thinkCIQuarterly : Conference Edition 2015 by thinkCIQ

think Creativity & Intelligences Quarterly

i CQ

COVER STORY “What if I fall? Oh but my darling, what if you fly?”

Volume 2 Issue 01

300/-

October-December

2015

Special conference edition NURTURE THINKING FOSTER TALENTS

Jayanti Tambe, Executive

Director of UCLA Early Care and Education talks about “Out of the box thinking” and creativity in Early Childhood Education.

EXCLUSIVE

I n t e r v i e w o f F o r m e r F o re i g n Secretary Late A.P Venkateswaran and Usha Venkateswaran

FEATURES

Performing Arts- A Child’s perspective

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think Oct- Dec

2015

i CQ

i CQ i CQ i i CQ CQ i i CQ CQ

Founder & Chief Curator Dr. M. Srinivasan Founder & Chairman Mansoor Ali Khan Founder & President S. Selvarajan COO Sarvesh Srinivasan

Editor-in-chief Dr.M. Srinivasan

Design & Art Director Madhumitha Srinivasan

Student Editors Manas Minnoor Pooja Bhide

Illustrations Athreya Krishnamurthy Aniketh Umesh

Director Research Gita Sridhar Savera Srinivasan

Student Issue Contributors Ashni N Shah Devi Sastry Manas Minnoor Meghana Vadassary Pooja Bhide Rakshita K Sanjana Srinivas Shaurya Arora Surya Krishna Vibha Arvind Yash Abhijit Lothe

Consulting Editor Jayanti Tambe Features Editor Savera Srinivasan

Principal Photographer Nikhil Ravi

Issue Contributors Gauri Rokkam Gita Sridhar Jayanthi Tambe Sunitha P Ananthakrishnan

Views and opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of thinkCIQ, its publisher or editors. It is always our endeavor to verify the information published but we do not take any responsibility for the absolute accuracy of the information provided. For any subscription related queries, please reach us through an email subscriptions@thinkCIQ.in. To advertise in future editions of thinkCIQ do get in touch with us by writing to advertise@thinkCIQ.in thinkCIQ Quarterly publication has its editorial oďŹ&#x192;ce at #175, GEAR Road, Doddakannelli, OďŹ&#x20AC; Sarjapur Road Bangalore 560 035. The Conference Edition is printed and published for private circulation only, by M. Srinivasan and printed at WQ. Judge Press, #97, Residency Road, Bangalore 560025. COPYRIGHT 2015 Think CIQ.

Editor’s Note Volume 2 ISSUE 1 I Oct- Dec 2015

A.P Venkateswaran and Usha Venkateswaran with Dr. M Srinivasan

Students mentor discerning teachers. A natural teacher learns from her students and grows along with them. When this ability is found wanting, a teacher maybe akin to a preacher. Students are the greatest source of learning! You gauge a child’s proclivities and challenges to set the context and initiate activities. Teaching for understanding is personal and emotional as much as learning is. Children don’t want to be taught. They want to learn by doing things. They enjoy the process for that is what builds the brain. They learn when they face challenges. Children blossom by researching, innovating, inventing and thinking creatively. Teachers’ business is to create such challenges. Involve them in real life activities like an artist, scientist, writer, director, producer, researcher, innovator, problem solver, designer and so on. Most of the articles by children reveal their learning souls. All valuable human activities are a part of their imagination. Do our classrooms facilitate these? It is possibly unimaginable that schools have restricted room for plan of talents development. We are so caught up with measurable products that the valuable ‘process’ is conveniently eschewed from school curriculum. Montessori Method and attention to music, art, singing, dancing etc. make reflective and later on intuitive learning natural. Children want to thrive, flourish and flow. We want them to perform and score. It is a wakeup call for adults to change their mindset and understand the children. See the future. Emergent is the way. Children dream; children create. We measure. We fail. It’s a dream to cherish and see children grow. Just follow them. This edition is a living example of passion driving talents. We should facilitate their big dreams into big ideas by encouraging ‘building’ and process thinking. How can Mangalyaan or words or rhythm then fascinate them? As you turn over the pages, you will be inspired by the way our children think and the world they envision for themselves. We will realize that we need a Guru to know and children need inspiring gurus to grow! One such Guru and well wisher was my friend, former Foreign Secretary, late A.P Venkateswaran; a soul that walked all over the world; pervaded the minds across continents; and captured the imagination of children. Let us support the dream of a Wimbledon or a Nobel Laureate in every child.

Dr. M Srinivasan thinkCIQ Editor-in-chief

think Oct- Dec

2015

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ARTS & CULTURE

ABHINAYA

How important is a GURU in a student’s life ! A tête-à-tête with Odissi dancer Sarita Mishra from the Adyasha Dance Ensemble Theatre. By Annika Ganjoo / Grade 09

MUSIC BRINGS US CLOSER 24

Why we should consider music integrated learning ! With observations from within a Montessori environment. By Sunitha P Ananthakrishnan

A CLASS APART

Classical Music and its influence in a child’s life. By Vibha Arvind, 13 years

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW 20 A.P Venkateswaran and Usha Venkateswaran By Ashni N Shah & Devi Sastry

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MUSIC 28

How does Music affect brain development ! Music integrated learning can help your child learn better. By Madhumitha Srinivasan

TECHNOLOGY HOW I MET YOUR MOM (MARS ORBITER MISSION) 32 We as Indians have a higher SQ giving us an edge over every other race in the world. Proven by the scientists at our very own ISRO. By Shaurya Arora, Grade 09

FEATURES THE DOVE OF SWAT- MALALA YOUSAFZAI 36

Pakistani activist for girls education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. Malala is now the icon of girl’s education. By Pooja Bhide, Grade 08

RESEARCH MONTESSORI & THIRUVALLUVAR 46

Using the ancient scriptures we need to reflect to understand which actions of ours warrant the behaviour in our children. By Gitasudha Sridhar

CONTENTS COVER STORY

"WHAT IF I FAIL?" OH BUT, MY DARLING, WHAT IF YOU FLY? 40

Young children have a natural inclination towards “outof-the-box” thinking. In their minds, everything is possible. As educators, we need to look at fostering children’s creativity in a classroom. By Jayanti Tambe

THINK TANKS

PUZZLES ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON ! 71

Logical thinking is a very vital component in our education system which has been ignored and not given its due importance. Schools need to foster logical thinking and reasoning from an early age as it is a crucial foundation skill to develop math. Challenge your grey cells to three famous puzzles. By Sarvesh Srinivasan

BLOG OF THE QUARTER

NUTRITION

A healthy way to eat “Mita Bhuk, Hita Bhuk, Ritu Bhuk” – Read about why one should eat in moderate amounts and the importance of starting early. Blogger and Nutritionist Gauri Rokkam

STUDY

ART

How Imaginationation and Curiosity develop across age groups. By Madhumitha Srinivasan

POINT OF VIEW

WHAT IS THE POINT ? VIEWS ON SCHOOLS & EDUCATION AN EYE OPENER 52

Hear from a student why he thinks memorisation is not the way to true learning. An appeal to participate and submit your views on the proposed new education policy. Being revised after 28 years. By Manas Minnoor, Grade 09

MOVE FOR WORDS

The power of your words. By Surya Krishna, 12 Years

A KINDER START IN SCHOOL 62

A glimpse in to the first day in pre-school. By Yash Abhijit Lothe, 12 Years

Ignoring someone? Or taunting them isn’t fun for the other person. Poem & illustrations By Rakshita K, 13 Years

EMPATHY

Do we want to live in an environment where the expression of empathy becomes a rare sighting? By Savera Srinivasan

LIGHT UP THE NIGHT WITH A MILLION SMILES, NOT A MILLION FIREWORKS! 64

An appeal to consider others around you this Diwali. by Devi Sastry, 17 Years

DREAMS TO REALITY

A perspective to be aware of, from a 12 year old. By Meghana Vadassery

Top Left Manas Minnoor Top Right Pooja Bhide thinkCIQ Student Editors

Photo credit Nikhil Ravi

Bottom Athreya Krishnamurthy thinkCIQ Illustrator and this issue’s cover design.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” Rumi

CHANGE

Changing the educational Paradigm By S. Selvarajan, thinkCIQ Founder and President.

Our focus is how to change, rather than only why change. We are in the quest for creativity and innovation in the sphere of holistic learning and believe we need to think right from the beginning of learning namely Preschools. ThinkCIQ is a platform to nurture this thinking and make it an essential capacity for creativity and thinking.

Portrait by Aniketh Umesh, 13 years

he first edition of our conference was to Inspire the stakeholders in a child’s life. This year we are focusing on Changing Education Paradigms. 2015 has been a year of small but significant changes. Policy makers are looking at reforming the way we educate our children so that they could take their place in the economies of the 21st century. Educationists around the world are trying to figure out how they can educate a child to have a cultural identity, while being part of the process of globalisation. Trying to do what we did in the past will not result in a different outcome. The current system of education was conceived and structured for a different age, keeping in mind the economic circumstances of the 19th century- the Industrial Revolution. The academic ability of a child today cannot be subjected to just knowledge. Children don’t appreciate being segregated into academic and non academic brackets, and have broken all gender and career stereotypes. This has caused a certain sense of chaos in the way a child wants to learn and needs to learn. The unfortunate outcome is actually desensitizing them from enjoying learning. One such victim of this mentality is the arts. Art is not valued as an aesthetic experience, that too when a child’s senses are operating at his/her peak. If we are interested in the model of education for today, we need to break from conformity and standardised testing and take a different approach. We need to rethink, initiate and redesign our curriculum and focus on why we learn rather than only what we learn. How we learn can then be a non prescribed approach. That is what we mean by “Changing the Paradigm.”

CHANGE

Engine Schools for chang{e}

By Dr. M. Srinivasan, Founder Principal, GEAR Innovative Intl. School.

thinkCIQ Founder and curator receives the Inspiring Indian award from the then Governor of Karnataka.

ringing intelligent, inquisitive and enterprising people together results in new initiatives and exponential growth. Innovation and imagination take wings. Something more effective than that could be achieved in school education. We desire a lot of changes in the education of our children. But do we have a plan? Or do we have only rules and regulations to produce excellence! Can we move a step away from punitive and prescriptive model? Do we foster thinking and nurture talents? The idea of Engine Schools is very simple and could herald a miracle! We have oases of schools who are global leaders in some aspect or in a combination of aspects. We should get them to contribute to a national model. All that we need to do is to identify the unique characteristics of that school and encourage them to lead a set of schools closely and contribute to the compendium of practical ideas. All “Product” oriented schools may look alike and may not have much to contribute. Each “Process” oriented school would have something unique to contribute to other schools. Once we have about 100 schools identified across the country and set up clusters of schools, about 10000 schools can easily be brought up to be ‘excellent schools’. In a couple of years this 10000 schools can influence about 1000000 schools. Selection and expectation of these schools should be completely transparent and these selected Engine Schools should have ownership of the program. A novel system of selection should be evolved. Nominations should be open. A group of these schools can work on sifting applications to about 200. These 200 schools should present their ideas and plans to a large jury. the 50% of jury should be from these 200 schools. Statistical analysis can help us in eschewing any unacceptable influence or mismatching of ideas. Once the final selection is over, various groups can be formed based on their ideas and documents and an ACTION plan can be prepared.

A small committee can be formed to co-ordinate the activities of these Engine Schools. Expenses of any school should be borne by the school itself or some agency can come forward to help them out. The MHRD should be the pivotal body to oversee this program and budgetary allocation can come much later. By this model, various TALENTS of our children across the country will get a chance to flourish. Various teachers will work up to be experts in implementation. Aspects like Multiple Intelligences, Creativity, Innovation, Research, Technology and building values can be incorporated. This BOTTOM-UP approach could be a boon to our country. No need for command structure, financial audits and program authentication as there can be no loss. There can only be a flow of excellence. Transformation can be achieved in a realistic way if only we value those schools who have proved to be leaders and enroll them to do PEER handholding. Top down reforms come at huge costs and mostly remain on paper. We need to create GREAT Schools out of creative and innovative schools. We have to look at multiple models and promote all the accepted models so that schools can make a choice and follow. About a 100 transformation schools are enough to exercise the choice and work with a couple of Engine Schools in that area. Effective and conscientious teachers have discovered the trick of teaching children of today. A training course could add to that. These teachers are up to date and have a lot to offer. We need to make a conducive system for Transformation Schools to accept the offer by Engine Schools. This would give a clear direction for reformation required in our Training courses and the new training courses which would lead effective teachers to become principals. Very often we lose good teachers and end up with bad principals.

