

Aatrika and Aaritra Kumar

September 2016

Schools, upgraded with the latest technology can make studies easier and fun. Shrutidhar Paliwal, VP, Aptech Ltd

The sportsground shows the true character of the student, how a child accepts victories and defeats, his team spirit, etc... Kamaljeet Yadav, principal, Subodh Public School, Airport, Jaipur

Open category

Academics (class 10): Madhumita

Shivaang Madaan (winner, Ivy World School, Jalandhar), Nishtha Gupta (first runner-up, Subodh Public School, Airport, Jaipur), Vatsal Jhunjhunwala (second runner-up, The Millennium School, Lucknow)

Bisht (winner, The Mann School, New Delhi), Harsh Poddar (first runner-up, Sanskar School, Jaipur), Divas Jyoti Parashar (second runner-up, Sanskriti School, Guwahati)

Art & Culture: Jinsa Elizabeth George (winner, Mount Caramel School, Chandigarh), Arjun Basor (first runner-up, JKG International School, Ghaziabad), Muktansh Bari (second runner-up, Jayshree Periwal High School, Jaipur)

Academics (class 12): Shivam Shekhawat & Chinmay Metha (winners from MGD School, Jaipur and Jayshree Periwal School, Jaipur), Vibhi Dixit (first runner-up, MGD, Jaipur), Divya Choudhary (second runner-up, MGD School, Jaipur)

And the stars of the evening were the Students of the year, won by: Vansh Vasishtha (winner, The Mann School, New Delhi) Bornil Gogoi (first runner-up, Sanskriti - The Gurukul, Ghaziabad) Toshani Gupta & Aashiv Sharma (second runners-up from Delhi Public School, Nagpur and Gillco International School, Kharar, respectively)

September 2016

YOUNG STAR AWARDS

Rama Dutt giving away the award of most inspiring performer 2016 to Yashovardhan Singh Rathore, Sanskar School, Jaipur.

Hardik Sharma, Jayshree Periwal High School, 96% in PCB stream, nominated in academics

Tanu Singh (second from left), JKG International School, Ghaziabad, nominated in art and culture

September 2016

Students of Sanskar School on stage for their excellence in academics with 10 CGPA or 95%

Deeksha Rajawat, Subodh Public School (Airport), nominated under academics, with Shrutidhar Paliwal, Aptech, Mumbai

Students of Scholar Global School, Bahadurgarh, Haryana Divas Jyoti Parashar, Gurukul - The Sanskriti, nominated under academics, with Pankaj Prabhat of Jaipuria Institute

Toshani Gupta, DPS Nagpur, the second runner-up in student of the year category, with Suniti Sharma, MGD School, Jaipur

Shambhavi Kumari, Sanskar School, Jaipur, awardee, best in sports, with Kamaljeet Yadav, principal, Subodh Public School, Airport

Some of the top educators of Jaipur. Left to right: Madhu Maini (JPHS), Suniti Sharma (MGD School), Rama Dutt (Sanskar School)

September 2016

YOUNG STAR AWARDS

Dr Harish Chandra, director, Dotsquares Happiness Foundation, with Kamaljeet Yadav and Aatrika Kumar, class 2, winner of third prize in sports

Nisha Jain Grover, director, Vatsalya Legacy, with one of the nominees

Sanjay Purkaykstha, headmaster, Gurukul - The Sanskriti, giving a certificate to Saumya Dhakar of Subodh Airport

Sarthak Seth (second from right), winner in sports category (he tied with Shambhavi Kumari), with his proud family

Ravi Santlani, CEO, ScooNews, with one of the winners

September 2016

Students of class 12, JPHS, who achieved 10 CGPA or more

Pic courtesy: boomsbeat

Muktansh Bari, JPHS, receives certificate from Reecha Chandra, director, DS Academy, for his dancing skills

Meenakshi Uberoi, education evangelist, De Pedagogics, as she talks about how technology can revolutionize the Indian education system

Anticipation, hopes, and smiles: Students from various schools , along with their parents/guardians, awaiting their names.

September 2016

YOUNG STAR AWARDS Jinsa Elizabeth George Grade 10 Bharatanatyam dancer with 98 solo stage shows to her credit, Jinsa Elizabeth George (awarded the 1st prize in Art and Culture category) calls her parents her support system. It is because of them, she says, she is able to schedule everything: not just dance, but drawing too; the girl who has won many NIE dance competitions loves to draw as well! Is drawing her love or dance? “It's difficult... it’s like asking a child who do you love more, mother or father,” she counters. Student of Mount Carmel School, Chandigarh, Jinsa has no inclination for the traditional dances of Punjab like Bhangra/Gidda. “I don’t think it suits my body language. I have been learning Bharatanatyam since I was 5. So, I think I am kinda addicted to it,”she says sagely.

Vansh Vasishth

Aatrika and Aaritra Kumar Bronze in all India real gold roller skating championship, silver medal in Rajasthan speed skating, gold medal in Rajasthan speed skating festival 2016, many gold, silver and bronzes in skating in the last few years...! Whew! Like their achievements their names also sound similar, don’t they? The talented duo are siblings. Siblings who are crazy about skating and have won many awards in the game, and called self inspired by their mom. She said, “When we shifted to our new house they saw some of children skating so both of them got interested in it.” Younger of the two, Aatrika is in class 2 while Aaritra is in class 5. Both of them practise for two-and-ahalf hours daily but when the competition is near they practise for more than that. Their proud mother says that both her kids are good in academics also. She said, “Both get A1, and B sometimes but that is very rare.” While Aatrika received the 3rd prize in sports category of SYSA, Aaritra was one of the nominees.

Always a class topper in academics and various competitive exams conducted by the Science Olympiad Foundation from class 1 to 8, Vansh has excellent international ranks in these exams. He has been awarded with a scholarship for Excellence in English by the British Council, is a gold medalist in the French Olympiad. A consistent performer with merit in almost all fields related to academics, he has also won the junior swimming championship in spite of being a sub junior and the chess championship. And it all began while he was in the nursery — winning races, fancy dress competitions, elocution and chanting of Vedic Mantras! Also a member of the school orchestra as a synthesizer player, he is an ideal example of all- round development, and why not? He really is the ultimate winner of the student of the year category. A student of the Mann Public School, Delhi, Vansh does not want his victory to overpower his mind and so the down to earth winner says, “I have miles to go before I sleep.” Well, he certainly has the world spread out before him. Chemistry is his favourite subject. “I like chemical reactions and all. Things combining, bonds forming, breaking... I like it,” he says.

September 2016

Bornil Gogoi Name a field and he has nailed it and so he truly deserves to be 2nd runner up of the Students of year category of SYSA. He is a swimmer, is a red belt in taekwondo, is ranked 199 in AITA (All India Tennis Association), a semi finalist in under 12 doubles category, and has cleared grade 3 in piano from the Association of the School of Music, London. In short, he has all that is needed get SYSA’s most prominent award. “I have been playing tennis for the last 5 years. From the last two years I have been playing tournaments. My father helped me in tennis. He is the main reason behind me playing tennis.” So, taekewando or tennis, which is his favourite? And what about piano? “I like both taekewando and tennis and other than that cricket interests me. As far as piano is concerned I can’t differentiate between sports and piano.”

Shavian Madaan He represented his school in the 4th International Youth Conference, participated in Canvas Model United Nations-2016 held from 3 - 5 June 2016, ANTHE Junior 2015, 1st International Equanimity Olympiad-2015, RABI quiz 2015, IJSSEL and secured the 29th rank in the zone, Sahodaya Inter-school Science Model Making Competition, successfully completed the Adobe Flash Course with one month training in June from Animation Bugs, won gold medal in IMO 2015. Phew! The list has finally ended but Shivaang Madaan still continues to write stories of success. Bringing laurels to his school, IVY World School, Jalandhar, the lad won 1st prize in the other category of SYSA. He describes technology as his passion and so learnt Adobe Flash Course. About him winning the award he said, “I wasn’t expecting my name but received a mail saying that I am amongst the top three so I was thrilled and was waiting to receive this award.”

Sarthak Seth This India rank 3 in table tennis stands at 88 on the world scale. A student of JKG school, Sarthak has represented India in the Asian Championship in Malaysia and the Thailand Open. It’s been 8 years since he began playing. “When was in class 6 I held my record first time... Now I am playing for under 18 category and this is my second year in this category. So, I would like to be in the top four again and play international level again. I want to play in the Olympics for India,” says he. As a start, he aims to achieve the first rank at the national level and then the world championships! This 12th grader stood first in SYSA’s sports category.

Madhumita Bisht With her model of water and fire resistant fabric one may guess chemistry as her favourite subject but the girl who has won the IGNITION 2016 Science Exhibition likes biology, particularly microbiology. Resident of Himachal Pradesh, she is studying in Delhi’s Mann Public School as her father wanted her to face competition and know the world beyond her hilly terrain. Describing her model she said, “We’ve made water and fire resistant fabric. Sometimes while working in kitchen gravy falls or gas flames burn clothes. So, we carried out some experiments to make some stuff which is both water and fire resistant. We thought if we make water resistant fabric and the fabric catches fire it would not get doused with water. But on the other hand making it fire resistant will not let it burn as it will not get the oxidation reaction easily it will only get converted to charcoal so fire will not spread and moreover the pore size is so small that the water will not go inside the bulk and will stay on the surface.” Madhumita has won the meritorious performance award in the Science Olympiad and has also won the INNOVATION FAIR 2016 award.

September 2016

YOUNG STAR AWARDS Academics: Nominees – Class 10 Yash Prakash Gupta, Gurukul School,

10 CGPA

Prabal Gupta, Hansraj Model School, Punjabi Bagh

10CGPA

Rishi Bhatia, JKG International School

10CGPA

Madhumita Bisht, Maan School - Delhi

10CGPA

Divas Jyoti Parashar, Sanskriti, Assam, Guwahati

98%

Devansh Gupta, Sanskar School

9.8CGPA

Harsh Poddar, Sanskar School

10CGPA

Muskan dhoot, Sanskriti The Gurukul

92.80%

Ninisha Anubhuti Barman, Sanskriti The Gurukul

97%

Sakshi Jain, Sanskriti The Gurukul

96.40%

Academics: Nominees – Class 12 CH.S.K.K Alekhya, JPHS JAIPUR

96%

Shivam Shekhwat, MGD(JAIPUR)

98.20%

Ayushi Sharma, Subodh Public School (Airport)

94.80%

Deeksha Rajawat, Subodh Public School (Airport)

91%

Chinmay Metha, JPHS Jaipur

97.80%

Aman Bansal, JPHS Jaipur

96.20%

SYAMANTAK KUMAR, JPHS Jaipur

97.8

Rashmi Yadav, JKG International School

98%

Divya Choudhary, MGD Jaipur

95.80%

Vibhi Dixit, MGD Jaipur

97%

Lavesh Meena, Subodh Public School (Airport)

80%

Sports: Nominees AARITRA KUMAR, JPHS Jaipur

Skating

KAVIN, DPS Panipat

Taekwondo

PRASHANT SINGH, G D Goenka Agra

Taekwondo

ROOPA RANI, GILCO International Mohali

Taekwondo

YUVRAJ SINGH HARA, GILCO International Mohali

Golf & Taekwondo

RISHABH TYAGI, Gurukul Ghaziabad

Chess

SARTHAK SETH, JKG School

Table Tennis

GOVIND SINGH BISHT, JKG School

Hockey

ANOUSHKA BHARADWAJ, JPHS Jaipur

Shooting

BHAVYA PANDIT, JPHS Jaipur

Taekwondo

YAMANDEEP SHARMA, JPHS Jaipur

Athlete

SIDDHESH KUMAR PANDEY, Kendriya Viyalaya 4

Karate

AASHISH INDORIYA, Sanskar School

Cricket (National/ District)

SHAMBHAVI KUMAR, Sanskar School

Shooting

AATRIKA KUMAR, Teoler High School

Skating

Art and Culture: Nominees

Arjun Basor, JKG International School

Dance

Tannu Singh, JKG International School

Dance

Nishi Shrivastava, JKG International School

Dance

Mehak Sharma, JPHS Jaipur

Drawing & Painting

Muktansh Bari, JPHS

Dance

Jinsa Elizabeth George, Mount Carmel Chandigarh

Dance

Preeyam Agrwalla, Ryan Ghaziabad

PAINTING

Divya Akar, St. Edmunds School (Jawaharl Nagar)

Boxing

September 2016

Others: Nominees Navya Dhir, Gurukul The School : Won many Debate Competitions ,titled as best speaker, been editor in school editorial team, been first in book review competition, won writing competitions, Participated in folk dance at international level and stood first in international level competition. Been awarded as best creative writer , best in dramatics • Been promoting environmental activities and worked with NGO Drishti. Been great host to exchange program students from polish schools • Worked in the field of journalism with some project of Zee. Been active in most skits, street plays and stage plays organized by her schools.