Campaign for chang{e}

thinkCIQ Founder and Chairman Mansoor Ali Khan

Attitude, ability and tools are essentials to accomplish any change.

e keep asking ‘why change?’ why not ask ‘why not change?’ Perception changes the moment we look at things from a different angle. An elephant can be a rope, a pillar and so on. What’s the perception of Education today in India? Some say it is great! That’s based on the success of a small percentage of people. Did these people succeed because of the schooling they had? Wouldn’t they be doing better if they had a better education? Is it enough that we become successful by the dint of numbers? What about the great percentage of technical graduates who are neither job worthy nor able to manage their life. Our education seems to be promoting handicaps rather than individual abilities. Nobody would disagree with a proposal for a fundamental change. But nobody seems to have that magic model acceptable to all! Let us look at our education system under two domains of activity. One is purely administrative and the other pedagogic. We are tinkering with only the administrative part and believe we are improving education.. We need to take care of our heart to be healthy and to an extent happy. But we neither understand nor act on taking care of our brain that controls the heart too! Let us look at the possible changes in both the administrative as well as the pedagogic domains. Administratively we need more transparency and accountability. How come large funds are drawn from the state exchequer but nobody is responsible for the results! Any organization that is not accountable to the people it serves will not be able to serve at all. The entire “service” will be only on paper. Ground reality will be entirely different. No wonder the HC of Allahabad has ordered that all the wards of elected members and Government servants should study ONLY in public schools.

By Mansoor Ali Khan, Member Board of Management, Delhi Public Schools of Bangalore and Mysore.

As long as my breakfast comes from my choice restaurant, I can continue to run a filthy restaurant that could even be the source of many deadly infection. Ownership matters. 80% or more of our schools are free schools. People think and know it is ‘free’ education. We also should know that per child expense in a free school across the country would be much more than the average of fees charged by all the private schools! So money is not the constraint though money may not be unlimited which is the case anywhere in any set up. The point is the value of the money spent. The High Court order and the flocking of parents to private schools are a clarion call to work on changes on an emergency basis. We are looking at a huge elephant dancing. It’s not only desirable; it is also possible. But people who can make these changes possible do not desire it. Wishful thinking makes the matter worse. We should build on success stories. It should not matter whether it is private or philanthropic. Pedagogic improvements need to be based on two important areas – field research and the wisdom of ground reality. We have global researches in directly relevant fields like brain development, learning theories, curricular implications etc. These findings should have direct influence on what’s being done in individual schools. Whatever innovations are being implemented at school level need to be assessed and modified. Combining the global research and the ground research, each individual school should be encouraged to effect minor changes on a regular basis. This would first and foremost result in teachers of a school becoming active researchers. When teachers have an open mind and are committed, their efficacy and innovations improve. Bodies of education policy and Boards of affiliation can facilitate, promote and contribute to research based innovations and pedagogy based researches. Attitude, ability and tools are essentials to accomplish any change. We need to fight digital invasion and atomic wars. We need futuristic tools and intuitive minds. We need to start with our schools.

think Creativity & Intelligences Quarterly

Volume1 Issue 01

i CQ

250/- 300

July - September

2014

Special conference edition NURTURE THINKING FOSTER TALENTS

Challenge the Windows!

How can your actions teach Fractions?

thinkCIQ

VOL1 ISSUE 01

2014

the Right Kind of INDIAN CHUMBAK Montessori Method - the tool of a Genius?

the

Guru

INSPIRING Dr.U.R. Ananthamurthy

talks about being a creative teacher & the possibility of simplifying his language but never his thoughts.

Dear thinkCIQ, While going through the various communications about the Creative Intelligence Quest (CIQ) forum we were not prepared for the Magnitude of the amazing 3 days conference we became a part of!!!!!! At one place, in one Forum …..The class & relevance of the speakers as the advisors for bringing up the change in our education systems …supported by the relevant facts and Data……… was an extraordinary experience!!!!!!! It was wonderful to hear the speakers talk about the positives of the current systems and the gaps that need to be looked at for our kids brighter tomorrow. Even more heartening was to see the schools and the teachers be a part of the Global thoughts around innovation, Research, Multiple intelligence and talk about their implementation intentions on an ongoing basis. Kudos to the founders and their supporting teams for coming up with this initiative which we are sure will go a long way in making brighter future of our kids and subsequent betterment of the overall system. Thankful for the opportunity to participate in THE wonderful think CIQ conference. Absolutely proud of our Decision of making our Son be a part of the institution with these progressive thoughts!!!!! Anamika Singh Parents of Om Thomas (DPS East)

Letters

Write to : thinkCIQ, c/o GEAR Foundation, GEAR Road, Doddakannelli, Bangalore-560035 E-mail : thinkCIQ@gear.ac.in

Dear thinkCIQ, I would like to thank your institution again for providing us an opportunity to participate in the wonderful thinkCIQ conference today. It was a memorable day for myself, my wife and Shashwath as well. The panel discussion enlightened us on brain development and visual thinking. The presentations on various topics like creativity, entrepreneurship, encouraging children to be makers etc. were excellent. These brought-in several insights on how creativity can be harnessed from child hood itself. The sessions also covered how the hunger for entrepreneurship can surpass several hurdles like shortage of money, family pressures etc.. We saw how collaboration with children can bring in solutions, through their creativity. We got to know the various Mobile apps which will be useful for parents as well as teachers, their importance in modern era of education, how they need to be handled to avoid adverse impact. This was one of the best conferences I have ever attended in the area of child mind development and creative thinking. I would recommend my colleagues and friends to attend these conference in future. Thanks again. Satish M R f/o Shashwath M.S. (DPS South)

think Creativity & Intelligences Quarterly

Volume 2 Issue 01

i CQ

LETTERS

300 250/-

October-December

2015

Special conference edition NURTURE THINKING FOSTER TALENTS

How to use the Cover of this edition ?

thinkCIQ

VOL2 ISSUE 01

2015

We thought hard and long about this edition’s cover design. How do you design the cover of a journal on Creativity! A cover generally gives you a peek into the journal and has to be appealing, so people pick it off the shelf. But that doesn’t mean its creative. Well, challenges like this gets us really fired up. We wanted something that would be more than a reflection. If we could get you excited about coming back to the cover once you read the inside pages, then it won’t just be an aesthetic façade.

Cover Story “What if I fall? Oh but my darling, what if you fly?”

Jayanti Tambe, Executive

Director of UCLA Early Care and Education talks about “Out of the box thinking” and creativity in Early Childhood Education.

Exclusive Features

Interview of Late Foreign Secretary A.P Venkateswaran and Usha Venkateswaran

How I met your MOM Mars Orbiter Mission & Malala- Dove of Swat

Performing Arts- A Child’s perspective

Learning through your senses and spaces Cover Illustration and design by Athreya Krishnamurthy

Instructions for use : Invoke the child inside you. You can’t ?, then get a child to participate in the activity.

The cover is designed as an “interactive learning aid.” As you might have observed, in the centre you have the brain that controls all of the senses. The five senses can be moved around in a circular motion. Go on try it ! So if you did go back and try it, then you would have noticed, these senses land on various scenarios through which children could learn. And as it should be, we can learn from them. Can a mountain side camp fire and playing bongo actually be learning experiences! Well, that is for you to decide. We days coming up with spaces and elements that excited as well inspired us. We also thought it would be fun if a sense landed between two scenarios, like the sense of taste in the above picture. What a predicament that would be ! Can we learn through more than one sense, or for that matter space? One of our most inspiring mentors, Jayanti Tambe, used to teach English poetry to 5th graders while she baked a cake! Yes, she would bring an oven and all the ingredients to her classroom and bake. The smell of cake when its baking, not only makes you hungry and salivate but also ignites your creativity and imagination. If your sense of smell can tell your brain to appreciate cake and trigger your sense of taste , well maybe it could spark an appreciation for poetry as well. Children learn while they have fun. If not, then is learning worth it ? Doing what you love and enjoying what you do will definitely produce different results than learning without reverence or relevance. So here is the task in front of you- try out fun activities by combining various senses and spaces. Write to us your experiences and if you thought of any out of the box activities. We are waiting! Hope you have as much fun as we did, creating this cover.

Madhumitha Srinivasan, Art Director thinkCIQ

POINT OF VIEW

A Creative Mind By Sanjana Srinivas One who possesses a creative mind is one who can dream out loud. To stand out in a world of black and white, we can splash a bit of color by involving the element of creativity in our lives and the lives of others. As Steve Jobs said, "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." This individual emerged as an icon who combined his theoretical knowledge of technology with a creative touch, pushing Apple products to being the most innovative breakthroughs of the century.

In today's world, demonstrating just a logical way of thinking is insufficient. From a very young age, children are taught to think outside the box and evolve as unique individuals. For a toddler, the simplest tools like a crayon and a blank sheet of paper make way for an explosion of ideas. By imagining and setting their thoughts free, the seeds of originality are planted in these young minds. As time progresses, growing minds of adolescents are cut off from opportunities that enable their creative juices to flow. In reality, allowing students of all ages to express their creative side helps them embrace their individuality and express novel ideas to the world. Being equipped with the skill of using a multi-faceted approach towards thinking in fact guides the mind to process thoughts in a wide variety of ways. Although acquiring theoretical knowledge helps to develop a student's logical and analytical skills, having just these along with a dull, prosaic mind is comparable to holding a key to an inexistent lock. Brainstorming, imagining, and creating, altogether, function to bring out methods to tackle various situations, at all stages of a student's life.

Breaking the common misconception that sheer theoretical knowledge is the only component required to create a successful person, creativity steps in as the key for people to pave a road for themselves to become eminent leaders of tomorrow. Just as having a healthy body helps you unleash your physical abilities, having a strong and healthy creative side unleashes the inner individual within you. Imagining begins with dreaming, which lets one's mind escape to a new world, enabling one to see plain things with an aesthetic eye. Being independent to translate free flowing thoughts into ideas can empower an individual to stand by the conviction of their identity in an otherwise ordinary society. The only way to spice up your life and the lives of others is to add to it a pinch of originality and the magical element of imagination.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;As a dancer I am an artist. In any art form, the most important bond is the relationship formed between the guru and the shishya.â&#x20AC;? Â ~ Usha Vekateswaran

Ab hi n a y a Annika Ganjoo, 14 years old, is a passionate

and graceful Odissi dancer. As her hands move gracefully and rest on the chair she swirls on, she talks to us about dance and how important abhinaya is in Odissi. Her eyes are kind and at the same time fierce with determination when a fellow thinkCIQ contributor disagrees with her in a conversation. She has learnt to love and take a stand, with the grace and beauty of her art form. Every performance influences her aesthetics and expressions in life. Annika tells us there is a difference between a dancer and a performer. Not all dancers can be performers. A dancer needs more than talent and a demeanour on stage to become a performer. Here, she chats with her guru Sarita Mishra from Adyasha Dance Ensemble Theatre in Bangalore. Photo- Nikhil Ravi , Grade 10

ARTS & CULTURE

Sarita Mishra from Adyasha Dance Ensemble Theatre in Bangalore.

ne O of the first brushes I had with Odissi was not a normal one. It went something like this. I slowly awoke from a deep sleep as someone continuously tugged on my leg, trying to get me to wake up. Everything hurt and I reminded myself never to fall asleep in the car again. Before my eyes could adjust to the dim light, I was dragged out of the car. I tried to identify who was dragging me out with the help of a dimly lit street light. What I saw, was a beautiful monster… her hands covered in blood, her eyes dark as night, her skin draped in pink silk, her body adorned in silver. Ironically, that beautiful and brilliant dancer turned out to be my sister, who was screaming at me to get to her Odissi performance on time. Initially, I started to dance because my mother nudged both my sister and I, as her love for the dance form drove her to make us dance. It started off as just another class which I was dragged to. Just another classical dance, or so I thought. Dance took a backseat in my life after this, until I met Sarita Mishra (a Vishrad holder, which is a certification in Odissi dance) whom I’m proud to call my guru. To her, dance is everything, she taught me how to love it. She taught me that Odissi is different and that it isn’t just any classical dance. In Odissi we learn not to dance with our feet but with our hearts. But in the end, my mother’s smile as she watches me dance is probably the reason behind it all.

Annika Ganjoo : What makes you unique as a teacher in the field of dance? Sarita Mishra : Unlike many other gurus, who have strict instructions for movements and a particular way to dance, I give my students the freedom to work their way through it themselves, letting them move and flow with the music and I also involve them in making the new steps for a new dance they are learning so it gives them exposure to learning new things and making their own steps.

AG : Why should people dance? SM : Dance is a work out that you don't realise you're doing. In Odissi we use everything from head to toe. You never feel the calories you burn because your body gets into the groove of the music, letting you forget all that is around you. Dance is also a way to learn different parts of history you never knew existed.

What is the difference between a dancer and a performer? AG : As a dancer I perform and give my best so I can show that I'm learning and my teacher is teaching. Practising for a performance requires a lot of hard work. When I perform my effort and my teachers hard work has paid off. I feel a sense of achievement.

My Odyssey With Odissi By Annika Ganjoo, 9th Grade

SM : When you're a performer you have to look into five things: -  Public relations, but still keeping your dignity and manners in place. -  Relation with you technician for lights and everything else to make sure your performance goes right. -  Stage presence , your make up, costume, Jewellery etc.,. should be on point. -  Choosing your dance pieces according to your audience, Eg: Don't pick a jumpy happy exciting song for an audience of elderly people. -  And, last but not the least, your spirituality and divinity towards your dance and true passion towards what you're doing.

ARTS & CULTURE

AG : Before you met guru Bichintranath Swain or any of your other gurus, what made you dance? How did you start? What connected you to it? You certainly couldn’t have fallen in love with it at first sight. SM : No, not at all. That wouldn't be very normal. It was a time when radio and television were extremely new and Doordarshan was a hit show and every time its theme song played I'd begin hopping about and making my own steps. Whenever my mother used to sing me traditional Odiyan lullabies, for e.g. Kishori Kannha, I would be flummoxed at why my mother wasn't making a rhythm, but I'd still dance to everything and anything my parents used to tell me. When my first school’s annual day came , I still remember, wearing dupattas and some shorts, and after the performance my teacher who taught me dance had called my parents and told them "She isn't any ordinary six year old, she has talent and potential. Guide her and she will flourish." That's how it all started. AG : What was that one stepping stone in your life that made you tell yourself, ‘This is what I want to do! I want to spread my talent and my gift to so many more people!’? SM : Come to think of it now, even as a child with that much talent, I was always pushed to the back of the class. My teacher didn't give me the kind of attention I would have needed to flourish. And, in my class I was made fun of because my family’s financial situation wasn't extremely stable and because my parents couldn't pamper my teacher with expensive gifts. What I went through then drove me to where I stand today. I am unique as a teacher because I treat all my students equally , no matter what their financial status is, not caring what their parents are like or their background or their behaviour. I want to be a friend, a guide and lastly, a teacher to all my students. Basically, someone they can trust. I want to give them what I never had. A chance.

“Guruléka etuvanti guniki teliyaka pódu” - Tyagaraja Translation No one, however virtuous he may be, without the grace of a Guru will know.

Passion drives true talent. To some extent talent is driven by ability, but at the end of the day, it is the interest and pure dedication to the art that is what keeps one going. Mrs. AP Venkateswaran talks to Ashni N Shah about her passion and talent- Classical Dance and her vision for the future.

Usha Venkateswaran is a true example of this passion and dedication. Although her husband’s job kept the two of them fairly busy travelling the world, at no point did this stand in her way. Here, she shares with the thinkCIQ team the story of how she followed her dancing dream while travelling the world with her spouse. As someone who travels as much as she does, it would certainly have to affect her art to some extent. When asked, she conceded saying that travelling affected her art as much as her art affects the people she meets. She influences them and at the same time she imbibes some of their artistic knowledge. Having travelled to more countries than you could possibly name, Mrs. Venkateswaran tells us about her favorite cross-cultural experience. The top two contenders were her experience in the Soviet Union and in the Fiji Islands. The people in the Soviet Union were extremely friendly and outgoing. Most importantly, they were always open to learning about Indian culture. The Fijians were the most simplistic people who lived in harmony. Even though each lived separately, they were still all together. Being both an artist as well as a dancer, we asked her whether at any point she felt as if they influenced one another. She says, “As a dancer I am an artist”. To her, an artist is someone who comprehends something aesthetically and not mechanically. Your art and profession should be one, each hand in hand. Her advice to any youngster out there with an idea forming in the back of their mind to be a dancer, is to make sure you have the proper basic talent before moving further with it. However, most important is the relationship and bond that must be formed between the guru and the shishya.

An enthusiastic dancer picks up steps from everywhere no matter the style. Mrs. Venkateswaran tells us about the foreign dance styles that she learnt over her lengthy visits to other countries. She learnt ballet and her folk dances in the Soviet Union as well as in the Fiji Islands. She performed with the Uzbekistanis and also taught dance in China. Along with her dancing dream she also pursued her long time dream of being a nutritionist. She did a planning program in MIT and also taught in various colleges. Throughout the interview, she stressed on the fact that boys should also be taught dance. Dance is always taken as a feminine art and she emphasized her opposition to this age old stereotype. Over the years she has had an array of teachers and eventually began teaching herself. However, there were some that stood out; her first guru was a 75 year old man. He treated her with a grandfatherly affection and used to teach in devdasi temples in Madurai. He was an extremely outgoing teacher and taught with no reservations. Her second guru was a far richer and more prestigious teacher. He had an extremely good eye for stage presentation of dancers and he taught her three dance forms - Manipuri, Kathak and Bharathnatyam. In the short span of that interview, Mrs. Venkateswaran taught us so much. She taught us the importance of dance in a child’s life, the crucial role a guru plays in his student’s life and to never let life get in your interests’ way. Most importantly, she taught us not only to follow our dreams, but to chase them.

ARTS & CULTURE

Photo RIGHT - Alta by Soumya Sumitra Behera Abhinaya (Sanskrit abhi- 'towards' + nii'leading/guide') is the art of expression in Indian aesthetics. More accurately it means "leading an audience towards" the experience of a sentiment.

He enlivened his surroundings with playful humour. In a mail to ‘friends of my father-in-law’, James Peck described how the family went to the confluence of three swollen rivers for the immersion ceremony. ‘Venkat’s ashes were immersed in the strong current. True to his nature, the ashes initially travelled upstream against the current, After that brief act of mischief the ashes, cajoled by the currents, sashayed along the water’s surface toward the sun.’

ARTS & CULTURE

No wonder the sun is brighter these days.

Photo- Nikhil Ravi, Grade 09

Devi Sastry

has a look into the world of a diplomat. She is a writer shadowed by humour and her candidness is well disguised by her intelligence and smart wit. Who better then, to interview the king of wit and one of the finest, most incisive minds of our generation. A tête-à-tête with the former Foreign Secretary A.P Venkateswaran is priceless. This interview happened in mid 2014. Mr. Venkateswaran passed away in September 2014. We dedicate this article to his enthusiasm and passion to create a change even in his 80’s. Age was just a number for this young soul. We will always love him.

-Venkat Forever, Pg 70; A foreign service legend, tribute by T.J.S George

An Outspoken Chanakya A.P Vekateswaran

T makes the world wiser. If wisdom is gained only through experience, then ravel what better way to gain it than by travelling? This was certainly what the thinkCIQ “1000 donkeys led by a lion can defeat 1000 lions led by a donkey.”

team found when we interviewed former foreign secretary, AP Venkateswaran. His wisdom knew no bounds, as his time as foreign secretary had him travelling all around the world. He shared his invaluable experiences with us and this is what we brought back from the experience. As is the case with most students, Mr. Venkateswaran did not like to study, and wanted to be free. With age, he realized the importance of being educated. He told us that it is necessary to jump a particular height to cross and succeed. He said that intelligence can be cultivated, but it is largely inherited. We asked him to describe what a day in the life of a foreign secretary would look like, to which he answered that they were miserable days. He had 100 things to do, out of which 99 were unimportant. Being foreign secretary, travel was a great part of life. We asked him what his most iconic experience of travelling during his term as foreign secretary was. He told us that he did not travel for pleasure, and that he went only to interact with other government officials. He also stated that one must always be on their guard, as everyone wants to get the upper hand. He did this, and succeeded in giving India the upper hand.

We asked Mr.Venkateswaran if he always wanted to take up this field when he was a child, or if he had anything else in his mind. He answered that he wanted to be an economist. During the intermediate between school and college, he wanted to do economics, but was made to do chemistry. After this, he attempted to study economics again. He asked his teacher if he could do an MA in economics, but was given the opportunity to do an MSc in chemistry. This time, he did not deter from his position, and ended up getting an admission to study economics. When he was in school, he told us, he wanted to see the world. He didn’t want to be a frog in a well, but rather a frog in a lake.

George A. Moore once said, “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” We wondered if a well-traveled man like him always took a piece of home with him and pitted it against the rest of the world. He felt that Indians have been raised in a very accepting culture. Indians accept what others don’t. Indians have fought internal wars, but have never gone out of the country to conquer.

After a sneak peak into what might have been a very glamorous yet dignified career that Mr.Venkateswaran chose, it dawned upon me that not many youngsters would want such a career in this day and age, given the current political agenda and, for that matter, a society where parents still influence their child on the careers they choose. Mr.Venkateswaran put those thoughts to rest as he replied, “Never hesitate to challenge your teachers.” He narrated a childhood experience of his in which one of his grade 3 teachers told him that the sun was stationary. He contradicted the teacher, and was sent out of class. At home, he recounted this to his father, who sorted the matter out with the Principal.

Any career or experience inevitably comes along with challenges, and politics was certainly no exception. I wondered if there was any specific coping mechanism Mr. Venkateswaran used to pull himself through tough times, and he replied simply that he coped as best he could. He stated that if you cannot cope, you will fail.

His wisdom will travel through the ages, as he traveled through the world.

We also asked Mr. Venkateswaran what changes he would make to his life if he lived it again. He answered that he would not change anything. He was content and happy with the way things had turned out. Mr. Venkateswaran shared with us more worldly wisdom, and explained to us the importance of good leadership. His advice stuck in our minds and stays with us.

ARTS & CULTURE

Brings

M us ic closer

Why we should consider music integrated learning ! Different age groups, occupations and perspectives. This article features a Montessori teacher and a high school student trained in Classical Indian music, both fascinated by the world of music.

Sunitha P Ananthakrishnan is a Montessori mentor for the past 4 years and has worked in Montessori environments both in the US and India. A Bachelor of Engineering by qualification, her passion for teaching, fascination for the Montessori philosophy and her love for children inspired her to do a Diploma in Montessori education. Apart from guiding and learning from the smart, innovative and adorable preschoolers that she loves spending time with, she enjoys reading books and listening to music. She talks about the importance of music in a preschool environment.

“There should be music in the child’s environment, just as there does exist in the child’s environment spoken speech.” -Maria Montessori, 1931.

y experience with the pre-school children has more than substantiated this very insightful statement that Dr. Montessori made all those years ago. We even see how lullabies and sing song voices help us connect to a young child. I have always been fascinated to observe how, during the preschool years, the child’s musical intelligence seems sharper; they can remember tunes, words, and can hold a note well. It is common knowledge that Music and Math are very closely related. An early start in music enrichment, either vocal or instrumental, can thus provide a good base for academics as well. These facts and observations, along with my own love for music, was what motivated me to explore the different facets music brings to a preschooler's life. Over the years, I have built up a decent collection of songs that range from the common nursery rhymes to songs that help learn Math, Language or Geography concepts. These are from various music CDs, especially those by Dr. Jean, and from exploring the vast resources available through the internet. Let me share a few of these Musical activities, experiments and experiences that I have had the pleasure to share with my preschoolers.

ARTS & CULTURE

We usually start our day with a “Welcome to the school” song. This helps grab their attention in a natural way and as they voluntarily join in. It also abates the hubbub of children meeting their friends early in the morning. Then, as we do the calendar activities, we sing the “Days of the week” and the “Months of the year” song. Over the years, it has been entertaining to see how these simple songs are perceived by children. One year, there was a 3 year old who was very communicative but could not speak a word in English. She loved the ‘Days of the week’ song so much that many times during the day or when it was time to go home, she would sing the song in her young, loud voice. The names of the days usually pronounced correctly. That was her way of getting an inroad into learning the language. Language development doesn’t apply to English only. We often sing songs in various regional languages and chant shlokas during our Circle time. For children who now claim English to be their Mother tongue, this helps them appreciate the beauty of some of our own languages and culture.

There have also been instances when music has directly helped a child learn concepts – be it names of colours, sounds associated with letters or Math. In our environment, we have a 3 year old child who could actually associate and match colours but could not remember the names of the colours. For instance, she knew that an apple and the red tablet in the Colour box -1 (This is a Montessori material that introduces color ,and contains three pairs of tablets that represent the primary colors: red, yellow, and blue.) were the same colour, but she would not be able to say that that colour was red. She also had a particular liking for the colour song that we usually sing during our Circle time. Once she was given the idea of using the song as a cue, you could actually see her mouthing the words “Apples are red” while she picked up the red tablet and she would then say “This is red!!!”. We have also successfully used different songs for children to learn basic body parts, the senses, names of continents, oceans, the directions, phonic sounds and even Math concepts like addition, subtraction and skip counting. Music also helps children, who are otherwise mild and reserved by nature, to open up. Music, especially in a group setting, encourages them to shed their inhibitions. There is this 4 year old who is very soft-spoken, shy and has to often be urged to speak up so she can be heard. Interestingly though, while singing songs during circle time, her voice is one of the loudest and her excitement is palpable!! In simple words, Music is fun. Just like the start of the work day, the end of the work day is indicated by a cleanup song. It is really amazing to see how the children respond to this musical reminder. They sing the song and, simultaneously, put materials back, set the class right and are sitting crisscross for Circle time, all by the time we sing the ending phrase!! To summarise, preschool children are at an age where they are particularly sensitive to music. Hence, there is a need for a higher level of music enrichment in environments that cater to this age group. As preschool facilitators, it is our duty to explore various resources and options available. There are of course electronic resources like audio CDs and DVDs which aim at concept formation using music. Resources are also available in plenty on the web which can be harvested prudently. There is also a need for deeper research on the connection between Music and concept development, especially as a teaching aid for children with learning disabilities or with autism spectrum disorder. It would be very appropriate to end with a quote by the famous Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki, who was also an influential pedagogue in Music education of children,

“Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens. If a child hears fine music from the day of his birth and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity, discipline, and endurance. He gets a beautiful heart.”