Anisha Sidhu, Ivy World School : • Took part in chess & Swimming championship for under 18 category, • Awarded Best dancer in contemporary dance style organized the Big 92.7 FM in Amritsar, • Active and rigorous part in all the Olympiads and CBSE organized various literary competition, • Awarded for excellence in article writing on social issues, • participated in essay competitions and have achieved merits, • District level player of basketball, Got appreciation by a NGO for took part in River Cleaning Project in Pune 2012. Shivaang Madaan, IVY World School : • Represented the school in the 4th International Youth Conference, school IGN MUN, • Participated in Canvas Model United Nations2016 held from 3rd June 5th June 2016, ANTHE Junior 2015, 1st International Equanimity Olympiad-2015, RBI quiz 2015, IQSTSE and secured 29th rank in the zone, Sahodaya Interschool Science Model Making Competition, • Successfully completed the Adobe Flash Course with one month training in June from Animation Bugs, • Won gold medal in IMO 2015. Vatsal Jhunjhunwala, Millennium School : • He has presided over the Secretariat of two Model United Nations in the Millennium School, • He is a musician par excellence and has won several accolades for playing the drums, • He teach music to the inmates of the pediatric cancer ward of king George Medical College, Lucknow. Khushali Sharma, Subodh Public School (Airport) : • Participated in State level Essay, Art and Painting Competition, • Participated in Olympiad of Science, English, Cyber, Maths, • Participated in Self Defence Program, • Got silver medal in art and essay Nishtha Gupta, Subodh Public School (Airport) : • 2nd Position in Essay Writing (UNIC Certificate- 2014), • 1st Position in Robotics at National Level Himanshu Khandelwal, Subodh Public School (Airport) : • Participated in quiz, • Participated in National Cadet Corps at State Level, • Appreciation in No Tobacco Activity by CBSE

Student Of The Year: Nominees Aashiv Sharma, Gillco International School : • 1st Position in class 7th with 87.9% • 1st Position in class 92% • 17th Punjab State Open Taekwondo Championship : Silver Medal. • Inter class chess championship: 1st position. • 19th District Taekwondo championship : Gold Medal. • 18th Punjab State Taekwondo Championship: Gold Medal • Cross Country Race: 1st Position. • Best Athlete in Annual athletic Meet. • 11th Tricity Open Taekwondo Championship : Gold Medal • Hasya Kavita Pratiyogita - 2nd position • English Creative Writing Competition : 2nd Position • Photography Competition : Consolation • Got Special appreciation award in photography. • Quiz competition : 1st Position • English Poetry Recitation Competition. Aditya Jaiswal, DPS Nagpur : • 10CGPA in 10th CBSE • District Basketball Player. Elementary and intermediate level in art rubiks cube in 14.89 seconds. Blind folded on red fm in 3 min. 3 yr diploma in acting helen o grady. Toshani Gupta, DPS Nagpur : •10 CGPA In 10th Board. •State rank in olympiad.prises in spell bee, participated in math quiz n elocution. Represented school in Bournvita quiz contest. • Medals in inter school skating, won handball tounaments. Rep in on the spot poetry, poem published in TOI, finalist in interschool debate, president of interact Rotary club, 3rd prize in camel art contest, zonal finalist in Robotryst workshop.

Shaurya Vats, Gurukul Ghaziabad : •10 CGPA in 10th board. Debate, National & International Olympiad, exchange student to Poland, best speaker award in extempore held at international center Delhi. Best creative writer, member of rotary.

Shikhar Singhania, JPHS : •Grade 4 •Participated in Maths and Informatics Olympiad, Certificates from UNSW Global Australia, SOF, IMO, NOF, IIO,JPSH, JPIS Poetry, Academic Intelligence, Quiz, Book Review, MS Ppt Competitions, Story Telling, Poster making.

Barkha Bhandari, JPHS Jaipur : 10 CGPA in 10th Board., 3rd n 5th rank in IEO, best delegate awarded in mun. Ist division in Bhatkande Sangit Vidyapith, Lucknow, participation in quiz, poetry, singing. Participation in several muns. Mann Dubey, Ryan Mayur Vihar : 10 CGPA in 10th, Vivification, Acknowledged By Government. Helpage actively working, selected to represent Delhi in finals. Quiz performed at Childrens festival. 6th year of classical Hindustani Sangeet, chosen in top 20 out of 2,00,000 entries in doodle 4 Google, India competition Organised By Google inc. Ayush Mathur, Subodh Public School (Airport) : 10CGPA, NTSE Stage 1 Rank 25, Gold Medal in SOF, Distinction in IAIS, •Won a dozen Prizes for Vocal Classical music, •India Intelligent Contest by JKLU, • Contribution in Theatre, music and Debate, • Played Table Tennis at District Level Bornil Gogoi, Sanskriti The Gurukul : • ranked no.199 in AITA (All India Tennis Association), semi-finals in under 12 doubles category, •Red Belt in Taekwondo, •Swimmer, • Won certificate of asset , Olympiad and proficiency, • passed grade 3 in piano from The Association Of The School Of Music, London, • Certificate of proficiency of school in the field of yoga and music, • first prize in extempore speech, • took part in the national cyber camp held in Regional Science Centre, Assam Abhilasha Sharma, Sanskriti The Gurukul : • 91.8% in 10th CISCE, • Done swimming at school level and won many awards, • Trained Bharatanatyam Dancer, • Diploma in Vocals, • 3 yr course in Visual Arts, • Participated in city level events of Culture, • Achieved special appreciation for Help Age India organization, • Represented school in a reality show hosted by News Live & Rang, • Won Viewers Choice Award for School Wiz Program, • Received a graduation certificate from NASA, Huntsville, Alabama, • Been Speaker at 3 MUN's of Assam, • Represented Spain in the UNEP(United Nations Environmental Program me committee for which have received Special Mention. Debargha Roy, Sanskriti The Gurukul : Grade 10, • Awarded as the BEST DELEGATE in the Indian International Model United Nations Conference, Ghuwahati, • Holds a senior diploma in fine arts and performing arts(Vocal-Classic, • Interacted with Mr. Nurul Huda, the Chief electrical Officer cum Adviser of Assam to talk about the various eco friendly Issues, • Interacted with the Minister of Coal and Natural Resources, Mr. Piyush Goyal via video conferencing, • Laid down the grievances of the people of Assam with his school delegation and proposed solutions regarding sustainable development a part of the Junior Scouts and Guides team, • Participated in various youth forums, • Participated in various singing competitions, • Runner's up in the Story Telling Category. Anwesha Sikder, Sanskriti The Gurukul : Grade 7, Take part and get positions in English, Hindi and Assamese recitations, • Participated in Solo Singing and Dance, • Got SOY title since class 2, Got first in Camel Ink Handwriting competition, Got Selected for Spell bee and also for MARS International Spell bee, Best News Reader, • Bharatanatyam Visharad from Lucknow bhatkhande with 1st division, •Completed Arts final year Assam fine arts and crafts society as got 1st division, •9th Level of Abacus under Brain-O-Brain, Learnt to play keyboard for 3 yrs, Written poems, Done Face painting.

Vansh Vasishth, The Mann School : Grade 8th, • He always stood class topper in academics and various competitive exams conducted by Science Olympiad Foundation from class 1st to 8th, • He got excellent International ranks in these exams, • He was awarded with scholarship for Excellence in English by British Council, • He is gold medalist of French Olympiad, • VANSH is recipient of scholarship for Excellence in English from The British Council and Science Olympiad Foundation Delhi. He is consistent performer with merit in all most fields related to academics, curricular and • In spite of being a sub juniors, he won junior swimming championship & chess championship, • By winning environment friendly race, fancy dress competition, poetic recitation and chanting of Vedic Mantras, he made his presence felt in nursery itself, • He is a member of school orchestra player of synthesizer, • . He is an ideal example of all round personality development, satisfying motto of a residential school.

September 2016

YOUNG STAR AWARDS

Education

ON THE GO is the need ScooNews Correspondent writeback@scoonews.com How do you think SYSA will help students? I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a superb initiative as children, the young generation and future of our country, are being awarded here. How a nation is going to fare depends on its young generation and thus encouraging this particular generation becomes of high importance. They constantly need inspiration and it becomes the job of educators and initiators like ScooNews to constantly encourage and inspiring them. Do you think subjects other than management and technical have a scope in India? Well, there was a time when the best things to be were doctor, lawyer, engineer, so the most popular subjects were very limited. In fact, the mainstream still is about these subjects. For children who opt to choose other subjects, it gets tough to make their parents understand though, liberal arts and other subjects too are picking up fast. The trend is changing with the range of jobs on offer expanding. It is going to take some time, but it will definitely pick up in India too. We at Jaipuria too have introduced such subjects along with the mainstream subjects, like, economics, literature, foreign languages, karate, music, etc. Parents and educators need to realize that these subjects have their own importance. The recognition is specially low in management and technical institutions. I genuinely hope educators, specially in such institutions, realize studies should not always remain limited to classrooms and books and notebooks. What do you see in students today as compared to a generation earlier? The generation has evolved a lot. My time as a student was very different from what it is now. The major change has been because of technology; thanks to which the way we teach, who teaches, who studies, teaches what, studies what, everything has evolved. While we struggled to find good books as sometimes teachers were unapproachable, students these days are

Students should be given the choice to explore for themselves than just following the herd, stresses Pankaj Prabhat, director, Jaipuria Institute of Management, on the sidelines of SYSA carrying their books in their smartphones. Teachers now are available virtually, virtual coaching classes can be opted for. A generation was struggling for books, another was struggling with the weighty laptops. And now? Students get everything on the go. Along with this, as the world has shrunk with technology, students have now started expanding their specialization. Earlier, the focus was on degrees and jobs. No more! Students these days are more concerned about their performance after their degrees, they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t study for degrees only, but for the relevance of their degrees, their future prospects. And continue seeking knowledge even while working. They have grown smarter! Do you find it important to include vocational training and skill development in the school curriculum? As a child grows so grow the parents. Education has changed, childhood has changed and so have parents and schools. And their needs and demands. Such changes have rendered it important to do more than just studies, which could be sports, or music, or gardening, etc. Not every child wants to be a software developer, some want to be photographers. For them, vocational training and skill development becomes important. What better place to give them an opportunity to hone their skills in schools itself! And we also help them continue developing their skills during their further studies. Yes, skills have gradually become more important than books. Nida Fazli had aptly written: Bachhon ke chotte haathon ko chaand sitare chhune do / Chaar kitaben padh kar ke ye bhi hum jaise ho jayenge. We want the next generation to smarter than us, right? To do better? So, we need to give them something more. If we analyze it, we would conclude that it is skill development that helps them the most.

September 2016

MUSINGS

Schooled with

CARE

What do you call a gurdwara that doubles up as an orphanage? A home, a school? ScooNews visits one and comes away impressed

September 2016

Hridya Narang hridya@scoonews.com

e go places… get amused at times and then we forget. But as a writer, I enjoy the luxury of penning down what leaves a mark on me and hence keeping memories alive forever. This article is one of those experiences, one that I had on my many visits to Gurdwara Nanaksar Thaath, Jaipur. You may wonder what sort of a story can one get from a gurdwara… a religious one... you guess probably, but no… this is more about children, who live, learn, play and worship here. That kids live here, doesn’t that sound fascinating to you? Well! I have been visiting this gurdwara on Amber road for a while and every time I have visited, seeing young kurta pyjamaclad boys taking Gurbani lessons, I wondered… where did they come from? Who are they? Why are they here? But my thirst for these questions isn’t quenched until I meet Jaswant Singh ji, manager and caretaker of these boys. Jaswant Singh ji, who is also called ustad ji, not only briefs me about the life of these youngsters but also takes me down to the hall where they sit practising the harmonium, reading the Gurbani and playing the tabla, or eating their simple langar breakfast of dal and roti.