ARTS & CULTURE

by Madhumitha Srinivasan

Music makes you smarter. This is not an excuse, that I

used when I was caught by my parents, with a pair of headphones plugged in while doing my work! I have always enjoyed doing tasks that often lead to boredom, accompanied by music. Even if we don’t always notice it, music is all around us- someone’s noise is my music. Studies show that music has a wide array of benefits to your health. Whether you’re listening or, better yet, playing, music can have a great impact on your mind. How can music or appreciating music improve your test scores? Statistics show that an average person listens to 25 songs a day. One out of two people play or has played an instrument. So if the above statement is true, I have to be smarter than you ! All that music is nevertheless good for students- 53% of students ages 12-17 listen to music while studying. The same percentage of students, tested higher on their verbal and math sections. So maybe it’s not surprising that, music majors are the highest percentage of accepted medical students at 66%. Students who played an instrument for just 8 months showed a 46% increase in their spatial IQ. If this statistics is hard for you to follow, then maybe trying reading it with some music. Music involves more parts of the brain than any other function that people perform. Spatial IQ is directly tied to the ability to memorize things. And in younger children, studies show that music lessons can increase attention, fine motor skills and memorization skills. 90% of preschool children showed increased verbal intelligence after just 20 days of musical training. Over time, listening to music can improve creativity, language skills and happiness. It has healing powers, no wonder a lullaby could put a crying baby out of anxiety or discomfort.

PARTS OF THE BRAIN AFFECTED BY MUSIC Music involves more parts of the brain than any other function that people perform.

TONALITY Prefrontal cortex Cerebellum Temporal lobe

RHYTHM Left frontal cortex Left parietal cortex Right cerebellum

LYRICS Wernicke’s area Broca’s area* Visual cortex* Motor cortex* Emotional responses

*Broca’s area ( depending upon the music) Visual cortex ( imagining parts of the music) Motor cortex ( tapping toes) References- University of Florida http://visual.ly/psychology-music

OTHER EFFECTS OF MUSIC ON THE BRAIN Over time, listening to music can improve:

RESEARCH

Music is known to help heal some neurological disorders:

LANGUAGE SKILLS

Music students receive more

CREATIVITY

academic honors & awards

ALZHEIMER’S PARKINSON’S TOURETTES AUTISM

HAPPINESS

than non-music students

Music majors comprise the highest percentage of accepted medical students

Healing powers of music:

DECREASE ANXIETY Music training is far better than computer instruction in improving children’s abstract reasoning skills

SPEED HEALING INCREASE OPTIMISM DECREASE PAIN

less aggressive

THE IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC TO EDUCATION

Specific brainwave rhythms are associated with specific emotional and cognitive outcomes.

SUPER MIND MUSIC

Gamma Waves 30-34 – 100+ Hz (cycles per second) The brain’s optimal frequency and brain function, associated with increased compassion, Greater awareness of reality and increased mental abilities. Found in every part of the brain, serve as a binding mechanism between all parts of the brain

With music instruction in schools, teachers found the students were

Beta Waves 12-30 Hz (cycles per second) Low Beta waves: Concentration,, Alertness, Lack of low Beta activity associated with disorders: ADD, addiction, OCD and anxiety disorders High Beta waves: Stress, Anxiety, Flight reactions

Alpha Waves 8-12 Hz (cycles per second) Occur during relaxation and daydreams, Effortless state of consciousness, Occurs when watching some television. Children play in Alpha, Serotonin release occurs at an Alpha frequency of 10 Hz

Theta Waves 4-8 Hz (cycles per second) Occur when the conscious mind is disengaged. REM sleep, Deep meditation, Hypnosis. The planet resonates at a Theta frequency of 7.83 Hz

Music comes in many different types and styles ranging from classical, traditional rock music to world pop, easy listening and bluegrass. Our research lead us to a new genre, super mind music. This involves specific brainwave rhythms associated with specific emotional and cognitive outcomes. Matching music with brainwaves to induce a particular response or state of mind. For example- Gamma waves at 30-34 Hz (cycles per second), at brain’s optimal frequency and function is associated with increased compassion, greater awareness of reality and increased mental abilities. So if you have a value education class and learning about selflessness and compassion, maybe the right frequency of music can help! Teachers and schools often dismiss music training as an “extra” curricular activity, when in reality, “extra” is what is required in our classrooms today. Music is far better than computer instruction in improving children’s abstract reasoning skills. Maria Montessori’s philosophy in education has been to move from concrete to abstract. Her objective was to develop the concept first, by using concrete materials during the early, sensitive years, so that the Montessori child can learn the basic concepts of mathematics and language. Imagine what can be achieved in preschools, with music integrated learning. Music is a way of expression and personal enrichment and has evolved throughout the human race. Cellist and conductor Pablo Cascals said, music is the “incredible marvel” of being human.

Let us together play the moments, pause the memories, stop the pain and rewind the happiness.

ARTS & CULTURE

“Carnatic music is fading away from our culture and will someday disappear.”; this thought will remain a myth. I think the future generation will prove them wrong. Carnatic music has survived for centuries, despite the changes that have taken us to new frontiers I don't think that the number of people learning this art form will deplete. Today, Carnatic music is still held in high esteem which adds to its aesthetic value. Classical music does play a very important role in our lives. I’ll be referring to Carnatic music in specific. The important part is that we have to remember to respect all kinds of music. The lullaby, pitter-patter of the raindrops, and the gush of the waterfall are all music. The heartbeat, galloping of horses and even the constant dribble of a basketball are all experiences that can be related to rhythm. Music brings peace and calmness to the mind. It is also a math teacher (the number of beats in a tala (clap), mathematical patterns used in kalpana swaras and the ability to fit all the swaras into ‘x’ number of talas). The idea of mathematical uniformity making music is credited to Pythagoras. He discovered that uniformity in numbers directly impacts harmony, but it is possible that the Indians were aware of this idea much before him. The tala in Carnatic music is nothing but the rhythm and the pitch, both expressions of number. We keep count with the tala and finger count. Students of advanced Carnatic music will tell you that there is plenty of algebra in this oldest form of music. It is the tala that gives structure to a composition. Carnatic music is a very complex system of music that requires much thought, both artistically and technically; all babies fall asleep when they hear their lullabies or when they are rocked and patted, which forms the rhythm or beats of music. Music therapy also helps in curing many disorders. Each raga has its own value, for example, the raga 'Ganamurti' is used to cure diabetic patients. A child's mind is in its formative stages, and is very malleable, ready to absorb, learn and perform. What we learn when we are toddlers leaves a mark on our personality in the present and even the future. If a person has been exposed to soothing music from the time he was a toddler, research shows that he is more calm and composed as he grows up. Interest follows when one develops himself in an art form, but it varies from person to person. If a child is exposed to only Carnatic music, her viewpoint to this type of music is going to be different. Their perception of this art form could be more positive. Inspiration is very important. Children always have role models and that keeps us going. Going to concerts, listening to music, attending lectures and workshops are all part of learning. This wide range of exposure leads to great ideas. In the end, everything depends on the quantity and quality of the effort you have put in.

Classical music Apart

by Vibha Arvind, Grade 08

“ Al as as y a ku t h ō v i d y ā , avidyasya kuthõ dhanam, adhanyasya kuthō mitram, amritasya kutah sukham.”

Translation- ‘If there is no eﬀort, there won’t be knowledge, money, friends, not even joy in life.’ I performed in a temple once, and at the end of the program, I had a child walk up to me and say- “I want to be just like you when I grow up.” Her admiration for my music took me by surprise. My heart skipped a beat and a quartet of pride took over accompanied by a faint hum of guilt. I wasn’t practising enough and was taking my talent for granted. I was unable to overcome my laziness with just talent and passion. The young child’s hope was pinned on me. The next day I woke up at 5.00 a.m. and started practice. Well of course it was for a short duration, but her admiration inspired me. There is a beautiful shloka in Samskritam which says, “Alasasya kuthō vidyā, avidyasya kuthõ dhanam, adhanyasya kuthō mitram, amritasya kutah sukham”. It means, ‘If there is no effort, there won’t be knowledge, money, friends, not even joy in life’. All this is one single journey - experience. Your journey of experiences gives YOU an identity. Experience as always said, is the best teacher. You will feel happy that there is something as special as this to do. In my experience in the last 10 years, I have realised that we need to work hard to gain that identity. Despite fame and success, we will be better human beings with humility! My performances have been a humbling experience. To sum up, here’s a beautiful quote by Rabindranath Tagore which says,

“ M u s i c fi l l s t h e i n fi n i t e between two souls.” I hope it fills your heart with the will to create your own beats with the rhythm of your soul.

how i

met your

mom India mars orbiter mission

By Shaurya Arora, Grade 09

Mangalyaan ("Mars-craft", from Sanskrit: मंगल mangala, "Mars" and यान yāna, "craft, vehicle")

14:38 IST- 5 November 2013 Satish Dhawan Space Centre (Sriharikota Range SHAR) Andhra Pradesh,

tephen Covey has marked out four main intelligences in his book, ‘The Eighth Habit’. All life on Earth has the Physical intelligence (PQ). The mental Intelligence (IQ) is referred to the logic prevalent in computers and other machines. Only higher mammals have the emotional intelligence (EQ), but the spiritual quotient (SQ) is unique to humans. The SQ is the parent of all the other three intelligences, and is very influential in our efficiency. The SQ is disproportionate among the human race, and Indians have a great deal of it in them. That’s what drives them forward and makes their work different from the rest of the world. The same holds true for the scientists working at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) The 24th of September marked the biggest day in Indian space and research history with ISRO’s indigenously built Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) successfully entering the orbit of Mars. Scientists at ISRO described this complex manoeuvre as throwing a basketball from India and hoping it would go into a basket in California, USA. This was India’s first interplanetary mission, and as a scientist rightly added, a mission with many more to come.The inspiration behind this mission was the Asian space race, a race to capture the space market and for space glory. China and Japan for years now have been leading this race and with China beating India again in the race to land a rover on the surface of the moon through their rover Yutu (Jade rabbit); it was time for India to take a step ahead. The failure of Japanese and Chinese attempts to Mars in 2003 and 2011 respectively boosted the confidence of the scientists working on Mangalyaan (in Hindi: Mars Orbiter) and its payload. Fighting against time, ISRO developed the plan and manufactured Mangalyaan in a mere fifteen months. The scientists were working harder than ever before. “Scientist abroad have 35-hour work weeks, but at ISRO, we were working at 18 hours per day”, said K Radhakrishnan, the chairman of ISRO. ISRO receives an annual budget of only 1.1 billion USD from the Indian government as compared to NASA’s space budget of 18.7 billion USD. Yet India proved once again that money is priceless when it comes to sheer talent and engineering, when it revealed its mission to mars at only 75 million USD, a tenth of what NASA had spent on their most recent mission to mars, MAVEN. This also made Mangalyaan the cheapest interplanetary mission to Mars. Did you know that the most expensive mission to Mars (The Viking program) costed nearly 3.8 billion USD; you could make about fifty mangalyaan’s in that much money. This feat was only possible as ISRO was pushed to the bar. When you have deadlines and restrictions on top of serious commitment, your work tends to get more efficient. Here’s an example: an auto in Ahmedabad charges 10 rupees per kilometre but Mangalyaan incredibly travelled at a mileage of 7 rupees per kilometre. Wouldn’t it be amazing if Mangalyaan could be our ride to school instead of an auto. We could save hundreds of rupees in a month.

TECHNOLOGY

Mangalyaan carries 5 main instruments: Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP), Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM), Mars Color camera (MCC), Thermal Infrared Imaging System (TIS), and the Martian Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer (MENCA). I am pretty sure the previous few lines were gibberish for you, so to make it easy, the primary objectives of Mangalyaan are mapping the surface of Mars, finding signs of life, studying the Martian atmosphere and taking pictures of Mars. Moreover, Mangalyaan is also a mission to boost national pride and display India’s capabilities in science at the world level. After a slight launch delay, which is common in India, the widely awaited Mangalyaan-1 was finally launched on November 5, 2013 at Sriharikota, a barrier island off the shore of the Bay of Bengal. On December 1st, Mangalyaan achieved is next major landmark when it left the orbit of Earth and started its 300-day journey towards the red planet (the longest journey I’ve had is about a three hours road trip, and don’t even ask me about it). During this period, there were many speculations on India whether they should solve the issue of poverty first before undertaking such expensive missions. The Indian justification was that science and development go hand in hand. Moreover, if you look at it logically, each Indian has only had to contribute 3.6 rupees to make this mission successful. After a few path corrections and manoeuvres, Mangalyaan was travelling at an incredible speed of 22km/s (no, not 22 km/h) in space. Before orbit insertion, the speed of Mangalyaan had to be reduced drastically, and this was possible only through LAM (liquid Apogee Motor). The LAM had been dormant for the past ten months while in space with Mangalyaan, and ISRO’s greatest fear was whether it would continue sleeping (like I love to do), or jump to life. The LAM firing was however successful and on the 24th of September, Mangalyaan finally received hospitality from Mars. India’s honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi was also present to witness this rare moment. After a confidence boosting speech, the organizers had planned that he would shake the hands of a few senior scientists and make a way out. But as we all know Shri Narendra Modi as a norms breaker, he got into the crowd of enthusiastic and young scientists, and started shaking their hands, giving them new aspirations to work for. This is the Indian spirit he had earlier mentioned, where each one works for the common goal of Indian development. Media from all over the world have applauded this great mission and congratulated ISRO for its success. Mangalyaan wouldn’t have been possible without the passion and hard work that had gone into its making. India’s space program had started at the same time as many other country’s, yet ISRO had the extra urge and willpower to take it ahead. It had all started in a cowshed in 1962, with a dream and a few tools. Under Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space program, ISRO transformed from a mere idea to the fifth largest space agency in the world. It has reached unique heights and is proudly striving ahead.