Pics: Dinesh Meena /ScooNews

Replying to my hundred and one questions, Jaswant Singh ji tells me that though these kids are from various parts of the country most of them are from Alwar. While some of them are orphans, others are from extremely poor Sikh families who cannot afford raising them. The gurdwara, with help from followers and Baba Sukhdev

September 2016

MUSINGS

Singh ji Bucho Kalan Wale takes care of them and their basic necessities, education and also vocational training in different areas so as to help them learn a trade and make a self-sufficient life for themselves. The school, now till class 10, has been operational since 2008 and has earlier, when it did not have class 10, supported kids to take board exams privately. What surprises me the most is that the gurdwara has also supported a few of the boys to help them complete their engineering degree. Wow! And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not all, they are also taken for

visits to other gurdwara across the country. Followers bring them gifts on special occasions and festivals and the gurdwara organizes competitions for them and winners are awarded with prizes. Jaswant Singh ji gets me to talk to two of the boys, Ranjeet Singh and Gurpreet Singh, and believe me, I am in complete awe when they tell me of their daily routine. The older boys, they say, wake up every morning at 3.30 to do their path (reading) of Gurbani and Nitnem. The younger ones awake at 5.00am to join them for kirtan at 5.30. Their routine

appears tough to me but then the kids go on to tell me, gleefully, about their fun factorâ&#x20AC;Ś football, volleyball, kabaddi, cricket.... I am amazed once again. And then, they are trained in playing the tabla and harmonium. Who knows they may make a career in music tomorrow or turn granthis. Coming back to my questions, well, almost all have been answered. There is still one I am unable to get an answer for though. Should the kids call this place an orphanage? A school? Gurdwara? Or home?

September 2016

OPEN DOOR

Learning disability is just that... not a curse And it is high time our schools recognized that, and got off their high horse to do something about it, says our columnist for this month

S Nisha Jain Grover

writeback@scoonews.com

A learning disability

is an area of weakness or inefficiency in brain function that significantly hinders our ability to learn. It is a pattern of neurological dysfunction that causes a person to have difficulty correctly receiving information, correctly processing it, or satisfactorily responding to it (written and verbal expression, visual-motor coordination, memory, etc). People with learning disabilities have average to superior intelligence. Many are gifted in math, science, fine arts, journalism, and other creative fields. A list of such people would include Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, and many others who have changed the course of our world.

ay about two lakh teachers enroll every year to teach in private and government schools across the nation. About 40% of them have not even heard about learning difficulties and think that those students who can’t perform in the class are mentally weak and ill, about 16% are aware of the same but are helpless when they have to deal with this kind of a student. Only about 33% of the teachers (and that too in the posh schools generally) are aware of all the difficulties and are even technically capable of helping these students. But the school management does not support them, because they are worried about the overall results of the school. So, on an average, about 8% of teachers probably understand these difficulties which are not genetic or neurological or related to mental development, and maybe help students. What is shocking is that even doctors are not fully aware of the issues of learning difficulties. Our recent workshop with a couple of doctors at a medical college was an eyeopener for us too. The reason is that medical studies do not actually cover this problem (it is usually taken for granted). According to an earlier survey conducted by

For more, log into http://nildcanada.org/ learning-disabilities/

September 2016

us in year 2000 we observed around 2-3 children in each class with some learning disability which went up to 7-8 in each class by 2008. Around 2010 we could identify around 12 students with some learning and behavioural issues and in 2015 we had about 15–19 students, ie around 36% of the class strength. Now this is a highly alarming! In such a situation what happens when the teacher is not well equipped and the management of the school is unsupportive? We had a student called Iris* at our remedial centre from a renowned school of Jaipur, which we shall call XYZ School. When she could not perform in class 1, the parents were told ‘don’t worry we will take care of her, she is too small and will cope up when she grows up’. The parents also took it lightly. This went on till class 6 when the child was still unable to write and relate to the words written. Of course, the parents were worried now and approached her school again and again but the answer remained the same. When pursued the school’s answer changed to ‘ma’am, you need to be careful with your child or we may not be able to promote her’. The parents were, as always, helpless and worried. All they got to hear

http://readtoleadnj.com

from the school was that their child was not capable of being in a mainstream school. By the way, the girl is a javascript expert and a national badminton player, but she was adjudged as being ‘not good enough’ for the school! Anyway, this went on for one more year by which time, she had reached class 8. Worried now about the school result, the management of this so called ‘best school of the city’ played a game with the parents, who were called and told to sign a letter saying “if (the girl) does not perform well in class 8 the parents will willingly take her out of the XYZ School’. Feeling cheated, the parents were left pleading with the school management. Disheartened, they hired six tutors to take her tuition in six subjects. On an average, the youngster was now studying throughout the day and sometimes even late into the night. Consequently, she began to hate her books even more, her performance on the sports field too declined, as did her relationship with her parents due to the pressure on them. She hated school. All she wanted was TV, food and her mobile.

Working in the area of learning disabilities and behaviour awareness, Nisha Jain Grover is a graduate of Maharashtra University, the writer is a nationally awarded counsellor psychologist/ educationist. She has also been recently awarded most Innovative Educator. Founder and director of Vatsalya Legacy Pvt Ltd, she runs counselling centres in various schools and has been the resource person and trainer for the executive council of CBSE.

Yes, you guessed right, she could not clear class 8. The school won. Both the parents and the child had failed, making her feel worthless and incapable. The child began to sink into depression. She had no school to go to as most city high profile schools refused her admission. The few who did wanted her to compromise on a lot of things. It was then that one of her aunts approached us for intervention. I met the girl after hearing her story. It was difficult but we convinced her somehow for a diag-

nostic test. The test showed that she had dysgraphia (a writing disorder or inability to write coherently). We immediately started with remedial classes for her, got the parents to let her drop a year, and kept her with us for two batches. Alongside, a lot of counselling went on to boost her morale. Gradually, the child became confident enough to restart playing badminton and her journey started again. Some string pulling helped her get back into the same school. Today, three years on, she is a nationals player once again and has just cleared her class 12 from the XYZ School with flying colours (76%). She is at a college in Mumbai and knows how to deal with her problem. The sad part is that we have a lot of girls like Iris around us and even more schools like hers, which are not sensitive enough to the needs of learning-disabled children. They believe in selling education rather than nurturing citizens for this country. It is high time this attitude changed. My message to the principals and management of schools is, please look for students like Iris in your school and try to help them. It isn’t rocket science and if you are more bothered about the ‘name’ of the school building like XYZ School was, at least have the grace to let the parents know at the right time to save their child from avoidable trauma. By the way, XYZ School has not changed much. All it offers now is a sop in the shape of a remedial class once in a week, which is chargeable. Many other city schools are on the same path. Are we going to reach anywhere like this, I wonder. I am doing my bit and all I expect is you doing your bit. *Name changed to protect identity

September 2016

TECH IT OUT Vinay Singh writeback@scoonews.com

A EDTECH & THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT

NEWS YOU CAN USE

The government is using all technological and human resources it has to take school education to the next level. It is up to us, educators and parents, to make use of them

ccording to World Bank, India has more than 220 million school-going children and 14 million teachers. However, the number of students moving from school to college is not proportionate. While earlier governments have taken many initiatives to use technology to take education to the masses, the present governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s focus on Digital India has spurted efforts in this direction. The biggest support has come from the growth of low-cost computer and internet technology. Here are some of the IT and ICT initiatives taken by the government and its various agencies:

NDLM: Enabling IT literacy The Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (DISHA) or National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) Scheme aims to impart IT training to 52.5 lakh people, including Anganwadi and ASHA workers. Its specific purpose is to ensure that the non-IT literate citizens are trained to become IT literate to enable them to actively and effectively participate in the democratic and developmental process and also enhance their livelihood. In the first phase, 10 lakh beneficiaries will be trained under the scheme. Nine lakh beneficiaries will be eligible for training fee support from the government and the remaining 100,000 beneficiaries will be trained by the industry and civil society partners.

Vidyanjali: Sharing knowledge Vidyanjali is an initiative to enhance community and private sector involvement in Government run elementary schools across the country under the overall aegis of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Through this initiative people from the Indian diaspora, retired teachers, retired government officials, including retired defence personnel, retired professionals and women who are homemakers can volunteer at a school that requests for one. Vidyanjali will also cover initiatives under the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and public private partnership (PPP), with public sector undertaking (PSU) companies, private corporate and others.

September 2016

Bharatavani: Learning through language Bharatavani’s objective is to deliver knowledge in and about all the languages in India using multimedia (ie, text, audio, video, images) formats through a portal. The portal is designed to be all-inclusive, interactive, dynamic and will be moderated to ensure quality content. The Bharatavani Portal would publish content under the following main categories: 1. Paathyapustaka Kosha: Textbooks 2. Jnana Kosha : Knowledge base (Digitisation underway) 3. Shabda Kosha: Dictionaries 4. Bhasha Kosha : Language learning 5. Suchanaa Praudyogikii Kosha : IT tools (Linked to TDIL) 6. Bahumaadhyama Kosha: Multimedia

GIS: Mapping schools Web-based school GIS application is an initiative of the department of school education and literacy, ministry of HRD for seamless visualization of school locations across the country. This is powered by NICMAPS. Geographic location of schools collected by the various school education departments of the states has been collated and mapped on GIS platform established by national informatics centre. Further, these school locations have been interlinked with the school report cards based on U-DISE database, developed and hosted by National University of Educational Planning and Administration. This web service application comprises of

administrative boundaries up to village level and location information up to habitation level along with basic GIS functionalities and measurement tools, which will help to improve the quality of planning and better utilization of resources available under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA)

ePathshala: Push for digital books The Digital India campaign has promoted extensive use of ICTs in the teaching learning process based upon the fact that mobile and technology can reach where even humans can’t. ePathshala is a joint initiative of ministry of HRD, govt. of India and national council of educational research and training (NCERT) and will be disseminating all educational e-resources including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals, and a variety of other print and non-print materials. Students, teachers, educators and parents can access eBooks through multiple technology platform that is mobile phones, tablets and from the web through laptops and desktops. Features of these books allow users to pinch, select, zoom, bookmark, highlight, navigate, share and take notes digitally.

Shala Darpan: Monitoring students’ progress Under Shala Darpan, launched by Kendriya Vidyalaya, the parents were

allowed to keep a watch on their child’s presence at the respective classrooms. They could also check their performance in the class and the teachings given to them. The HRD ministry initiative will be on the lines of Shala Darpan, which will help the ministry to keep track of the enrolment of students to various schools. They will also keep track of their progress in the school and report of the students when they move to another class.

Saransh: Connecting schools and parents Saransh is a tool for comprehensive selfreview and analysis for CBSE affiliated schools and parents. It enables them to analyze students' performance in order to take remedial measures. Saransh brings schools, teachers and parents closer, so that they can monitor the progress of students and help them improve their performance.

Link-In to these http://www.ndlm.in/ http://vidyanjali.mygov.in/ http://schoolgis.nic.in/ https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/epathsha la/id1056118674?mt=8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/detail s?id=in.gov.epathshala&hl=en http://saransh.nic.in/ https://play.google.com/store/apps/detail s?id=com.converge.saransh&hl=en

September 2016

JUST BLOGGING

You can take a horse to

water...

...they say. Remember, your child is like that horse. He will read only if he finds it interesting. What you can do is to make books so interesting that he has no choice but to read! Our blogger tells you how

he moment a child opens his/her eyes we want them to be good readers. As parents, we always want them to be the best. And our definition of the best starts with... reading! But we forget one basic rule ourselves while trying to inculcate good reading habits in our children, that we can never force them to read something they don’t like. If they are interested in reading ghost stories, it is best not force them, ever, to read science fiction. Dr. Pooja Singh, writeback@scoonews.com

Dr Pooja Singh, principal, St Edmund’s School, Jawahar Nagar, Jaipur, has 15 years of experience and has been awarded by British Council for ‘Integration of International Learning in the School’.

Secondly, it would be great if you put books at all the places they can reach. All children are curious by nature. When they find something colourful lying around, and within their reach, they are most likely to open it than not. And, once opened, there’s no looking back. The books left lying around thus

September 2016

may not generate an interest instantly, it might take the kids a day or two but then the result would be positive, believe me. Thirdly, if they want to involve you, please be happy to do so. Don’t abstain yourself saying things like ‘I am tired and maybe I will read out to you tomorrow’. This disinterest would certainly give your kids the idea that this task is probably not important or holds no value, and they may not even ask you later, if ever. So grab any opportunity that they pass on to you. And once that is done, fix a designated time for it, so they start looking forward to the shared activity. Next, you make sure to read yourself in front of them. It is a tried and tested axiom that children learn far more from observance than they ever do by

innumerable telling. And they are real good observers. Find yourself a comfy seat anywhere in your house but definitely where your child can see you and read whatever you are interested in. It can be a business magazine or a novel or even a cookbook. Your child will just discover where their interest lies and probably they’ll do the same. Sooner or later, you will find them reading or skimming through a book/magazine of their choice, maybe even in that comfy chair of yours! Going to a library or a bookstore is always a welcome option. These places have separate and attractive areas for kids and no kid would dislike that. Take a cue from the books your child picks up and you’ll get a fair idea of what they like. Try and buy them a book every now and then. Though some of

them may make faces but then it is always better than buying them something which they might lose interest in after a month. Last, but not the least, read out to them even if they want the same story to be read out repeatedly. Don’t get into a state over it. It is only that they find it interesting and may be they find something new in it every time they listen to it. So, rather than getting annoyed or frustrated, be grateful your child is reading! Read out to them. Fix up a time where they have to read and follow it with healthy discussion about what they read or what they found interesting in it. Soon the change will follow. And you will be the one leading your precious one into a world full of vivid imagination. So, pull up your sleeves and start today!