ISRO also promises a brilliant future for science and research and has confirmed the launch of Mangalyaan-2 in a couple of years too (between 2017-2020). I can securely state that ISRO’s vision, discipline and passion coupled up with the SQ, has created a killer combination no other agency possesses, which helps it achieve the near impossible and dream of the near unimaginable. It will forever continue to work for its goal: -

“Space Technology in the Service of Human Kind”

Illustration by Athreya Krishnamurthy, Grade 12

ISRO's Mars Orbiter @MarsOrbiter

India's first mission to Mars. Orbiting the Red Planet since Sep 24, 2014. Explorer. Loves science, photography and long cruises.

ISROâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S Mars Orbiter @MarsOrbiter . Sep 24 What is red, is a planet and the focus of my orbit ? ISROâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S Mars Orbiter @MarsOrbiter . Sep 25 A shot of Martian atmosphere. I'm getting better at it. No pressure.

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YOUSAFZAI NOBEL CHOICE

If the woman in the house is educated the family becomes educated.

The Dove of Swat By Pooja Bhide / Grade 07

n July 12th 1997, a dove entered this world. Born to a Pashtun family in Mingora, she was a jewel of her father’s eyes. In some Pashtun families, the birth of a girl is considered a gloomy day but on the contrary, this dove’s father and mother were overjoyed. They started the ritual of throwing dry fruits and flowers in the cradle of their daughter, something only done with new born boys. This Dove was given the most beautiful name in the Swat valley. This name flew across on the wind…This name had a deep history and a great future lying ahead. This Dove’s name was given as Malala. Her father named her this after the brave warrior ‘Malalai of Maiwand’. During the battle against the British, Malalai brought hope to her losing army by saying these words “Young love, if you do not fall in the battle of Maiwand, then by God, someone is saving you as a symbol of shame” At that time, Malala's father did not realize that his daughter would also bring hope to her dying valley one day. In the beginning Malala had a beautiful life. The Swat valley was a perfect place for a free bird. The air was crisp and clean. Green hills and crystal clear water flowed across the valley.

Malala belonged to Mingora, which is the biggest town in the Swat. She cherished her early childhood here. She and her friends used to play hide and seek in the old monastery ruins. Malala’s father always thought about the betterment of the people of Swat. He majorly contributed to social work. His main goal was to start a school for girls who were usually supposed to only clean, cook and take care of the family. Finally he was able to raise enough money with the help of his friends. He started the ‘Khushal School’. So Malala really spent her childhood in a school.

As she grew up, her life started changing. The Swat started changing. A new enemy emerged in her life. This enemy was destroying her beloved home. Her valleys markets, schools, gardens and shops were being burned away. Her people were lost, hungry and frightened. The air of laughter was replaced by the firing of guns and the screams of the dying rang in Mingora.

Teenage Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai received straight-A’s in her General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations, the Daily Pakistan reports. The GCSE’s are standardized subject tests taken by secondary school students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The scores influence a test-taker’s future educational pursuits or professional prospects. Yousafzai’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, tweeted his daughter’s grades shortly after they were released Thursday, 21st August 2015:

The terrorist’s main motive was to ban education for girls and in this time of terror, Malala emerged. She flew across the valley, calming the hearts of Swat. A new ‘Malalai’ had been shaped from what little hope was left in the Swat. She brought life into the dark days. Renamed ‘Gul Makai’ her energizing speeches to be strong against the terror and continue the schooling of girls angered the Talibs. She almost paid the ultimate price when she was shot from point blank range by the angry Talibs.

I prayed for my hero to get better. I prayed that the Talibs had not silenced the brave education activist. I hoped the Talibs had failed and they did! Gul Makai survived. She spread awareness in Swat about girl education rights. She taught many that the pen is mightier than the sword. She has always been a great inspiration. She has taught me to believe in what is right. The Burkha never covered her strong words. She held her head high and followed her passion. She was so young and yet so brave.

Malala is now the icon of girl’s education. All around the world, we need more Malala’s. People should stand up for girl education rights. If the woman in the house is educated the family becomes educated. Girl’s education can increase the development of a country and ensure a better future for the coming generation. These days, activist around the world are joining hands and starting free schools in villages to bring out the potential in every child and especially girls.

Whenever I visit a school or orphanage, I am very happy to see girl’s learning besides boys. In my home our maid is like another Malala. She works very hard every day to raise money for her children’s schooling. I look up to her as well. Woman all around the world work very hard to put food on the table and have their children educated. Yet woman is deprived of education. I strongly support the Malala fund which believes that each boy and girl has the power to make a difference. Malala has brought a lasting impression in the Swat and the whole world……

She raised her voice for those who couldn’t, She survived the terrorist menacing bullets, And shouted out for the Taliban to know, That she will not falter or lie low. The Taliban cannot ban what girls rightfully need, With bombs and bullets they will never succeed, Destroying schools can’t stop education, It will only increase her powerful oration. Malalai of Maiwand, Malala of Mingora, Both fought for their home’s rights, To every heart they brought a ray of light, Malalai, Malala led what is truly right…..

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COVER STORY

Quote by Erin Hanson Portrait by Aniketh Umesh

Jayanti Tambe,

is a candid creative child trapped inside a beautiful, passionate adult; the perfect ingredients of a great mentor. She is a receptive and imaginative teacher who not only enjoys learning with children, but also from them. Jayanti is just a phenomenon.

“Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.” - Khaled Hosseini

oung children have a natural inclination towards “out-of-the-box” thinking. Y In their minds, everything is possible. Yes, dragons can exist. And yes, they can build a giant tower with Lego blocks. And yes, they can fly to the moon in a cardboard rocket ship. When we think of creativity in an early childhood environment, we think of things that children create: we think of art projects they bring home; we think of paper kites that they make; we think of colorful diyas that they paint for Diwali. We think of products, not process. Creativity, unfortunately, is given the least importance as children grow and develop. As Sir Ken Robinson says, we concentrate on developing children’s brains, thus reducing the rest of the body into mere vehicles, vehicles that transport the brains. We spend a lot of the early years teaching young children the ABCs and the 123s. We spend every day expecting children to create products. The problem is that we have drifted so far away from process based art to product based art in preschool environments. Today, when you walk into a classroom during the month of November in the US, you are sure to see lines of turkeys, resplendent with colored feathers hanging on walls, reminding you that Thanksgiving is around the corner; or if you walk into a classroom in India, dozens of glittering diyas (lamps) line the walls to announce the celebration of Diwali. Do little children, between two years and five really need to create cookie cutter art? What do they really learn from that product that they have created? How to add five feathers to the turkey? How to cut identical looking lamps? Isn’t this just “coloring between the lines” for preschool children? We spend very little time helping children have good ideas.

Adults value finished products: It’s important for us to consider these words of author Khaled Hosseini: “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.” Products are usually an adult value, and once kids know they can explore and discover on their own, they stop worrying about how things must look. For example, a child may mix all the colors of the rainbow and make a brown smooshy painting. But think about what he saw and learned as he mixed all those colors together. The reality is that creativity lies not in the actual products that children create, but rather in the process the children go through to create those very products. Often those products are not even tangible: in fact, many times, the product is an IDEA. Author Simon Senek writes, “What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.” In a child’s world, an idea can in fact remain an idea as long as it goes through a process that is scaffolded by the teachers. It also goes through the processes of trying, experimenting, iterating, and maybe even failing.

COVER STORY

Outdoor classroom - A child can develop pincer grip in a sandbox, if only we let them.

A 5 yr. old, exploring colours through mixing and he decides what goes on the canvas depending on the colour he gets.

The children found an old cardboard box. They played with it, and then finally, they both went inside the box, pretending to be in a rocket ship, going to the moon. Children have BIG ideas. These ideas are about everything in their lives: why they have imaginary friends; how they can fly to the moon; how to make their favorite flavor of ice cream; and how to be superheroes. Their ideas are in fact about multiple things, as are their creations. Children create big things with blocks as they play: they build tall buildings and bridges. Children create works of art when they paint and scribble: sometimes, they name their drawings. “I made an elephant,” they say. Children invent songs and tunes and sing their own made-up songs. They hum happily skipping on rocks and grass. They don’t care if their songs make sense, or if they are in tune. They make up their songs with true childish abandon. As educators, we need to look at fostering children’s creativity in a classroom- it’s just as important to do that as it is to help them learn to read, write or count. When I was a teacher at Stanford University, I took the children from Rainbow School, the International Preschool at Stanford University, on a field trip to the Hoover Tower. As we lay flat on our backs on the soft grass, looking up at the tower, I asked the children, “How come the tower does not fall down?” The responses to my question were so creative- “because it has scotch tape!” …”because it has strong glue!” and “because it is made of Lego bricks.”

As preschool teachers, and in fact as parents, we often use language to stretch children’s curiosity, reasoning ability, creativity, and independence. We do this by asking open-ended questions – questions that have no single right or wrong answer. Instead of predictable answers, answers that have a yes/no response (name an animal with a trunk; do penguins fly?) open-ended questions elicit fresh and sometimes even surprising insights and ideas, opening children’s minds. One day, I was sitting and playing with a little two year old, and she looked at my earrings and said, “Look, you are wearing dancing earrings!” I felt my earring and realized that I was wearing earrings that resembled musical chords. I asked the little girl why they were dancing earrings, and she said, “Because they have music!” Children have a lot to say most of the time, and it’s important to listen attentively to their responses. This also gives adults the opportunity to extend the conversation, and also to elicit more about the topic. This “tell me more” is really important as a child is learning new words and building his vocabulary. An adult’s attitude of “tell me more” acts as a springboard to help a child’s creativity flourish and thrive!

As educators, we need to look at fostering children’s creativity in a classroom- it’s just as important to do that as it is to help them learn to read, write or count.

RESEARCH

Montessori & Thiruvalluvar Written by Gitasudha Sridhar Edited by Savera Srinivasan

The one thing that I still remember to this day is what one of my mentors said: “If you have a crying child, just hold the child and gently rock.” For me, this one sentence said it all. No lectures, no questions. Just love and physical contact. Everything follows later. I first stumbled upon the Montessori Method in the year 1996. And I use the word “stumbled” since my training in the Montessori Method was not planned. The reason it touched my heart was not because it was one of the best teaching methods for children, but because it made me revisit myself. It spoke of respecting the child. How many of us even want to think of children having rights? And it spoke of love, concern, positive and beautiful environments and reaching out to children.

Research shows that children need love to grow. But what is also needed is a shift in our attitudes. We need to trust children and give them what they need, not just what we think is right. As adults, whenever we discuss children, we are prone to talk about the difficulties we face - my child wants this, my child runs around, that child disturbs others and so on! It has become a habit to only observe and report what we see as inconvenient, be it at home or in a classroom. But isn't that how children are supposed to be? Naughty, energetic, curious, and observant. These are basic childlike traits. We love describing children this way, but we have forgotten how to actually enjoy these traits! We seem to have lost our ability to be joyful and happy like them. We believe that unless we give directions to a child and constantly correct, or tell them what to do, we have not done the right thing. Yes, this does stem from concern and love as we all want the very best for them, but sometimes, we go overboard with it.

Thiruvalluvar statue, Kanyakumari.

If we are to bring in that change in each and every one of our children, then we have to think of redirecting ourselves. We must accept that children have rights, believe that they can be trusted and encourage them to tread on paths that will make them better individuals, and build a better society. Over the years, the role or place of the teacher has become more complicated and confusing. A lot of time and effort is spent on curriculum development and research, where everybody looks forward to seeing and achieving immediate results. But no one takes the time to look inwards; to reflect on our thoughts, our intentions and our attitudes. Why do we become teachers? To dictate and become carriers of knowledge? Or to show young minds the beauty of human nature as well? In the pursuit of helping children achieve good grades and jobs, we have forgotten to show, allow and encourage them to develop their inner instincts. According to Dr. Maria Montessori, “The watchwords or characteristics of a Montessori teacher (or any teacher) should be sincerity, simplicity and concreteness. The root idea is for her to liberate the life force within each child and guide its spontaneous manifestation into disciplined activity. Then, the teacher’s place is no longer primary but becomes secondary. Her aim is rather to suggest than to dictate. She stands behind the child, not in front of him; she does not so much lead the child as follow him. She gives a ray of light and passes on”. The Montessori system of education has both material and spiritual elements; neither element is enough on its own. In a perfect balance, the spiritual force is endowed by the teacher. Dr. Montessori said that a teacher should have the self sacrificing spirit of a scientist with the reverent love of a child. What a beautiful description of a teacher! This is what our teacher training should also comprise of; helping teachers learn how to guide their children to help themselves. A teacher should acquire the ability to direct less and suggest more. But are teachers the only ones who should follow this attitude? I think all adults who are responsible for safeguarding children and who are directly or indirectly responsible for a child, should become well versed in this attitude. Over the years, we have forgotten things from the Indian culture and our learning has been leaning toward all things western, be it nutrition, upbringing, lifestyle etc. Yes, it does have a lot to offer, but so do our ancient texts. Our scriptures, the stories our grandmothers shared and our lifestyles- all have a basis of logical thought and reasoning, and are derived through experiences. My favourite quotes are from the Thirukural.

The Thirukural or “Holy Kural” was written by Thiruvalluvar, a great saint of South India. It is a book that is applicable to all of mankind and can last through the ages. If a world follows the teachings of the Thirukural, it could become a place of peace, tranquility, and joy. The Kural was originally written in Tamil and since then has been translated into almost all the major languages of the world. It contains 1330 couplets or “Kurals” which deal with a variety of subjects such as virtue, nobility, attitude, wealth, and love.

Here are a few couplets that will help us rethink our attitude towards children-

“If a child lies to you often, it’s because you overreact too harshly to inappropriate behaviours”. All learning comes from making mistakes. But with the king sized egos we adults have sometimes, we believe that it is our job to constantly admonish children for the smallest of errors. We forget that we were once children and that we ourselves still make mistakes. But children will find a way to survive this criticism. They will begin to lie in order to escape our reaction. Children will also learn to transfer blame onto others, and lies will then become part of their lives.

“If your child has poor self esteem, it’s because you advise them more than you encourage them”.

In classrooms all over, we are constantly talking to children about how they should be doing things. We usually don’t allow children to do things their own way. This is because it is convenient for us. We are quick to advise, but slow to encourage. Encouraging means telling them that we trust them, that we value who they are, how they think, and respect their work. If one child fights with another, we advise him or her on how to be a better person. But we don’t give them the opportunity to practise how to be that good person. We don’t listen to their side, we don’t even want to acknowledge that they are capable. When they make an effort, we ignore it. We look at the product and not the process.

“If your child is too quick to anger, it is because you give too much attention to misbehaviour and little attention to good behaviour”. Let us look at a typical scenario. A child spills water and then the same child quickly mops up the spill. We promptly tell the child to be careful and that they should learn not to spill, but we do not praise the child for mopping the water. For some of us it becomes a habit to constantly label children according to their mistakes. Children imitate us, and this is the behaviour they learn to adopt. If a child is constantly in such an environment, then they will get frustrated easily, and this frustration is what bubbles up and turns into anger. Research says that it is not only important to give the right amount of attention to your child, but also to give the right kind of attention. As with anything, positive trumps negative, and it is positive attention that a child requires.

Follow the child. They will show you what they need to do, what they need to develop in themselves and what area they need to be challenged in. The aim of the children who persevere in their work with an object is certainly not to “learn”; they are drawn to it by the needs of their inner life, which must be recognized and developed by its means.”

– Maria Montessori

RESEARCH

Another piece of research talks about “Person Praise” and “Process Praise”. When toddlers hear praise directed at their efforts, such as "You worked hard on that", they are more likely to prefer challenging tasks over easy ones. It is also believed that the intelligence and personality of such youngsters can improve with effort, through “Process Praise”, as compared to youngsters who simply hear praise directed at them personally, such as "You're a good girl".

More thoughts from the Thirukural •

•

The Thirukural also talks about giving children the right kind of attention at the right time. And this was the advice that was given thousands of years ago!

“If your child is excessively jealous, it is because you only congratulate them when they successfully complete something; not when they improve on something”.

•

If you are only congratulating children when they complete something, what are you communicating to your child? That you will acknowledge them only if the end product of their work is good. That you do not value them for who they are. That competition is the do all of life. Unnecessary, unhealthy competition leads to children being ready to do anything to achieve what they want, and will make them look at each and everyone as a competitor in life.

“If your child is cowardly that's because you help them quickly.”

•

A common situation in a lot of homes! “Don’t run, you will fall!” “Don’t go out, you’ll catch a cold”. “Don’t try putting your shoes on by yourself, your fingers may hurt” and so on. Why don’t we say- “Run to become stronger, bite into that fruit so your teeth will improve, and put on your shoes yourself, you will do an amazing job!”. Dr. Montessori has said, “A successful class is one where the children work as if no teacher exists”.

•

As adults we sometimes feel that we are only doing a good job if we interfere with a child’s work. Dr. Montessori has given advice to mothers in her book ‘The Absorbent Mind’. But this advice is not just for mothers, but all adults working or interacting with children. She says, “Children need to work at an interesting occupation: they should not be helped unnecessarily, nor interrupted, once they have begun to do something intelligent. Sweetness, severity, medicine do not help if the child is mentally hungry. If a man is starving for food, we do not call him a fool, nor give him a beating, nor do we appeal to his better feelings. He needs a meal and nothing else will do. The same thing applies here. Neither severity nor kindness will solve the problem.

If the child is placed upon a path in which he can organise his conduct and construct his mental life, all will be well. His troubles will disappear, his nightmares will vanish, his digestion will become normal and his greediness will subside. His health is restored because his mind is normalised. There is no need for the adult to preach or give examples. One does not need to threaten or cajole, but only to ‘normalise conditions’ under which the child lives”.

•

If your child does not explore new ideas, it is because you have never encouraged her making mistakes. If your child does not stand up for themselves, it is because from a young age you have disciplined them regularly in public. If your child takes things that do not belong to them, it is because when you buy them things, you don’t let them chose what they want. If your child is excessively jealous, it is because you only congratulate them when they successfully complete something and not when they improve at something even if they don’t successfully complete it. If your child intentionally disturbs you, it is because you are not physically aﬀectionate enough. If your child is openly defiant, it is because you openly threaten to do s o m e t h i n g b u t d o n ’t f o l l o w through. If your child is secretive, it is because they don’t trust that you won’t blow things out of proportion. If your child talks back to you, it is because they watch you do it to others and think its normal behaviour. If your child doesn’t listen to you but listens to others, it is because you are too quick to jump to conclusions. If your child rebels it is because they know you care more about what others think than what is right.

References

“If a child does not respect other people’s feelings, it is because you do not speak respectfully, but order and command”.

When we see a child disrespecting someone, we have no one else to blame but ourselves. Children mirror adults in every possible manner. We have seen many children imitate the teachers at home and parents in school. Innocent minds that they are, they believe in us and do what we do. The education of our day is rich in methods, aims and social ends, but it doesn’t take into account life experiences.

- Ashraf, N. V. (2005, June). An introduction to Thirukural and its author. Retrieved from www.oocities.org - Gunderson, E. A., Gripshover, S. J., Romero, C., Dweck, C. S., Goldin‐Meadow, S., and Levine, S. C. (2013). Parent praise to 1‐to 3‐year‐olds predicts children's motivational frameworks 5 years later. Child Development, 84(5), 1526-1541. - Montessori, M. (1967). The Absorbent Mind. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. - Shivananda, S. (n.d.). Thirukural. Retrieved from www.hinduism.co.za - Stevens, E. Y. (1913). A Guide to the Montessori Method. New York: Frederick Stokes.

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On Schools & EDUCATION By Manas Minnoor / Grade 09

An Eye Opener How many times have we seen children reciting their lessons over and over again? What ever happened to the ‘understanding’ part of education? Nowadays, being smart is all about having the most information with you. But, information is far off from intelligence. Somewhere along the line, rote learning came into play. Education began to be based around memorization of lessons, and less about practicality and common sense. Having the best grades meant hours of hard work memorizing the chapters, just so you could answer any question from the book. Does learning the book word-to-word really help?

chools play a big part in deciding the way the children learn. Tests are based on direct questions, which forces children to slog trying to remember everything. There is no analytical or thinking-based questions. So, the result is the ability to memorize the textbook makes you a genius! The truth is, memorization is considered useful, even encouraged in some schools.

Memorization doesn’t help develop thinking capabilities. It neglects the practice and understanding which is needed to learn higher standard subjects. Maybe a student may pass exams with flying colors because of his or her memory, but the real test comes when they are tested on their understanding through indirect, analytical questions. Then, the false genius of memory falls away in the face of something which they haven’t prepared for. Understanding concepts isn’t as easy as reciting them over and over. One can only be judged through their understanding.

What does this all mean? This means we need a change in our system of education. Not a minor one, but a radical one. Tests and exams must be based on thinking, not memory. Anyone can memorize a passage with a few hours of work, but only an intelligent person can decipher the meaning. Let us take literature as an example. Anyone can figure out the meaning of every word using a dictionary, but only a genius can understand the story and its philosophy. Schools may not know this, but they are impeding their children’s learning by forcing them to memorize all the syllabus. Students may be bright when it comes to creativity and thinking, but they are demotivated and demoralized when it comes to not doing well in a class test. Their hidden talents will stay so if the freedom of learning is inhibited.

There is a solution. Not one of society’s usual quick fixes which die out soon. A solution which must change the paradigm of education to solve the crisis of education. Only when we change our system, shall we have better schools and better students.

But we sit back and criticize the government on their attempts and efforts to help us, with nothing but destructive criticism. Isn’t it time we stand up for our ideas and bring about a change by ourselves? We must be the change we must see in the world. We feel our opinions are useless. This is not so. We must voice our opinions! We might think that they choose to ignore our opinions. Maybe this isn’t true! If all of us think like this, nothing will ever change! So submit your ideas and voice your opinions!

POINT OF VIEW

“ Be yourself, because the people who mind don’t matter. And the people that matter, don’t mind.” -Dr Seuss

What is the Point ? Poem and Illustrations By Rakshita K, 13 years

You walk past when I say “Hi!” You ignore me, and make me want to cry You then say “Hi” to someone else What is the point? You share a secret that everyone hears You say “I said nothing” when I’m near Then you walk away, so What is the point? I have ideas to bring people towards their goals, But they put me down, and that hurts my soul. The saying “One good turn deserves another” is old, so What it the point? “I’m sorry for existing.” Is the only apology I have been giving, But people say I’m born for a cause. What is the point? What pleasure can one derive, As for another victim, it is happiness they deprive? Then they consider themselves to be “humane” What is the point?

I cower behind the wall, As the bully stands tall Nobody stood by my side, so What is the point? My parents tell me to stand up for my rights They don’t know what it takes to win a fight Others say that “Parents know everything”, but What is the point? I step onto the bus, covering my face I don’t want to be seen anytime at anyplace They’re after me, I’m so scared. What is the point? “Are you alright?” my family asks Explaining how I feel is too big a task I nod, walk into my room, and lock the door What is the point? I may smile and laugh and grin, But I’m crying deep within And yet, people call me a dear one What is the point? I’m bored of this, I’m tired of this If I’m gone, is it me people will miss? Please, someone help me! I HAVE QUITE A POINT!

It's a new year at school, ! Hope it won't be as boring as last year's!

What is the point ?

I hope so too!

Sinister aura

By rakshita k

But that new girl is creepy. Â

Hello! Could you be so kind as to tell me why you're so suspicious-looking?

Why can't I play a decent game of hideand-seek?

I didn't mean to startle you! I'm sorry!

Waaaaah!

Hey, y'know that comment you posted on InstaGram? It was HILAAAAAAARIOUS.

EEEEK! Discovered again!!

So, this picture of you sleeping is going too!

Internally screaming; externally hyperventilating

Inappropriate hairstyle

"What's your problemâ&#x20AC;?

Has an accomplice

Wrong uniform

TYPICAL BULLY. MUST BE REPORTED TO THE TEACHER. Children, get back to cla-

SHUT UP!!! O-okay, g-going! M-minding my own business!

ENOUGH!!!

And that's a left to the jaw!

Encore! Bravo!

Er...what used to be a phone

Phone That's an almost impossible kick to master!!