September 2016

S M T W T 1 34

LIFE AT THE UNI Reimagining the Bard, in Sonepat

LIFE Happiness is... having a DOG!

MIND GAMES 5 ways to...kick start your memory

TAKE2 Ever been stung by a bee?

TAKE2 All about lizards, geckos and more

WATCH Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

F 2

S 3

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 TEACHERS’ DAY So, who’s my fave teacher?

BLUNT TALK A powerful conversation

ICONSPEAK Dare to be different

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 MEET CAPTAIN COOL, OF UDAIPUR

AT THE ‘CORE’ SHE AIN’T HARD AT ALL

MASTER OF MANY TRADES

E M B E

2 S 4 NEWS YOU CAN USE Through the rusted post box

M T W T 5 6 7 8

1 F S 9 10

DID YOU KNOW So you think you know all about atmosphere?

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 SHE SWAM FROM SYRIA TO RIO... YO, YUSRA!

YOUNG AND WINNING! MAKE MUSIC MANDATORY

WHY TEACHERS’ DAY DR SARVPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN When he became the President of India, some of his students and friends requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday, which fell on 5 September. “Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if September 5th is observed as Teachers’ Day,” he remarked. His birthday has since been celebrated as Teachers' Day in India.

NEWS YOU CAN USE A LESSON IN HISTORY

Through the rusted post box An online stamp and coins museum launches a docudrama on the history of the stamps, coins & notes celebrating the birth of a free and democratic India

ScooNews Correspondent writeback@scoonews.com

et’s face it, reading about India’s fight for freedom in your history books can be a boring affair! Unless you have a super cool history teacher, who can bring the entire struggle alive through her words and the way she teaches. For those not so lucky, there is a ready reckoner in the shape of Indian Independence Day, a docu-

September 2016

drama brought out by Mintage World on 15 August 2016, which takes you through the salient features of 15 August 1947 through the first day covers of stamps issued by the Indian posts and telegraph department. Yes! A look at history through the prism of stamps and coins issued by the Indian government! Cool, isn’t it? And that’s not all, the newly established online museum has a series of such docudramas under its Rusted Post Box section that relate vari-

Coins issued in remembrance and honour of our freedom struggle and its heroes

2011

1964

1972

1997

2007

50 paisa coin launched depicting Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru

10 rupee coin issued on the 25th anniv of Independence. It depicts the parliament with two people holding the Indian flag.

50 paisa coin illustrating Gandhi’s Salt March launched to celebrate 50 years of Independence

Two 5 rupee coins launched depicting Bhagat Singh and Bal Gangadhar Tilak

5 rupee coin launched depicting Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya

Stamps to commemorate the efforts of freedom fighters who played a major role in bringing Independence to India

1956

1958

2 anna stamp launched depicting Bal Gangadhar Tilak

15 naya paisa stamp launched depicting Bipin Chandra Pal

1965

1975

15 naya paisa stamp launched depicting Lala Lajpat Rai

1 rupee stamp launched depicting Bahadur Shah Zafar

1984 ous stamps, coins and notes to significant historic events. The Rusted Post Box series aims at imparting knowledge and creating interest in the areas of philately, numismatics and notaphily within the public, collectors, scholars and students. Some of the unique stamps and coins launched to celebrate and honour our very first Independence Day were the first stamp of Independent India, issued on 21 November 1947, depicting the national flag and two other stamps showing the Ashok

Four 50 naya paisa stamps launched depicting Mangal Pandey, Tatya Tope, Begum Hazrat Mahal and Nana Sahib, respectively

Pillar, the emblem of Government of India and a Douglas DC-4 aircraft, which were released on 15 December 1947. All three stamps depict the slogan ‘Jai Hind’ and the date 15 August 1947 on it. The website claims to be the world’s first online museum for vintage coins, stamps and currency notes, and has plans to make many such docudramas based on global historical dates, events and personalities. History teachers, are you listening?

1987 60 paisa stamp launched to mark 40 years of freedom

September 2016

DID YOU KNOW

So you think you know all about

ATMOSPHERE? W

ell, when you read and digest all that we have in store for you this month, you could be in for rethink! Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think so? Remember, all that we told you about clouds in your copy of the April issue of ScooNews and how we took you right up to the world of clouds? So, get ready for a ready reckoner on ATMOSPHERE! To begin with, can you define atmosphere or have you seen, smelled or tasted atmosphere? No??? But it existsâ&#x20AC;Ś yes it does. It is actually a layer of gases surrounding the Earth. It also has water in it in the form of gas called water vapour. The amount is not constant, but if all the vapour in the atmosphere fell at once as rain, it would cover the entire planet with a puddle one inch (2.54 cm) deep! What is all the more interesting is that the air in the atmosphere also contains tiny particles like dust, ash and salt.

September 2016

DID YOU KNOW Winds around the world Yes, even winds are of different types. Let us take a look at them, then. Katabatic Winds (Antarctica): These are one of the most powerful winds and have the tendency to reach frigid gusts of up to 200 miles per hour and blow down slope from the ice sheet toward the sea. Foehn: Known for flowing down from snow-capped mountainous regions of the Alps, these winds compress as they descend. Because of this nature of these winds, sometimes it gets warmer by up to 30 degree F (17 degree c) higher than the surrounding air. But this is both a boon and a bane, as the warmer winds can help the farmers by ripening crops but the warmer temperature, on the other hand, may cause the snow to melt and hence cause flooding.

But how and why is it important, you may ask Well, there are radiations in space that can harm the Earth drastically but, but, but… just like any super hero... Atmosphere is there to protect you. It acts like a protective blanket, allowing only heat and light from the sun to reach the Earth while shielding our planet from dangerous forms of energy such as ultraviolet or cosmic gamma rays, etc. Okay, now that you have got that, have you ever given a thought to how scientists predict weather? All across the world, there are ground-level weather stations which are equipped with instruments that determine local temperatures, wind conditions, rainfall and other information. Apart from them, the data is also collected from weather balloons and satellites that are in orbit around the Earth. All the information collected is finally sent to central computers, where meteorologists continuously analyze it. In a single day, the United States National Meteorological Center may analyze more than 100,000 weather reports from around the world.

Sirocco: These powerful and dry wind blow in the deserts of the Sahara where they builds huge sand dunes and also carries red desert dust high into the atmosphere and across the Mediterranean Sea. Chinook: These winds are very much like the Foehn. They are mild, melt snow and bring pleasant temperatures. They flow in the regions of North America, from the Rockies towards the north-western plains of the United States and Canada.

Bet you didn’t know... that the official highest recorded temperature is 56.7°C (134°F), which was measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch, Death Valley, California, USA. And the coldest temperature was recorded in August 2010 at the Antarctica at -94.7°C (-135.8°F). The old record had been -89°C (-128°F) recorded at Vostok, also on the Antarctic ice sheet on 21 July 1983.

Hydrogen

Argon

Less than

21%

Neon Less than

Composition of the atmosphere

Helium Less than

1% Krypton Less than

Oxygen

Xenon Less than

Nitrogen

Carbon dioxide Less than

78% September 2016

DID YOU KNOW Polar easterlies Westerlies Arctic Circle

Horse latitudes Trade winds

Tropic of Cancer

Doldrums Trade winds

Equator

Horse latitude

Tropic of Capricorn

Westerlies

Polar easterlies Antarctic Circle

Precipitation It means releasing of water from the clouds in the form of rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow or hail. Water vapours do not escape into space, they only reach the atmosphere and when some part of the atmosphere is saturated with water vapours, the water condenses to form clouds and the moisture falls to Earth as precipitation. Two common forms of precipitation are: Dew: You all have noticed droplets on grass, leaves or even on top of your cars but what is this water and where does this come from? This water is actually DEW... or the water in the atmosphere that condenses as soon as it comes in contact with surfaces that have become cooler by radiating all their heat. Rain: Now this is something we all are crazy about... We know it is precipitation but have you ever wondered how raindrops are formed? No? We’ll tell you how. There are ice particles in the clouds and when these crystals that lie in the temperate zone become heavy, they fall towards the ground but melt into raindrops before hitting the ground.

Earth’s air patterns Doldrums are low-pressure areas around the equator that are also known to have a belt of calm winds surrounding them. Trade winds: They are the winds that lie in the lower portion of the Earth’s atmosphere, basically in the lower section of the troposphere near the equator. They flow from the tropics towards the equator and from east to west in both hemispheres. Horse latitudes: Horse latitudes are subtropical latitudes between 30° and 38° both north and south where Earth's atmosphere is dominated by the subtropical high, an area of high pressure, which suppresses precipitation and cloud formation, and has variable winds mixed with calm winds. Westerlies: They are mid-latitude winds that blow from about 30° to about 60° north and south of the equator. They flow from west to east. Polar easterlies: Where the westerlies meet cold polar air, bands of winds that appear to flow east to west. These polar easterlies are some of the most powerful winds on Earth.

September 2016

TEACHERS’ DAY

Students love their teachers. Says who? Students idolize their teachers. Really? Well, some do, others don’t and everybody has their own definition of the ideal teacher. ScooNews met some dynamic and bubbly girls, who defined their ideal. But, wait, we also caught some teachers who talked about what sort they would like to be! Read on, for Teachers’ Day is round the corner

So, who’s my FAVE TEACHER? Alena, Class 11 One who can understand the kids. Strict but understanding.

Vatsala, Class 11 One who can connect with students and be very understanding... I prefer my teachers to be friendly.

Jahnavi, Class 11 Teachers are like second parents, they play a role in shaping a child.

September 2016

Priyanka, Class 11 Should be motivating, understanding; don’t like teachers who yell a lot.

Ishika, Class 11 Teachers are our mentors and they guide us to right path and we are doing IB curriculum and its really very tough and they are there to help us at any point of time.

Saachi, Class 11

Vidhi Shree Sharma, teacher I prefer to be a lenient teacher because it is necessary to be your studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; friend to win their confidence. I hated my own school days because my teachers were so strict; I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to be like that for my own students.

IB is a curriculum that involves everything so you have to have a teacher who understands all this. She should understand when you have to go for extra curriculur or social service, should be understanding of the fact who we are as persons so she can mould us into something that we want to become not force us into something we are not.

Twinkle Lukose, teacher I intend for my students to achieve their full potential and hence am a mix of stern and lenient so that I establish a respectful, supportive and trusting relationship.

Tanya Sharma, teacher

Navya, Class 11 A teacher should be supportive, should know how to handle school properly rather than loitering around just for fun.

My math teacher scolded me a zillion times for not doing good. That demotivated me. I started hating him and wanted to prove him wrong so worked harder than ever before and when I scored 95 marks in class 10 I went up to him to tell him that I had finally proved him wrong, he said: I knew you would do it one day, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why I poked you, I am happy for you.

September 2016

BLUNT TALK Bill Gates writes about what makes a good teacher and how schools are the building blocks of democracy

A powerful conversation

ON SCHOOLS, POVERTY & RACE Star Wars to explain civil rights! I’m a big Star Wars fan, but I have to admit, I never thought about how it might relate to civil rights in the United States. Nate Bowling and I were talking about how really effective teachers manage to make the subject matter relevant for their students. “If you hit kids the right way, you can get them super passionate about anything,” he says. “It’s about how you sell it.” It turns out that Nate loves Star Wars too, and he went on to show me how he uses the original trilogy of movies to help his students understand three landmark moments in the history of America’s civil rights movement. I wondered how many of Nate’s high-school students have seen the original Star Wars. He said it’s usually about half, and they can explain it to the other kids pretty easily. He’s proud to call himself a nerd, and wants his students to think of themselves the same way. Which brought us back to Star Wars. As Nate reminded me: “Never underestimate the power of nerddom.” Bill Gates

e had me at “nerd farmer.” Nate Bowling was sitting in my office, talking about teaching. I consider myself a nerd, so when the Washington State Teacher of the Year used the word early in our meeting—and meant it as a compliment—I sat up a little in my chair. “I joke about being a nerd farmer,” Nate said. “I’m trying to cultivate a kind of

September 2016

scholarship in students, and a passion for learning. So I bring passion to the classroom, and they see that and rise to the occasion.” I asked Nate why he’s so passionate about teaching. “It is a matter of life and death,” he said. “If my students are not successful in school, they end up in the prison-industrial complex.” Nate teaches at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, about 30 miles south of Seattle.

Half its students are African-American or Hispanic. More than 70 percent are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which makes Lincoln a textbook example of what educators call the New Majority, reflecting the fact that more than half the students in American public schools today live in poverty. Most of the New Majority do not graduate from high school ready for college or a high-paying job. So what happens at diverse, high-poverty schools like Lincoln matters a lot for the future of the country. Fortunately, what is happening at Lincoln is quite positive. It has a graduation rate of 80 percent, above the average for Washington schools with similar demographics, and 40 percent of its students are taking Advanced Placement (AP) classes. Nate is quick to give credit to his principal and his fellow teachers. If his colleagues are anything like him, it’s no surprise that Lincoln’s students are doing well. Not only was Nate our state’s Teacher of the Year, he was also a finalist for National Teacher of the Year. He told me that all the students he advised in 2015–16 were accepted to college or vocational school. “All kids can learn if they have the support,” he said. He teaches AP Government to 12th graders and—to my surprise—AP Human Geography to 9th graders. I wondered if it was risky, holding students who often can’t read at their grade level to the high standards of an AP class. But Nate doesn’t see it that way. “I can't teach the class like I would to a group of kids who were all on grade level, but those kids can achieve,” he said. “My principal and I have an understanding. We’re not concerned about kids passing the AP exam. We just want them to learn. I would rather have 100 percent of the kids in the most difficult class and have 25 pass the AP test, than have 25 kids in it and 100 percent pass.” Early this year, Nate got national attention when he wrote a provocative blog post titled “The Conversation I’m Tired of Not Having.” The post—a blunt look at the racial divide in America’s public schools—generated more than a million views and was reprinted in major newspapers. I read it before our meeting and agreed with a lot of it. I asked Nate about the reaction he got. Much of the feedback was positive, he said. But not all of it. “The blog post revealed to me what people actually believe about my students,” he said.

As a case in point, Nate showed me a letter he received from a lawyer in New York state who had read his post. He keeps it as a reminder of the challenge that remains. “It’s basically laying out all the reasons why white Americans don’t want their students attending school with black Americans,” Nate said. “People respond to this letter angrily, but if I turned it into a set of policy recommendations, it would mirror exactly what we have in society today. It’s making the case for segregated schools.” I certainly agree that those of us who live in the suburbs by and large don’t see what’s going on in inner-city schools. It’s like two different worlds. This is one reason why Melinda and I get out and visit different schools around the country as part of our foundation’s education work, which is all about supporting the New Majority. But even if the country improves integration and makes funding more equitable— which are important goals—we will still need to make sure every student has an effective teacher, and every teacher gets the tools and support to be phenomenal. I asked Nate how he thinks we can do that. Part of the solution, he said, is to create incentives for outstanding teachers to stay in high-need schools. And that starts with recognizing that the demands of teaching in a high-poverty school are different from the demands of teaching in a wealthy one. It also means giving effective teachers autonomy. As long as they’re achieving results and teaching to the appropriate standards, he argued, they deserve leeway in choosing the curriculum that works for them and their students.

Of course, not all teachers start out equally effective. Nate knows that from experience. On his first day in the classroom 10 years ago, “I was terrified, and the students were bored. I look back at lesson plans I did five years ago and think, Man, they should have walked out!” That’s why he’s a big believer in professional development. “I believe in my heart that we can take average teachers and make them more effective and we can take effective teachers and make them outstanding,” Nate said. “One of the mistakes we make is that we think teaching is all about aptitude. You need a base level of aptitude to teach, but just because you have a PhD in something doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at delivering content. Teaching is part content, part parlor tricks, and it can be taught.” Another thing that would help teachers, Nate said, is to “treat them like the treasures they are.” He co-founded an organization, Teachers United, to help teachers inform district- and state-level policies. “Schools are the building blocks of our democracy,” he told me. “If we’re going to create a better society, it has to happen through schools. And if we’re going to build a better society through our schools, it has to happen through better teaching.” It was a powerful conversation. Nate is talking about some difficult subjects, but they are subjects we need to be discussing. Ultimately I left feeling hopeful about what’s possible for the New Majority. I’m glad that Nate the Nerd Farmer will be cultivating students—and more teachers like him—for many years to come. Copyright 2010 Gates Notes, LLC

September 2016

ICONSPEAK

Dare

to be

different

Our three sheroes from Rio 2016 lead our special issue on youth icons, who broke the mould. Read on. Write in...

September 2016

Team ScooNews writeback@scoonews.com

ll the miseries of the Rio Olympics aside — past all the familiar chest-beating at the poor showing of India on sporting world stage every four years — we at Team ScooNews want all our young readers to pause, take a deep breath and let the defining images of the Games take centrestage in their mind’s eye. Stop. And remember once again... an exultant Sakshi Malik, wrapped in the Tricolour, beaming a thousand watts at winning the bronze in wrestling; a ferocious, fist-pumping PV Sindhu sending the badminton world champion Marin scuttling for every point; the cool as cucumber Dipa Karmakar vaulting the dangerous Produnova with poise, the very first Indian woman gymnast to compete on the global stage.... Stop. And remember. For this moment shall never return. Not because we cannot hope to scale these heights again, or go higher. No. But because what these regular Indian girls did, overcoming all odds, marking the arrival of what was never imagined before. Their places secure in the books, Dipa, Sakshi and Sindhu — across three less popular sports in India (gymnastics, wrestling and badminton) — have stretched boundaries and reinforced girl power. The intensity, intent and clarity with which they went after their target, mindful of neither the stage nor the opponent’s reputation, was a lesson for Indian sport. And for all youth. And though they did not come back with the gold, they showed that desire, if channelized properly, can drive the focused to great heights. Indian sport will not be the same again. India will never be the same again. For they have pushed against the weight of feudal mindset and patriarchy and shown the way to countless other girls, to YOU! So it is that they lead this, our special issue on icons who have bucked the trend, shoved aside the norm and gone where few before them have dared to go. Our three Rio heroes lead the way, nay blaze a trail for a nation to emulate and follow... follow them, and our other non-conformists — the Hard Kaurs, the Nikhil Chinapas and the Yusra Mardinis — to venture boldly where your heart leads you. Dare to be different. Dare... to be happy.

September 2016

ICONSPEAK

Maybe I will teach people about my experience. When you have a problem in your life, it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean you have to sit around and cry. I want to continue swimming and I want to continue supporting refugees...

September 2016

ScooNews Correspondent writeback@scoonews.com

She swam T from Syria to Rio...Yo, YUSRA!

hough we have read about her all over the internet, and by the time this issue reaches you, the results will have gone stale, yet we couldn’t avoid talking about her. She has suddenly sprouted into a youth icon. What could have been a story of defeat at the hands of fate and wars, has turned into a story of inspiration. At age 18, there might have been many more of her age and younger competing in the Rio Olympics, in fact there were participants as young as 13, like Gaurika Singh of Nepal. However, Yusra Mardini has something much more trailing her. She is a Syrian refugee who battled the sea to reach the Olympics! And it took her a year. Well, in a way. Till last year, 17-YO Yusra was practising in her home city Damascus, torn apart by the bombings that are routine now. Although the country was going through rough times, she was all set to represent Syria at the FINA World Championships with support from the Syrian Olympic Committee. “Sometimes we couldn’t train because of the war. And sometimes you would be swimming in pools where the roofs were (blown open) in three or four places. Or sometimes there was a bombing in the swimming pool,” Yusra told a tabloid. However, with her home destroyed in one such attack, her family decided to flee — from Damascus to Lebanon, Turkey, Greece and Germany, finally. It wasn’t easy. In Turkey, Yusra and her sister, Sarah and 20 others got into a dinghy boat, fit to accommodate 5-6 people, for Greece. Half an hour into the Aegean Sea, the motor gave up with the boat beginning to capsize. Of all those on the boat, only four could swim, who could have just decided to swim across; however, they decided to carry the remaining seventeen across as Yusra, her sister and one more person started swimming with ropes tied on to them. The trio swam for more than three hours to bring each one of the 20 to Greece. The 3hour swim has now made the athlete hate open water swimming, “We had one hand with the rope attached to the boat as we moved our two legs and one arm. It was three and half hours in cold water. Your body is almost like … done. I don’t know if I can describe that.” Reaching a refugee camp in Berlin, the two sisters, away from their family, had more tough times in store. Yet Yusra joined a local swimming club, astounded at the safe pool, away from bombs and attacks! The two had to wait for a year to reunite with their family. Rio 2016 Olympics brought about a change in the young girl’s destiny. She was training for 2020, when the association announced the first-ever 10member Olympic Refugee Team for Rio. Yusra had to make her mark, and she did! She bowed out of the Games when she finished seventh in her heat of the 100m freestyle but what she represented transcended sport to make her a favourite at Rio.

September 2016

ICONSPEAK At 13, Gaurika Singh of Nepal was the youngest participant at Rio Olympics! But she wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the first such Olympian...

YOUNG and

WINNING! This list had to start with Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras, who participated as a part of the Ethnikos Gymnastikos Syllogos team and won a bronze medal in the 1896 Athens Olympics. Born on 4 September 1885, he was only 10 years and 218 days on the day he received the award. Well, there were just three teams competing, yet a boy as young as 10 winning among his grownup teammates and counterparts is a feat and his bronze shines no less than gold.

Nadia Comaneci, the Romanian gymnast, was 14 when she wowed the audience with the first perfect 10 in the history of the Games at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She became the youngest ever to win a perfect 10; there have been only three women and one man till date to get the score to date!

September 2016

South Korean Seo HyangSoon won a gold at age 17 competing in an archery event at 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

German rower, Klaus Zerta, competed for the Unified Team of Germany in the Summer Olympics of 1960. Performing as the coxswain of the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s boat in the coxed pairs event, he shared the gold medal with his partner. He was 13 years 283 days only!

At 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Germany, Marjorie Gestring, USA diver, won a gold medal competing in 3-meter springboard diving. She was a kid of 13 years 268 days at the time, becoming the youngest ever to win an Olympic gold, and the second youngest ever.At 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Germany, Marjorie Gestring, USA diver, won a gold medal competing in 3-meter springboard diving. She was a kid of 13 years 268 days at the time, becoming the youngest ever to win an Olympic gold, and the second youngest ever.

Chen Zhong, age 17, brought home a gold medal representing her Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s taekwondo team at 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Kusuo Kitamura won 1500 meter freestyle swimming event at 1932, clinching the gold as the youngest swimmer ever at age 14 years 309 days.

Yasuji Miyazaki won laurels, and gold, at age 15. And not one, he won two golds at the 1932 Los Angeles Games. Competing in the 100 meter freestyle swimming event, he broke the Olympic record set by American swimming champion, Johnny Weissmuller, at 58.2 seconds and eventually won the gold. The very next day he competed in another freestyle relay event where he won another gold setting a record of 8 minutes and 58.4 seconds.

September 2016

ICONSPEAK

Pranav Sharma writeback@scoonews.com

ents thought I might become a doctor because my grandfather was a doctor and I had no clue whatsoever I wanted to do.