Aura of kung-fu

thinkCIQ Contributor Rakshita K, 13 years Photo credits- Nikhil Ravi

POINT OF VIEW

Empathy By Savera Srinivasan

o we want to live in an environment where the expression of empathy becomes a rare sighting? In today’s world Selfies, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are already part of a child’s vocabulary. This could make it very easy for a child to fall down the slippery slope of self-centeredness. Social media creates a virtual world where the user is at the centre. Facebook asks you what’s on your mind; Twitter asks what’s happening, while Instagram wants the latest snapshot of your life. If a child is constantly exposed to all of the above, they would naturally believe that the world revolves around them. Another issue with social media is that it has also created a potent platform for an illusion of friendship, praise, and jealousy. The problem is not social media itself, but how it is wielded. Today, children not only have to worry about being mocked in their school hallways, but also on a social corridor filled with a million prying eyes. Friendships depend on the click of a button and self-esteem has gotten tied up with the number of likes on a photo. So how do we combat this culture of self-centeredness and cyber bullying? The key is to prevent it from happening; by teaching our children the qualities of compassion and empathy. The degree to which we embody empathy is not pre-determined by our genetic makeup, as it is a learned behaviour. As with anything, if we nurture it, it will grow.

Before we can learn to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes we first need to learn to understand and acknowledge our own feelings. But how do we do this with children? Well, we can start when they are just 4-5 years old- by labelling our feelings and using an emotional vocabulary with them. Encourage your child to tell you how they feel. An activity that you could practise, at home or in a classroom, is to put up a picture of someone experiencing a basic emotion (happiness, sadness, anger) and talk with your child about times they have felt the same way. You could begin by giving instances where you yourself experienced that emotion. You could then slowly move on to asking your child if they noticed someone else feeling the same emotion, and why they think that person was feeling that way. Change the picture every week or so. That way your child can learn to understand and recognise a wide scope of emotions, both within themselves and others. Reading is a perfect opportunity to teach your child perspective-taking. The next time you read to your child, don’t close the book when the story ends. Ask your child to imagine how the different characters feel, and ask questions about why they think the characters behaved the way they did. Recent research has shown that reading is a powerful strategy to reduce prejudice. An experimental study showed that children as well as teenagers who read Harry Potter were more tolerant and accepting of others as compared to those who didn’t read the book. This could be attributed to the fact that the story itself, though set in a magical realm still dealt with issues such as social injustice and discrimination. There are also several books for children that focus on acceptance and empathy. Some such books are, Dr. Suess’ The Sneetches, and The Butter Battle Book, which teach us about tolerance and respect. Another is Hey, Little Ant by Phillip M. Hoose, which literally talks about life from both a child’s as well as insect’s point of view. It even ends with an open-ended question to the reader, which is the perfect opportunity to start up a dialogue with a child.

“Treat empathy like a muscle of the body, the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.”

Children are very keen observers and are great at mimicking the actions of the adults surrounding them. The words “Do as I say, not do as I do” will simply not work with children. For example, in a preschool one day, a child was asked by his teacher to put away his material on the shelf. When the child did not adhere to his teacher’s instruction, she was polite and firm and repeated herself. The child then dismissed the teacher by saying “I will not put it back. If you insist I can complain to my parents and they will get you shifted to another class.” How did the child learn to speak this way? The attitude and behaviour that a child develops is a reflection of the parents and teachers they are surrounded by which is why if teachers and parents model empathetic behaviour, the child will pick up on it. Even recognising and pointing out situations that call for empathy can start to develop the emotion in the child. Teaching good manners can also go a long way to help a child express care and respect. The best way to do this is to be polite to your child. That way phrases like “please” and “thank you” become a part of everyday conversation. Empathy and compassion are not learned simply in theory, but in practice. The next time you witness the common scenario of a child crying in a preschool, instead of distracting the other children from the fact that a child is crying, enlist their help. Talk to them and explain why the other child is sad, and ask them if they could go and talk to the child who is sad or engage them in an activity. The adult still needs to be there to facilitate as well as oversee this process, just in case the crying child rejects any offers of assistance or comfort. In such an instance, the child who offered to help needs to be told that they did the right thing, it just may not have been the right moment. At the home front, parents can use this same system with their children. Parents can also have their children donate a few of their old toys to those who don’t have any at all, which would teach them about generosity and kindness. Equally important is praising a child when they perform an act of kindness or express empathy. This praise needs to be specific in nature. Let the child know exactly what they did right and why it was the right thing to do. Praise is the only reward necessary when a child performs a good deed, as experimental studies have shown that if given material rewards, kids are less likely to engage in helpful behaviour. This is because empathy, compassion and kindness need to be nurtured and practiced as an elemental necessity that becomes a part of the fundamental makeup of a child, and not practiced for an external reward. These qualities should never be treated as a business transaction; if you express an ‘x’ amount of kindness you get a ‘y’ amount of reward. They should be embodied from within and must be unconditional. If empathy, compassion and kindness are on the roster of emotions that a child is constantly connected with, they are also less likely to grow up and become bullies. They would grow up to be individuals who respect everyone, no matter how seemingly different they could be. Treat empathy like a muscle of the body, the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.

References: - Cotton, K. (1992). Developing empathy in children and youth. Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. - Kennedy. (2008, May). Impressing the need for empathy | Counseling Today. Retrieved from http://ct.counseling.org/2008/05/impressing-the-need-for-empathy/ - Teaching empathy: Evidence-based tips. (2014). Retrieved from http:// www.parentingscience.com/teaching-empathy-tips.html - VanClay, M. (n.d.). The caring child: How to teach empathy | BabyCenter. Retrieved from http://www.babycenter.com/0_the-caring-child-how-to-teach-empathy_67146.bc - Vezzali,L., Stathi,S., Giovannini,D., Capozza,D., and Trifiletti, E. (2015). The greatest magic of Harry Potter: Reducing prejudice. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 45(2), 105-121.

POINT OF VIEW

Move forWords By Surya Krishna, 12 years Words can hurt, words can save, Words are dangerous, use them if you're brave. Words are thoughts, words are feelings, Words are fairy-tales, or under-the-table dealings. Words are loving, words are cruel, Words are Julie, or Samuel Words are a knife, words are a band-aid. Words can be old, or some newly-made Words can sort out any argument, and start one too, If they wanted to, they could start one with you. Words can be synonymic, or completely unrelated Words can be early, or really belated. Words can be of the angel, or that of the devil Words can be good, words can be evil. Words can be me, words can be you. Words, words, little witty words Words love the world, and the world loves the words They should come with a caution though, Handle with care , Words are a boat you have to row, And trust me true words are very, very rare.

Illustration-A picture is worth a thousand words, Hiking Artist

POINT OF VIEW

We arrive at the entrance, of a mysterious place, and the door suddenly swings open, revealing an unknown face. I grip my father’s hand tightly, not daring to let go, for I was reluctant to explore this unknown world, with things and people I didn’t know. But eventually I stepped in, not knowing what I may find, but upon seeing the friendly people there, I finally made up my mind. The teacher asked me to sit down on a stool, where she told me that this place was called “Pre-school”. She told me I’d be learning here, and that I should now interact with a few of my peers. The room was filled with boys and girls just like me, all of them running about happily. At first I felt really nervous and shy, but now at the end, I always wonder why.

kindergarten START IN SCHOOL

- By Yash Abhijit Lothe, 12 years

Mrs. Dash (she told us that that was her name) sat us all down and began to explain, she told me to introduce myself and when I was done, the other children introduced themselves too, going one by one. I began to love this new place, and I eventually made many new friends, we always helped each other, working as a team, until we finally crossed over each hurdle, and ripped through each bend. Over time I grew strong, I could tell I wasn’t the same, For now I had no fear, and confidence rushed through my veins. My transformation was amazing, like the way a flower would blossom, From a shy, reluctant little child, to one that was joyful from top to bottom. My pre-school had truly been a magical place, but gradually it was time to move to the next phase. Even though, instead of crying and weeping with sorrow, I said ‘’Bye bye friends, I’ll see you tomorrow!’’

Light up the night with a million smiles, not a million fireworks!

As you light up the sky with a million sparks, burst your bombs, and revel in the joy of false illuminations, you block out the stars only to put artificial ones in their place. Spare a moment to think.

Think of the millions of animals in the vicinity who suffer at the cost of this joy. Their ears are not the only ones sick of all the noise pollution. Sick of hearing the popping, booming and fake thunder that you claim make the festival what it is.

Think of the people with breathing problems. The smoke makes each and every breath painful. They fear to go outside. They fear to be a part of it, because it kills them.

Think of the countless people sitting in the burn ward. They just wanted a little bit of fun. Yet they were the unlucky ones. They think that it's okay. This is what years of playing with fire has done to India.

Think of the doctors in the emergency room who can't go home and celebrate a quiet Diwali with their family, because of our desire to light up the sky.

Think of the children who were forced to slave away to make these crackers, rather than be at school getting an education. Think of the numerous problems they now face after being exposed to such dangerous materials. Think of how hard they worked.

by Devi Sastry And for what? For the grey monsoon skies to turn a smoky black? For the haze to blur our vision of the night? To make a living by destroying the environment?

Diwali sights have shifted from lit diyas to golden sparks leaving trails of fire. Diwali sounds have changed from the beat of drums to the burst of fireworks. The incense sticks have been replaced by sparklers. Instead of sweets in our mouths, we choke on smoke.

You argue that it isn't Diwali without crackers. The whole idea is to have fun, right? It's the festival spirit to light up the sky and drown out any other noises. Is air pollution part of the fun? Is noise pollution? Whatever it may be, it isn't in the spirit of Diwali to hurt more than heal. I may not be one of the people you should think about, but I speak for them. Stop this madness that you call spirit. Celebrate a sweet and safe Diwali with your family, rather than burning hopes up in the name of entertainment. Instead of causing harm, why not celebrate in a better way; a way that lets you bring light to the darkest night without thickening the gloom. Illuminate with tradition. Lit diyas can shine through the haze better than temporary fireworks.

I'm not trying to judge you for doing what most Indians do. I'm not trying to guilt you into stopping your fun. I'm simply presenting my opinion to you to make you understand. And to do that, I must make an effort to understand as well.

If you do not stop, I understand. I may not encourage it, nor may I condone it, but I understand it. All I ask is that you understand in return. Jaipur Night During Diwali

NUTRITION

Blog of the quarter Nutrition â&#x20AC;&#x153;Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness.â&#x20AC;? ~ Edward Stanley

Are You Confusing Your Body By Eating the Wrong Foods? www.andreabeaman.com/health

Do vegetarians get enough protein? www.holisticnutrition.webs.com

Market, Jayanagar 4th Block, Bangalore

NUTRITION

Blog of the quarter www.holisticnutrition.webs.com “Mita Bhuk, Hita Bhuk, Ritu Bhuk” School canteens and other school food services within the school environment, for example school events such as celebrations and sports days, vending machines and foods used in curriculum activities, are important educational resources, providing a model that guides student food choices.

The Nutrition Foundation of India reported in 2009 that the Nutritional status during school age is a major determinant of nutritional and health status in adult life. Globally, including in India, health hazards associated with under nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies remain major public health problems. In the second half of the previous century, the adverse effects of under nutrition and anemia on physical performance were extensively investigated in adults .

Mrs. Gauri Rokkam

is a Holistic Nutritionist and Yoga Therapist. She is passionate about food and the wonders it can do to the mankind, both in health and ill health.

5 simple rules for health to be practiced everyday

“

Imagine a world where children were fed tasty and nutritious, real food at school from the age of 4 to 18. A world where every child was educated about how amazing food is, where it comes from, how it affects the body and how it can save their lives. - Jamie Oliver Chef & Food Revolutionist

”

1 2 3 4 5

Eat right at the right time. Just follow what your grand mom cooked, but use less oil, ghee and butter (because we don’t go anywhere near to what physical activities she did everyday) Get some good physical exercise; YOGA would be the best form as it works not only on physical level, but mental, emotional and intellectual levels also. Make priorities in life so that you know “what to take on and what not to” and that will help in keeping stress levels low. Be with “yourself” for some time daily – touch that inner silence (meditation of the right kind will help), to bring out the best in you and deal with the stress meaningfully. Be of some help, selflessly every day. It can be as simple as, helping an old man cross the road. It gives great satisfaction and motivates you to be in the right path.

A healthy way to eat A beautiful Sanskrit saying sums it all, which is the secret of our ancestor’s health and fitness “Mita Bhuk, Hita Bhuk, Ritu Bhuk” – eat moderate amounts, eat which is soothing (to the body and mind-not just to the tongue), choose only seasonal foods. Of course, lots of physical activity was added to this concoction. If this simple sutra is followed, no disorder or obesity can lurk around.

“Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” ~ Edward Stanley

When to eat ? Simple rule - only when hungry but before you are ravenous. (You will over

eat when very hungry and you won’t know if you hungry when you are busy or tensed). Ideally, divide your day (from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed – generally) for 3 main meals and 2 snacks. Snacks should always be the right kinds/healthy foods in good quantities and all the wrong/ junk should have a place after a main meal in small quantities. Examples of healthy snacks: Butter milk/skimmed milk/ porridge/curd/boiled gram/ sprouted gram/sweet corn without butter/air popped pop corn/ portion of breakfast/dry fruits/nuts/tender coconut water/whole fruit/fruit salad/veg salad/bhel without sev or deep fried foods/puffed rice/soups, etc. Be creative and most of your favorite junk foods can be turned in to tasty and healthy ones. Stick to regular time of meals keeps BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate- the rate at which our body uses energy when we are resting) high and hunger is under control.