So, what did you aspire to become as a kid? Nothing! I didn’t aspire to become anything. Dad was in the army, so I liked going to the army firing range and looking at all the soldiers shooting weapons so I was interested in guns and weaponry. At some point in time my par-

Do you know the weight of AIB’s Tanmay Bhatt? I think he’s light as a feather. Well, it looks like it! How many Pokémons do you need to catch before bragging about it on social media

September 2016

Bugger me! I have downloaded it on my phone and haven’t started playing the game yet. ‘Tu banega Roadie, banega tu Roadie’? Were you also asked that? Not really. I mean, the reason I became a judge is because for some reason MTV was really stuck with budgets and thought who the hell do we get to judge. Nikhil’s not doing

Make music MANDATORY in curriculum Born in Bangalore, raised in Agra, Kalengada Bhemaiah Chinapa made VJing a household term when we Indians were just about coming to terms with MTV. He set up Sunburn in Goa when we knew zilch about EDM. And he made Roadies palatable to parents out of sync with Raghu Ram’s brand of rudeness. Guys & gals, jam with Nikhil Chinapa, no holds barred

anything, he’s already on contract (as a VJ), we can bring him as a judge. That’s how it happened. Your favourite Roadie audition memory? So, how’d you get into DJing? Pearl, she was my girlfriend then, was DJing and she went for record shopping. Back then, even now, we never had any record

stores in India, so if you were a DJ and you wanted to get records nobody had, you’d have to fly to Europe or to London or to America to buy vinyl records because mostly people were DJing on vinyl back then. And Pearl went to this shop and there was this one record that I really liked. It was called Lazy by an act called ExpressTwo, she and I had heard them play the previous night, and

I really liked the song. So I bought the record, and she bought a copy as well, and she was like ‘Why are you buying this record, because I’m already buying a copy’? And I was like, ‘I don’t know, I really liked the song. I want to buy the record.’ So on that trip, Pearl must have bought 150 records and I bought four. And when I came back to India, she showed me how to DJ, she

September 2016

ICONSPEAK taught me stuff and I just started doing it and loved it. How do you know that the crowd wants? You don’t. You’re just guessing all the time. You’re constantly guessing. You look at a guy’s face, he’s on the dance floor, is he looks like he’s falling asleep, you should probably change the music you’re playing. If the girl on the dance floor has started to take off her clothes, then you should definitely change the music you’re playing. You know... that kind of stuff. How has it been playing alongside the biggest DJs? I should actually ask them, how has their experience been, playing alongside Nikhil Chinapa! It’s not a big deal, they’re just guys. Invariably, 99% of the world’s most famous DJs got into music the same reason as me because, we just fell in love with it in this mad passionate crazy way, where you can’t imagine doing anything else in your life. And when we hang out, we just have our cup of coffee and we’re just two guys talking about music. DJ Axwell said, ‘If we want money, we go to Las Vegas. If we want an after party, we go to Miami. But if we want to play for love, we’ll still come to India’. Your take? I won’t just say this for effect; it’s from what I’ve heard from a lot of DJs is that Indian and Mexican fans are completely crazy with their energy, with the amount of love that they show to an artist, with wearing their heart on their sleeves. So, when DJs come to India for the first time, the first thing that catches them is how everybody in India knows the music, because we’re an extremely large English-speaking country so if you’re writing music that has English lyrics, and when you come and play and the music’s popular, they know the songs. And, it happened with Zedd as well. When he came and played for the first time, he was blown away that everybody knew the words and Indian fans, like I said, are very expressive, very passionate and it makes DJs want to keep coming back. Because most of these guys want to play music for the reason that they want to share music that they love, on the dance floor. I mean when the dance floor responds, you’d

want to come back and play! As an artist, what has surprised you about yourself? As an artist? When did that happen? Nobody gave me the memo! No, I don’t think that I’m an artist. I’m still just messing around, I really enjoy scuba diving, that’s the one thing that I like to be kind of qualified for doing. What does it take to have a successful career like yours? I think you just need to be a little bit crazy about what you’re doing like really dedicated. Pearl and I were talking about what constitutes that drive, and what constitutes that sense of determination to get things done. It’s not doing the things we enjoy, that’s great. If you could find a job you love, it’s not a job. But the other cliché is determination and drive constitutes you doing things that you don’t like, and doing them well. Doing things that you like, anybody could do that. What is your take on our education system? Ah, well. Let's think about it. I’m at a little bit of disadvantage because I haven’t really experienced any other education system. So you read about the British system, the Australian system, the American System, and then you keep reading about how kids with an Indian background keep winning Spelling Bee or doing really well in mathematics. So probably doing a few things right and maybe a few things wrong, um, I’m not so sure whether you should be allowed to drop the subjects before you choose a stream. I like the fact that you get to study a lot of subjects till you get to the 10th, and in the 11th standard you get to choose. I would probably include studying more foreign languages in our curriculum along with your local language — one national language, and studying one international language as our college or school curriculum, would be good. There’s another thing that we should do in our schools is make music education compulsory. I’m not really saying this because I’m a DJ... learning music; I haven’t done it. But it completes your education in a more rounded fashion, beyond just academics.

I think you just need to be a little bit crazy about what you’re doing. If you find a job you love, it’s not a job. But the other cliché is: determination and drive constitute you doing things that you don’t like, and doing them well Nikhil Chinapa DJ, host

September 2016

ICONSPEAK

MEET CAPTAIN COOL, OF

UDAIPUR

ScooNews Correspondent writeback@scoonews.com

ortress like building, a royal welcome with nagada escort to the majestic hall with grand chandeliers hanging from the roof... is not something most people get to see in their lifetime. But it was what I encountered when I reached hotel Fairmont, Jaipur to interview one who was born and brought up with all this and more, Lakshyaraj Singh of Udaipur.

As a guy born with the proverbial silver spoon, we expected Lakshyaraj Singh to stand on ceremony, have a lot of hang-ups. But no, he’s rather cool to hang out with, we discovered

For someone as royal as him, I was expecting someone decked up in a Jodhpuri or something similar to turn up but he arrived, to my astonishment, completely cool in trendy shorts. And with a striking resemblance to cricketer Yuvraj Singh, he nearly confused me whether he was ‘the Yuvraj’ or ‘Yuvraj Singh’! Apart from the facial similarity, the duo also share their love and passion for cricket and I begin the interview, asking him, the president of Udaipur District Cricket Association, questions about cricket. So, I ask him who’s his favourite cricketer and before he could reply, I prompted, Yuvraj Singh? He couldn’t help but grin and then said... Sachin Tendulkar. But obvious, that! “Well! Obviously, you can’t ignore Sachin Tendulkar, the man who has redefined cricket for the youth of today. People will obviously look at him as they looked at Sir Donald George

September 2016

I believe in the Greatest Good Greatest Number... the idea is to be able to do greatest good for the greatest number. I was at a very pivotal junction at 18; I could have chosen to build up a career as a player.... The other option was for me to get the young lads to play. By the grace of God, I chose wisely. Lakshyaraj Singh, president, Udaipur District Cricket Association

Bradman even so many years later. Sachin is one example who is present, who’s existent, this is one thing you got to appreciate regardless of geographical boundaries.” Okay, and? I prompt him. “And since I have been a wicket keeper myself so Nayan Mongia is one person who has inspired me,” he comes back. Under Lakshyaraj’s presidency, UDCA has won a few laurels. He begins reeling off... the “India Under-19 captain is from Udaipur; India A team’s vice-captain is from Udaipur; for the first time in the history of IPL, the first induction from Rajasthan in five years was from Udaipur;

Udaipur is a champion for Under-16 after 14 years, Udaipur won the Colvin Shield after 21 years....” Whew! That’s quite a list! So, why didn’t he take up cricket as his career? He plays well. Why administration, I ask him. Because, he says, he believes in the funda of GGG. GGG? “I believe in the Greatest Good Greatest Number… the idea is to be able to do greatest good for the greatest number. I was at a very pivotal junction at 18; I could have chosen to build up a career for myself as a player, put in everything that I had into playing (fortunately, I was fairly talented so I could have taken that forward). The other option was for me to get the young lads of my city and state to play. By the grace of God, I chose wisely.” Apart from cricket, the quintessential royal also has an inclination for other sports, table tennis and hockey to name two. With Rio happening, it is natural to ask, what did he think of the future of sports in India. “It’s evolving,” he says,

citing examples of how kabaddi and soccer are hogging the limelight now. “It’s no more one straight clean sweep, one sport scenario anymore, tennis is coming up, women are opting for swimming, things are changing, parents and children are getting encouraged to take up sport,” he adds. From the chat so far, I have only discovered his love for sports, but this paves the way to his thoughts on education, specially higher education, since he completed his out of India. “What I have been exposed to and what I have understood so far... I think a lot of amalgamation in terms of theory and practicality needs to take place, a lot of marriages need to happen between what the real world has to offer and what we are doing behind closed doors. All this needs to be re-visited because I see there is a huge disconnect. I see this difference in the hospitality sector, for one. So the idea is that we marry what universities are teaching with the requirements of the industry.”

Just FYI, Lakshyaraj graduated from the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School in Australia and then pursued several courses at Nanyang University, Singapore. So, when I ask this father of an infant girl, someone who has worked at all levels of hotel management from being a waiter and barista to being a manager, his take on girls being bartenders, he is ready for it. “The more girls participate the better it would be. Because it’s such an environment that allows both sexes to flourish, both have equal opportunity. But, if you ask me, I think women have an edge over men!” Wow! ‘Women have an edge over men,’ being a girl, I simply love his line and want to continue my chat with the charismatic scion of the 1500-year-old house of Mewar, but as time limits everything, so too does this interview have to end. And I do so with my last question, and the most awaited one. His motto in life? “Soch ko itni gehri mat karo ki faisle kamzor hone lage,” he smiles.

September 2016

ICONSPEAK

‘CORE’ she ain’t Hard at all

At the

She may come across as this lass with the tough exterior, but ScooNews discovered another side to Hard Kaur, one of our icons. Read on to know why she made the cut... Hridya Narang hridya@scoonews.com To all the Paajis and the Parjayias / This is Patiala House... these are the lines I grew up dancing to, enacting as a young girl! And, fortunately enough, I got the chance to meet the rapper who’d sung this favourite of mine... Taran Kaur Dhillon. What? Never heard of her? Well, in fact you have heard her and grooved to her music. Except that you know her by her screen name — Hard Kaur or ‘Core’ as she calls herself. So, now you know who I am talking about, but how much do you know her? I got the chance to peep into her childhood and school days and here’s a glimpse just for you. So, there we are, team ScooNews and I, waiting for her at the hotel lounge. And in she sweeps, after a wait of few minutes, every inch the rebellious rapper in her black bandana, black t-shirt with sherni printed on it and cool black track pants. My excitement knew no bounds... I was to interview her!

I began with wishing her ‘Sat Sri Akaal’ in chaste Punjabi to which the Punjaban gleefully replied and we were off to a wonderful start. I began by asking her what her mom called her, ‘Taran’ or ‘Hard’ (how can her mom call her that?!?). She laughed. “She calls me Taran now. She used to call me Tanu but I told her ‘you better stop calling me that because people gonna pick it up.” So, Hard Kaur is Tanu for mommy dearest, hmmm. The story of Taran, oops, Hard Kaur/Core’s life goes like this. The gutsy gal moved from Kanpur to Punjab to the UK, went to different schools — from co-ed to all girls — and has had all kinds of experiences. So, I asked her how was being in an only girls school different, and she said, “It just made me realise that I don’t want to be with girls.” She went on to tell me that people at school bullied her, called her names and asked her to go back to India. Strangely enough,“It was the Indian girls who were telling me go back to ‘your country’,”she laughed. Talking more about her schooldays, she recalls that in one of her schools, tables were reserved “for only boys, for only nerds (!) for only so and so

September 2016

religion and I didn’t fit on any of those and so sat with other girls who enjoyed music.” So, what was the best thing about school, I asked, expecting she would give the name of a teacher, her favourite hangout spot or maybe the name of her bestie, but... a Punjabi is a Punjabi and you can’t define them without mentioning food! And so, her reply was... “Dinners, they were really tasty.” She said if she wasn’t a rapper she would have been a chef. “I am a big fan of MasterChef Australia and Top Chefs.” Didn’t she have a boyfriend in school? NO, and then, laughingly, she said, “I didn’t have a boyfriend in school because I was too busy getting bullied...hahaha.” And then she quickly went on to add, “I was too dumb in school; I was (this) proper innocent good kid come from India. I started changing when I started listening to hip hop because the rebellious side started to come out!” The cool babe that she is, she has her opinions on education abroad and in India all sorted. “People are definitely more intelligent here. And we study harder here.

Tell your parents the truth. Parents want happiness for their kids, it’s others who gave parents a tough time. You keep worrying about society you not gonna get anywhere in your life Hard Kaur rapper, musician

I was also curious to know what she thought of introducing music in schools. And bang on... she said, “Every kind of music needs to be included in schools. A lot of that came to me while I learnt it in England. The music lessons really made a difference to me and showed me what I am capable of. Music is a universal language, people fall in love with each other just over music when they can’t even speak the same language. So, music is as important as anything else.” Like me, many girls would have been inspired by her to follow her path and become a rapper, so I asked her what she had to say about them. She said, “I would say you have to be three times tougher to be in this industry. So I would say don’t go there. If you do want to go there, don’t go there for novelty, ya thodi der ke liye famous hone ke liye, ki apne college or area mein famous ho jaungi... If you

want to do it, do it properly because it’s a horrible, horrible game, this is not a joke.” Vaibhav Ramchandani/ScooNews

People take it more seriously here than kids do abroad. The language that we are taught here, English... people here speak perfect English there is no slang.”

So, time for some life advice. How to tackle parents? “Tell your parents the truth. Parents want happiness for their kids, it’s others who gave parents a tough time. You keep worrying about society you not gonna get anywhere in your life,” she advised GenNext. Motivating me and others reading this interview, she said, “If you got to do something in life, do it properly. If I did rap I didn’t do it for novelty’s sake... everyone wants to be a rapper now, but there you have to understand, you have to educate yourself. Another thing, we didn’t have internet 20 years ago. So, you got no excuse to be dumb; you’ve got an uncle called Google and he gives answers to everything!” Here is where the interview ended, but that didn’t end my conversation with her. I asked her to sing my favourite lines from the song ‘Laung da lashkara’ and then and there she obliged. ‘To all the paajis...’ and we tapped a foot or two, posed for pictures, shook hands and left the hotel lounge.

September 2016

ICONSPEAK

Master

of many

TRADES

Jack of all trades, master of many, successful for sure! Get some gyaan from Roshan Abbas, one of the pioneers of our entertainment industry, as we know it today... Meenal Singh meenal@scoonews.com

Yeah, you are getting there, I know. It’s Roshan Abbas, that’s who I am talking of !

A creative entrepreneur, a director, a theatre artist, and what not, he has done it all. And impressed an entire generation! The way the man grew from radio to TV to the best of shows to entrepreneurship made several of that generation travel the same career path, which obviously shocked many parents across the nation. Did it shock Roshan’s parents too?

ove your job and your job loves you back, and when your job loves you back, it takes you places. So, mine recently took me out, not out of my city, but out to meet someone who was an idol for many in the 1990s. Guess, who? Well, he changed the face of Indian radio, along with his colleagues, was a much-loved anchor of the 1990s, and hosted some of the earliest game shows on Zee and Star Plus. He has done theatre, been a movie director, and done events for the likes of BMW! Come on, ab toh guess kar lo! Ok, the last clue. He was an overweight anchor on TV!

He was one of the luckier ones. Instead of going for the regular grind of MBBS, BTech, LLB, etc, he told his parents that his love lay in theatre, and so a bachelor’s in English literature suited him better. There were some shocked relatives who came up with questions like ‘beta, number achche nahi aye kya?’ But his parents were cool, handled the funny relatives, and let

September 2016

Vaibhav Ramchandani/ScooNews

Roshanspeak Beware of social dyslexia It is the side effect of technology, says Roshan. People today, especially the youth, are so glued into their phones, they can communicate onscreen, but cannot a face-to-face conversation! There are world-renowned bloggers, who communicate through their blogs with millions of people, their audience resonates with them, but make them sit and talk without a screen and they don’t find a word! That’s the kind of dis-connectivity technology is creating; the lack of relationships!

their dreamy-eyed boy go for English lit at Hindu College and then mass communication from Jamia Millia Islamia. Though his father did spell out the total financial expense he could bear. His parents, says Roshan, had a confidence in his abilities, and never questioned him negatively. This we find strange, or at least I did, because though my own parents never questioned my choice of subjects several of my friends did face this — take up engineering, be a doctor, a lawyer, that’s what they were told. But coming to today, haven’t parents and educators evolved, we ask him. “My time was more about rote learning, which doesn’t work anymore,” says Roshan. It is not just children exploring the shrinking world, but the parents too, with Internet. Yes, he says, there is a certain level of acceptance at least in the bigger towns of India. Yet, there are many parents who still believe their children should follow them — a lawyer father should have a lawyer son, doctor mother should have a doctor son or daughter. While students from metro India are going places, their DSLRs in hand, many students are still struggling to make their parents understand that a click can help them earn big.

JUMP... ... whenever the opportunity comes your way. Don’t shirk it for whatever reasons, you may regret it later; there are thousands who are trying harder than you. Jump to any opportunity you get, don’t fear failure, don’t get lethargic at the time, you’ll get plenty of time for these later.

Sharma ji kya kahenge? Parents should never impose their own desires on their kids, not allow their own fears to pull them back, Roshan advises. He quotes his father to explain it better, “What’s knowledge? You stand in a forest with an axe, you keep sharpening it, cutting the trees, clearing it out. The clearing is your knowledge; the forest is what you don’t know. The more you know the bigger the circumference of your knowledge becomes.” However, both sets of parents, he says, are fearful of failure mostly because ‘Anu aunty kya kahengi, and Sharmaji ka beta has become an engineer, earning lakhs, what are you doing, likhna ho to free time mein likhna, naukri se aane ke baad.’ “Why do you want to impose your fears, your dreams on your children, without letting them know their dreams, their expectations, without letting them be who they are?” he questions. Roshan’s achievements become even more credible when we think how this man must have struggled to achieve what he did with the technology of those days! Did he? He sure did, he says, but his generation did

not know what fun technology could be! With technology, he says, if one thinks oneself to be a great presenter, one can achieve success. “Look at Ssumier S Pasricha, he simply believed he could be a good ‘Pammi Aunty’! Gaurav Gera believed he could be a good ‘Shopkeeper’. They believed they could entertain people, and they did it,” Roshan points out. This is a wonderful time, of a simple formula, ‘attempt and know’. While there are now exclusive college courses for RJing, Roshan and his friends were the pioneers with their limited choices — film, television (read Doordarshan), radio (All India Radio) or newspaper. No Facebook, YouTube or Twitter! They all craved for that one chance that would let them taste success, and maybe some money. Even after a show on a channel like Zee, Roshan was struggling to get into radio — begging the guard, then the reception, and queuing up for hours, and only then bagging the famous Public Demand on Radio City 107.1. And today, there is BB ki Vines, Kanan Gill, 9-year olds winning singing contests...! Success is counted sweetest not only by those, who have failed or never succeeded, but also by those who have struggled, and struggled a lot! Work. 9-5. Have fun! This was a long chat, Roshan, having flown in right from London that morning, seemed tired, yet ready to talk. But we thought it better not to push it. So, to end it, here’s something exclusive from the man who has had a dream career graph! And this is not only is for you young readers but also your parents. Read on. “Keep analyzing yourself in the field you want to be in. Experiment. Want to be a stand-up comedian? Try it out among your friends. Want to be a writer? Put up a blog. If your friends appreciate it, go to the next level, or else re-plan, think of something else, strive to get to it. Try things early, without waiting, figure out your purpose and be good at it. “Do not chase commercial success. Chase communication, a bigger platform, a bigger audience, a bigger project. Paise to aa hi jayenge na if you get bigger projects, right? Big cars, big homes, big brands, these are just associates of success that have been created by people. You can be just as successful wearing khadi as in Prada. Some of the most successful startups say they started out just for fun, which is the kind of vibe that should be maintained. Do it for fun, not for commerce. And enjoy whatever you do, wake up early in the morning not to go to office and work, but wake up to go for fun, fun 9-5!”

September 2016

LIFE AT THE UNI

Reimagining the Bard, in

Sonepat

Yes! And breaking the boundaries, liberally... Our young writer gives prospective students of Ashoka University a taste of what lies ahead at this pioneering liberal arts school This is a university where you not only open your mind to new ideas and concepts but also redefine previous taboos... In this sense, Ashoka has managed to make us question everything in existence — don’t just accept things, challenge everything before you come to a conclusion.

September 2016

Suhasini Patni writeback@scoonews.com

decided to go to Ashoka University because it offered liberal arts. The idea of liberal arts excited me because I wanted to try a little bit of everything before I declared what subject I really wanted to study. I never agreed with the idea that at the age of 18, when I cannot even legally drink, I should be able to decide that one subject I want to study for the next three years of my life and possibly even build a career out of. Everything from philosophy to math is mandatory for all students before they start pursuing the subject they want to get their undergraduate degrees in. For me, the academic atmosphere was my oyster. And Ashoka University proved to be everything it boasted of on its website. One of the outstanding things in a liberal arts university is that you don’t need to follow patterns. Even if the subject matter of your class is the same as someone else’s, the same thing can be taught in different ways. Every professor has the right to build their own syllabus. So, for instance, if you want to take an introductory class in philosophy,

then one professor might choose to teach you about great philosophers through the ages, and another professor might choose to concentrate on only one topic within philosophy and expand on that. For this very reason, picking just the right class became important for me.

my own stories about him! Although I was the kind to read and write for pleasure during school, I found myself being challenged to such an extent that I felt that I had acquired more knowledge and humility in one semester than I ever did in my entire school life.

I was interested in literature. I’ve always loved reading and writing but being a CBSE student, I haven’t ever really studied real literature. In my first semester, I picked a foundation course titled Literature and the World, taught by a professor who heads the Shakespeare Society in India. The class entailed a lot of reading— specifically three Shakespeare plays and their different adaptations around the world.

After the life-changing experience of being taught English literature with so much creative freedom, I decided I would major in literature. In my next semester, I picked another mandatory class called Forms of Literature, including the epic, the poem, the novel, the play, etc. While we read different theories and texts focused on all the forms, we learnt that a proper definition for a novel does not exist. As a reader, I found this perplexing. All I ever do is read novels! How can they not have a definition? Instead of spoon-feeding us an answer (which, of course, does not exist) our professor, as a fun activity, made us shout at the top of our voices: ‘What the f**k is a novel?’

Within a semester of about three months, I had read three original and unabridged works by the Bard, and worked on an assignment where I had to pick out literary devices used by him. Not only that, but we were asked to reimagine a giant like Shakespeare and show our work as a final assignment. It could be in any medium we wanted — a horror story, a rap song, or a kathak dance — as long as we could justify our re-imagination. The freedom was terrifying. I wrote a short story based on The Tempest. From never having read a word of Shakespeare, I had gone on to writing

The idea that you need not shy away from profanity was so alien a concept to me that I couldn’t help but laugh in delight. Perhaps our professor knew how we all felt about the ‘f-word’. But he had already decided that we need not keep our grudges against this word, or any others. In our

essays, he constantly asks us to write a first person perspective and to challenge all concepts that we have blindly agreed to our whole lives. Your opinion is valid as long as you can argue for it in a logical and convincing way. This is a university where you not only open your mind to new ideas and concepts but also redefine previously taboo subjects. The head of the English department in the college is a firm believer in feminism and gay rights. It is so refreshing to see such a strong and opinionated woman being celebrated rather than being judged and called names. As she challenges the concept of marriage, we are all beginning to rethink the institution that has been passed down as absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, humanities and literature are passed down to us as absolute truths that we dare not challenge. No self-respecting student will ever say a word against Shakespeare. Perhaps, this is why most people choose to opt out of studying these streams. People want to open their minds to new concepts rather than being made to mug up everything in their syllabus. In this sense, Ashoka has managed to make us question everything in existence — don’t just accept things, challenge everything before you come to a conclusion.

September 2016

LIFE

Happiness is... having a

DOG! ...And it is the best gift a child can get. The unconditional love of a canine teaches a child far more than any lesson... the joy of giving, sharing, loving. Pets, of any sort, be it a cat or fish, a goat or dog, are more than just pets. From being a pet, they grow up to be a part of life and then graduate to being life itself and its happiness. In this journey, pet owners realize how their pets beautify it for them, and teach them, helping them become better human beings. However, specialists and experts advocate for dogs as pets more than any other animal. They believe dogs come gifted with a special ability to engage with human beings. And then, they do have those cute faces to lure even the cold-hearted. And when it comes to children, dogs as pets become more than just pets, more than companions. Here’s how:

Never feel lonely There’s no better healer for kids than their dogs. Children might shy away from sharing their fears, sadness or difficulties with parents, but talking it out to the four-legged buddy, cuddling it, releasing stress with it is easy and natural. Friends, that’s what dogs become. They care, they feel the pain that your child cannot share with you. And then, often, they might not react to your child’s emotional swings but they’ll definitely bring a smile on face. Dogs thus become therapists for them.

September 2016

ScooNews Correspondent writeback@scoonews.com

appiness is... having a DOG. And I realized this, when I myself had the pleasure of having one in my childhood. I was eight when my parents brought home Snooby, a Labrador by breed but my playmate in real. Snooby was all I needed when back home from school. My world revolved around him until the time I felt jealous of the fact that he was being babied and pampered by my mom more than I was, taken to the veterinary and on walks by my dad, and getting all the attention in the world by my friends. Feeling neglected I developed an aver-

Partner in crime With a dog in the house, the kid won’t feel the need of having a partner for all his mischievous acts. Woofing, barking, wagging tail, following everywhere with all happiness, the dog will always offer his back to the kid. While his human friends might cancel plans, the dog quite elatedly would always be ready to run around and play with him.

sion towards him, hated him to the core. But dogs are dogs... they are naturally affectionate, they want to love and be loved, want to be a part of a pack and protect their pack members and specially pack leader, which for him was... Me! So, it happened once that my mom was yelling at me and seeing his partner in crime getting scolded (in danger, according to him), Snooby jumped to my rescue, snarled at my mom so vigorously that she was left dumbstruck, which eventually saved me from being beaten. This gesture brought us close... once again. We ate, played, went on walks together... in short, we became almost inseparable now... very much like the pug and his owner in the popular commercial ‘wherever you go I/we follow’. But then one unfortunate day, my buddy left me alone... he died, leaving a void in my life. Initially I couldn’t come to terms with it, but with time I forgot about him.Yes, I forgot him... I forgot how growing up with him encouraged me to have a more active lifestyle, I forgot how he changed me from a spoilt brat to a responsible kid who would do everything to take care of his pet, I forgot the fact that he was my stress buster and made me happier more than anyone else could.

begin the early morning walk with her. Unlike me, she begins each day with new zeal and seems to enjoy every walk as her best one so far. When I come back home from work, I have my buddy waiting for me by the door, face gleefully gazing at me, mouth open and tail eagerly wagging and waiting to be patted by her pack leader... How could you forget? That’s me! She comforts me when I am low, leaps on me when excited and happy, travels with me and like a true companion participates with me in most of the unusual experiences and outdoor adventures. All in all, she is just another human for me who isn’t bothered about materialistic rubbish. All that she enjoys doing is... napping, eating, running around me, playing with her toys, napping, eating, playing and the cycle goes on.

Snooby was Snooby... he was my childhood buddy, he helped shape my personality into what it is now, never letting me feel alone, sharing my joys and sorrows, letting me share his (did he have sorrows? Not many, but he sorrowed when even one family member wasn’t around, when he would not be treated to his favourite ice cream, when I’d come back late, when one of us was ill... his simple sorrows). He was and will always remain my BFF, best friend forever.

My childhood was an amazing one with Snooby around and my days now are full of positivity with Dodo in my life. Though Dodo is important to me but

Time flew by and now, after so many years I, an independent woman, living all alone in a new city, missed my buddy, my companion, felt the urge to bring someone like him into my world. And hence welcomed home another like him, a black lab this time... Dodo. Dogs, who surely know how to live life to the fullest, have a lot to teach you. And my immensely energetic darling Dodo is all up at 5.30 in the morning, wakes me up along and urges me to leave my bed to

Responsibility Having a dog is not easy. While parents would already know a pet is also a bundle of responsibilities too, you can make your child learn to accept and fulfil responsibilities. Starting off with small things like a timely walk would mean the child needs to stop playing or sleeping or watching tv to take the bud for a walk. Besides, the kid may also develop empathy towards him and become generous towards him more than ever before. These qualities prove instrumental in him being a good human being.

Healthy is important Having a dog means taking care of him, which includes taking him for early morning walks, feeding him at the right time and of course sometimes even running after him. And also playing with him! All these activities on daily basis requires the kid to be disciplined hence making him healthy, happy and fit.

Positive and happy Studies have shown that a kid raised along with a pet, and especially dog, is happier compared to the ones who are raised without them. Sharing and caring become an inborn quality in such children. Interacting with dogs, playing with them, sharing joys and sorrows are known to raise levels of serotonin and dopamine, which are the chemical building block of positive feelings.

September 2016

MIND GAMES

ways to... ...kick start

YOUR MEMORY

Classwork, homework, tuitions, tests, school activities, co-curricular, extra-curricular... is it any wonder that you forget things?! It is possible. But if forgetfulness is impacting your ability to remember the things that matter on that crucial test day, it is time to do the following

September

Try “chunking”! Yes, you heard that right! “Chunking” is breaking up information into small chunks that are easier to remember. For example, you can try using a cheat code (moving from left to right) like Pandit Badri Prasad har har bole sin θ

cos θ

tan θ

cosec θ

sec θ

cot θ

for breaking down trigonometric identities! Makes it easier to remember, doesn’t it? Or you can use “self-reference”— refer new information to yourself with points that only you know.

2 Develop mental agility by learning to speak a new language or playing a musical instrument. Challenge your brain with crossword or Sudoku. These types of activities improve the brain’s physiological functioning and can help in keeping your memory sharp. Be a clever eater.

Apparently, omega 3 fatty acids, found in oily fish such as salmon and mackerel (and linseed or flax or alsi in Hindi), plays a role in memory and concentration. Now, this is not something we came up with to get you to eat tasteless (read healthy) stuff! This is something doctors say on the basis of solid research. Capisce? Eating regular meals that contain slowburning carbohydrates (the “low glycaemic index” foods, such as porridge or lentils] could also improve your memory.

Reduce stress. Studies show

that chronic over-secretion of stress hormones can adversely affect the brain function, especially memory. When stressed, your body releases the cortisol hormone, which interferes with the function of neurotransmitters. This is why people in crisis forget things and can't “think straight”. Ergo, be a little easy on yourself, Take don’t let adult expectation up yoga. One weigh you down! recent US study found that the daily practice of meditation thickened the parts of the brain's cerebral cortex responsible for decisionmaking, attention and memory. Try “mindfulness” techniques, where you focus on an image, sound or your own 2016 breathing and feel the difference.

TAKE2 Mark Twain was born soon after Halley’s Comet was sighted. Strangely enough, he also died soon after it was sighted again. In 1909, Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, said, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and... it will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together’.” He died on 21 April 1910, a day after Halley’s Comet appeared at its brightest. Ever been stung by a bee? If you have, do you know how to treat its the painful effect? Use soap! Yes soap. Bee stings are acidic. An acid is neutralized by an alkali, and soap is alkaline and will therefore help lessen the effects of the sting if it is rubbed on the skin. Besides, you can also rub a piece of iron (take an iron key) on the affected area; it would help negate the sting’s toxic effect and give relief to you. With eyes nearly as big as tennis balls, is it any wonder ostriches lay bigger eggs than any other bird—they are 24 times bigger than a hen’s egg. The size of one egg is six inches in diameter and it can weigh up to 1.3 kg! And the shell is so strong that even if you stand on top of an ostrich egg, it will not break. It is also the only bird that has two toes on each foot. All other birds have three or four toes, according to the American Ostrich Association.

Jamsetji Tata built the famous Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai. The hotel, which opened in 1903, was the first building in Mumbai to be lit by electricity, that too, with its own power plant. Not only that but the hotel was also the first in India to install an elevator, the first all-day dining restaurant and the first 24-hour coffee shop. While most documents credit popular English architect WA Chambers with designing the hotel, it was originally designed by Indian architects Sitaram Khanderao Vaidya, Ashok Kumar and DN Mirza and only taken up by Chambers after the death of Vaidya.

Polar bears have black skin under which there is a layer of fat that can measure up to 4.5 inches (11.5 centimeters) thick. But that is not what keeps them warm on land (or on top of the sea ice), it is their thick fur coat that insulates them from the killer polar cold. In water though it is the thick fat layer that comes in handy and keeps them warm. One reason, why mother bears are so reluctant to swim with young cubs in the spring is that the the cubs just don't have enough fat.

September 2016

TAKE2 Did you know lizards can range from 18mm to three metres? The smallest are the geckos, largely found in the British Virgin Islands. The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard. It is found on Komodo island of Indonesia. The lizard is approximately three meters in length and weighs about 135 kg. It burrows as deep as nine meters and lays eggs that hatch in April or May. The newly hatched young, about 45 cm (18 inches) long, live in trees for several months.

Apes like gibbons keep their young close for as long as five years because they are helpless and need looking after for a many years. With a life span of 35-40 years, five years is not a long time, eh?

It’s not just kids who junk on sweets, chocolates and cruses that have cavities. Bears have rotten teeth too! And the reason is the same! Well, they don’t gorge on all your favourite sugared treats but they do love their sweet food, especially honey, which they steal from bees’ nests high up in trees.

In its 27 January 1947 issue, Time Magazine featured 72-year old veteran Congress leader Vallabhbhai Patel on its cover page. Patel, who is popularly known as the iron man of India, is also affectionately remembered as the “patron saint of India’s civil servants” for having established the modern all-India services system.

As the undisputed leader of non-violent resistance to the apartheid regime of the time, Mahatma Gandhi helped establish three football clubs at the beginning of the last century, in Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg (where he moved at the end of 1904), all of which were given the same name: Passive Resisters Soccer Club. Sadly, there is no evidence proving that Gandhi ever turned out himself for any of the teams or took on any coaching roles but photos unearthed at Durban’s Old Court House Museum do show him posing alongside team players and even delivering speeches to crowds at the pitchside.

September 2016

TAKE2 READ A week of Mondays By Jessica Brody Hardcover, 464 pages Published: 2 August, 2016 How often have you thought of going back to the time when things didn’t work out and correcting them or making them the way you always intended. Isn’t that so? But does it happen? No? It does. In books and movies only, you might say and yes, indeed, at least it happens ‘A week of Mondays’, by Jessica Brody. The book is about a 16year-old girl Ellison Sparks, who faces the worst Monday of her life where she gets a ticket for running a red light, gets drenched in the rain, takes the world’s worst school picture, spoils her class election speech and, above all... gets dumped by Tristan, her darling boyfriend, for no reason at all. She goes to bed wishing for the day to come back so that she may make up for everything and in the morning she is surprised to discover her wish come true. It is the same Monday all over again and then again and again. Will she be able to make things right or will she be stuck in endless number of Mondays?

Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 3 The Shu-Torun War By Kieron Gillen

Thieving Weasels By Billy Taylor

Hardcover, 128 pages Publication: 9 August 2016

Hardcover, 256 pages Published: 23 August 2016

The Dark Lord of the Sith is marching with a force like never before and the inhabitants of the planet Shu-Torin are all set to face them. All the forces within the empire are giving a tough time to Darth Vader but he is unstoppable. He is leading a military assault against Shu-Torin, will he win? Has his reign begun? Do you want him to win? Or you stand against him? Well, before you decide you must remember that he is not the young Vader, he used to be but much more than that... height-of-his powers Vader 20 years into the job.

Cameron Smith, oops, it’s Skip O’Rourke! Cameron, who’s actually Skip O’Rourke, has left his grifter family along with their $100,00 and has been accepted to Princeton University alongside his beautiful girlfriend, Claire. But the twist comes when Smith’s uncle Wonderful comes to know about him and warns him to come to the family for one last con, or say good-bye to life as Cameron.

The Dragon Lords: Fool’s Gold By Jon Hollins Hardcover, 544 pages Published: 19 July , 2016 Dragons. You haven’t met them, only heard of them but in this book you got to meet them in their own world where they are the rulers who make and amend rules. The cruel dragon lords overburden the farmers with crushing taxes and hence the story is focused on the worst sufferer, young farmer who gets to face all. But that’s not all, the major twist comes when he meets up with some dodgy mercenaries and everything is changed miserably.

But is the last con as easy as it seems when he has left the path of crime and with a family like his, which is merciless?

September 2016

TAKE2 WATCH Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Direction: Tim Burton Writer: Jane Goldman, based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Ransom Riggs. Movie studio: 20th Century Fox Release date: 30 September 2016 Starring: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Chris O'Dowd, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, Ella Purnell, Judi Dench and Samuel L Jackson There’s a new world coming... says the lyrics of the background song in the trailer of the movie ‘Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children’. But what is this new world? What is so special about this new world that the movie talks about. Well, the world is entirely different, the world comprises of those who aren’t considered normal in the real world, it’s rather a hiding place for those who are termed ‘Peculiar’. Jacob Portman, a 16 year old is the new member of this world which is underneath the sea and is run by the mysterious Miss Peregrine. Jacob considers himself normal and so is surprised to discover that his peculiarity can save this world from "Hollowgasts", and "Wights" who are all lead by Mr Barron, with little hope in him.

Blair Witch Direction: Adam Wingard Writer: Simon Barrett Movie studio: 20th Century Fox Release date: 16 September 2016 Starring: James Allen McCune, Valorie Curry, Callie Hernandez ,Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson and Corbin Reid Mysteries attract all but only few have the heart to solve them and the group of students in this movie are amongst those few daring ones. These students set out to explore Black Hills Forest in Maryland to know the truth behind the disappearance of James Donahue’s sister, heather, who’s disappearance is connected with the legend of the Blair Witch. At first the group moved ahead fearlessly, but on their way through dark woods they encounter menacing presence which clears their doubt about the legend and makes them believe that it was all too real.

Max Steel Direction: Stewart Hendler Writer: Christopher Yost Movie studio: Open Road Films Release date: 21 October 2016 Starring: Ben Winchell, Ana Villafañe, Andy García, Maria Bello and Billy Slaughter Sixteen year old Max McGrath aka Max and his alien companion steel together make a deadly combination. Max says let’s go turbo before the duo unify into one and evolve as a superhero, Max Steel who’s ready to face all the evil forces that turn against him. The two friends not only fight enemies who endanger the world but together they also uncover many hidden secrets.

September 2016