How much to eat ?

“...we are an overfed and undernourished nation digging an early grave with our teeth...” ― Ezra Taft Benson. It very much applies to India now. Listen to your body for the quantity you need to eat. (No nutritionist with any number of degrees can calculate what your body needs at every meal and generalize it. It changes with every meal depending on the activity- both physical and mental, climate, moods, health, changes occurring in the body, growing older and a whole lot of it). Never over eat: Stop a little before you feel full at every meal. (Have patience and gradually train yourself to eat less). You might feel full with 2 chapattis today and you might need 4 another day. So learn to listen to your stomach. We have trained our stomachs to fill in endlessly is a matter of fact but we can retrain it gradually to take less. Once in a way if you are not hungry and feel like skipping a meal, please do so. It is healthy. But do it completely. Do not eat junk in the name of dieting or fasting or not really hungry. On the other hand, for some reason if you feel hungry on some day, do eat more without guilt - Food not junk. Skipping meals regularly or munching something all the time on a regular basis are equally bad and very unhealthy - spoils hunger patterns, modifies metabolic rate and adds calories.

How to eat ? We need to relearn this basic trait - most important act of eating. •  •

•  •  •

Eat slowly- it takes the body at least 20 minutes to respond to a feeling of fullness. Chew well - This helps complete digestion and better absorption of all nutrients. Eat in a clean, uncluttered calm atmosphere with enough light and air (natural if possible). Cross legged posture while eating helps not to over eat. Use all your senses to eat. Do not watch T.V, computer, movie, read anything, play, talk over phone or fight/argue while eating. Distraction, stress, worry is perceived by the body as a threat to survival and secretes stress hormones like cortisol which lowers the metabolic rate, prevents fat from being used and help convert food to fat. So fat accumulates in the cell leading to obesity and other disorders. Distractions also lead to over eating without our knowledge.

Visit her blog to know- how to use Sugars , Fats, Fruits and vegetables, Meat and Egg, Milk, Cereals and Legumes. Do vegetarians get enough protein?, Balanced meal, What to eat first thing in the morning?

think TANKS

i think Â CQ Puzzles

By Sarvesh Srinivasan

Elementary, My Dear Watson ! Logical thinking is a very vital component of our education system which has been ignored and not given its due importance. Schools need to foster logical thinking and reasoning from an early age as it is a crucial foundation skill to develop math. A critical component of the scaffolding system of learning is lost if the foundation is shaky to build on. A fun and interesting way to have children develop such skills is to incorporate puzzles as part of their regular classroom interactions. To be able to make our own puzzles or incorporate them in our classes we first need to understand their development and extensions. Logic puzzles were first produced by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known under his pen nameLewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In his book The Game of Logic he introduced a game to solve problems that went on to be the foundation of logic puzzles. Puzzles where we are given a list of premises and asked what can be deduced from them, are known as syllogisms. Dodgson goes on to construct much more complex puzzles consisting of up to 8 premises. In the second half of the 20th century, mathematician Raymond M. Smullyan continued and expanded the branch of logic puzzles with books such as The Lady or the Tiger?, To Mock a Mockingbird and Alice in Puzzle-Land. He popularized the "knights and knaves" puzzles, which involve knights, who always tell the truth, and knaves, who always lie. There are also logic puzzles that are completely non-verbal in nature. Some popular forms include Sudoku, which involves using deduction to correctly place numbers in a grid; the nonogram, also called "Paint by Numbers", which involves using deduction to correctly fill in a grid with black-and-white squares to produce a picture; and logic mazes, which involve using deduction to figure out the rules of a maze. These options are fairly simple to incorporate for age groups 5 and above and there have been excellent examples of the same. We thought it best to give a few puzzles that made a mark in millions of people's lives and a regular feature in interview questions as a method of screening and evaluating candidates in most major corporations across the world.

he prisoners and hats puzzle is an inductive reasoning puzzle (a kind of logic puzzle) that involves application of reasoning in which the premises seek to supply strong evidence for (not absolute proof of) the truth of the conclusion. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument is probable, based upon the evidence given. In most cases, the puzzle's scenario will involve several participants with reasoning capability and the solution to the puzzle will be based on identifying what would happen in an obvious case, and then repeating the reasoning that: "as soon as one of the participants realises that the obvious case has not happened, they can eliminate it from their reasoning, so creating a new obvious case".

Typical tell-tale features of these puzzles include any puzzle in which each participant has a given piece of information about all other participants but not themselves. Also, usually some kind of hint is given to suggest that the participants can trust each other's intelligence.

The puzzle According to the story, four prisoners are arrested for a crime, but the jail is full and the jailor has nowhere to put them. He eventually comes up with the solution of giving them a puzzle. If they succeed they can go free but if they fail they are executed.

Question:

Which one of them calls out the right answer? Why is he 100% certain of the color of his hat? There are no outside influences nor other ways of communicating. They cannot move and are buried in a straight line; A and B can only see their respective sides of the wall, C can see B, and D can see B and C.

Shown above are four men buried up to their necks in the ground. They cannot move, so they can only look forward. Between A and B is a brick wall which cannot be seen through. They all know that between them they are wearing four hats--two black and two tan--but they do not know what color they themselves are wearing. Each of them know where the other three men are buried. In order to avoid being shot, one of them must call out to the executioner the colour of his hat. If they get it wrong, everyone will be shot. They are not allowed to talk to each other and have 10 minutes to fathom it out. After one minute, one of them calls out .

thinking Hats

Albert and Bernard just met Cheryl. “When’s your birthday?” Albert asked Cheryl. Cheryl thought a second and said, “I’m not going to tell you, but I’ll give you some clues.” She wrote down a list of 10 dates: “My birthday is one of these,” she said. MAY 15 16 19 JUNE 17 18 14 16 JULY 14 15 17 AUG Then Cheryl whispered in Albert’s ear the month — and only the month — of her birthday. To Bernard, she whispered the day, and only the day. “Can you figure it out now?” she asked Albert. Albert: I don’t know when your birthday is, but I know Bernard doesn’t know, either. Bernard: I didn’t know originally, but now I do. Albert: Well, now I know, too! When is Cheryl’s birthday?

Singapore Math Recently there was a global uproar about a similar logic based puzzle that left many adults perplexed. The puzzle appeared in a paper for students aged about 15 taking part in Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiads (SASMO) aimed at the top 40% of the students in Mathematics. It maybe this approach of theirs of promoting such thinking is the reason Singapore usually comes top, or nearly top, of the international rankings in primary maths performance Link for the result chart www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Trends_in_International_Mathematics_an d_Science_Study

Fork in the road A

logician vacationing in the South Seas finds himself on an island inhabited by the two proverbial tribes of liars and truth-tellers. Members of one tribe always tell the truth; members of the other always lie. He comes to a fork in the road and has to ask a native bystander which branch he should take to reach a village. He has no way of telling whether the native is a truth-teller or a liar. The logician thinks a moment, then asks one question only. From the reply he knows which road to take. What question does he ask? This is perhaps the most famous rendition of this type of puzzle.

www.gear.ac.in

Innovative International School Multiple Intelligences & Talents Development Gurukul

Paw prints in the Sky Roshan, 5 years

“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up”

STUDY

– Pablo Picasso “If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced”

– Vincent Van Gogh “Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people”

– Leo Burnett “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try”

AR T

– Dr. Seuss

gination

iosity

alent

A study of Imagination, Curiosity And Talent across age groups by Madhumitha Srinivasan

Recently, I conducted a study on “how imagination and curiosity develop across age groups”. I was very CURIOUS! and decided to work with the following age groups- 4.5-6 years, 7-9 years, 10-12 years, 13-15 years and16-18 years.

I selected three children, aged 5, and gave them blank canvases of varying sizes and an assortment of paints- acrylic, oil, watercolours, crayons, sponge and clay. I also gave them an assortment of Lego blocks. They could select and explore for as long as they wished to. On your right, is Roshan’s artwork. He absolutely loved acrylic paints and selected the biggest canvas from the pile.

THE PROCESS

He began with his favourite colour, green. But he didn’t choose the sap green tube that was available to him. He decided to make his own green. He mixed prussian blue with yellow and red till he got this dried up grass colour. He then painted the base of the board with short precise strokes. He narrated as he worked. He explained to me that the grass was going dry and had to be trimmed, so new grass can grow. That is also why he used short brush strokes. He then began to mix crimson and yellow, and explained that that is how you get orange. But no ordinary orange mind you, a flowery orange. He drew orange flowers over the trimmed grass and asked me if I like his “orange blossoms”. He left a dab of yellow in the centre, so he could make the flowers a “Sunshiny orange”.

“Ladders” to get to some place Roshan, 5 years

He was so fascinated by the crimson red, he decided to use it for a tree. When asked why red for the tree, he quickly replied, “because it’s a maple tree silly”. His brush strokes were precise and confident. And Voila! there by the side of the orange blossoms stood the red bark of a tree with branches. Roshan loves colours and mixing them to find new shades. He knows all the primary and secondary colours, pastels and neon. He decided he wanted to mix all the colours with black and white to see what colour he would get. He was very surprised to get a greyish black. He felt the colour he got was perfect for a porcupine. He then painted a porcupine shyly perched on the red tree. The grey was then used to paint an elephant next to the porcupine. He was thrilled about the elephant’s shape being identical to a book he had at home. He then mixed blue and yellow again to get green, which he used to draw a cucumber next to the elephant’s trunk. As he was finishing, he extended the green to the elephants trunk. He laughed out loud and told me the elephant’s trunk turned green as he ate the cucumber. Since the elephant was not perched on the tree and next to the porcupine, he decided to draw blue sky which would act like a fly-over. He then, mixed red and blue and got a very “puply purple”. He loved the colour so much that he drew a blueberry on the elephants tail.

“Grey couldn’t be the colour you get when you mix all the colours. How could you get grey?” He wasn’t going to give up so easily. He decided to mix all colours now, except for the black, as he felt black was the culprit. Once done, he ended up with a reddish brown, as he added extra red. Roshan said that the colour looks like a pizza and so he drew a pizza balloon flying up from the ground to the elephant and porcupine, as they might get hungry. He used the Grey to draw dots all over the flyover and sky, and said they were paw prints. Hence, the title. He took a step back and assessed his work and the colours he had mixed. He had plenty of grey and brown, from all of his experiments. The sponge caught his attention. He dipped the sponge in the brown and started dabbling all over his canvas without a hint of doubt. As he dabbed, he explained to me that the scene he just drew, was behind the mountain. He then took some green and prussian blue and dabbed them, to get his water and new grass. He used his special orange and dabbed to get the Sun. His painting was now done and was perfect.

We then narrated this story and showed the finished work of art to *children of all age groups, assembled in a room together with the same supplies that were given to Roshan and the other 5 year olds. They were told that they could draw inspiration from the story or the painting to create their own “paw prints in the sky.” The 6-9 years group was very shy and wanted more instruction. The 10-12 years group chose the Lego blocks. The 13-15 years group found the story ridiculous but saw some scope in it. The 16-18 years group never showed up. Two children fumbled as there was no grey and they couldn’t paint an elephant if there was no grey paint available! They began working with low enthusiasm, but when coaxed began engaging and enjoying themselves. The result and inference is for you to see yourself. I am still in the process of my study, but I can definitely agree with Pablo Picasso now.

THE PRODUCT- The painting on the previous page. On your left is another story for another day- “Ladders to get to some place.”

*The children between 6-18 years, were selected by the Art teacher, based on their talent and passion for Art.

Paw prints in the Sky Ivana, 6 years

I drew a mountain and sunrise and some green grass. I also wrote a story. Once upon a time there was a little girl named Simran and one day her father took her out to the circus they saw elephants and other animals too then they went home and ate their lunch then her father said that we are going to grandmother house.

The story is about the rising sun, the birds are flying, I drew flowers the color is brown, red and pink. And the mountain is hot. The sun is very hot and bright, it is summer the birds are feeling hot too, they are having a lot of fun. The flowers are around.

Paw prints in the Sky Mahati, 7 years

Paw prints in the Sky Diksha, 8 years

The painting is about a pizza balloon, porcupine orange flowers, red trees and mountains. The story is about an elephant trunk turns green because he ate a cucumber, a porcupine in a red tree, mountains and a sky blue sky with pizza balloons.

Paw prints in the Sky Devika Ragesh, 8 years

Devika created two paintings. Left : My elephant is big and cute, it is little fat. It is a baby elephant. Right : My tree is black because it is dried. And the grass is brown because that is also dried.

I drew exactly what the teacher said. I used paint. I did it on a big canvas. Mixed a lot of colors. The porcupine was hanging from the tree in an animated way. The elephant was floating in the sky.

Paw prints in the Sky Diya, 11 years

Paw prints in the Sky Gargi, 11 years

I first drew the scene behind the mountains. I drew paw prints in the sky and a flyover over it. I painted the paw prints blue. I drew balloons shaped like pizza and I also painted green grass. I also painted a tree with a red trunk and a few green leaves. I also drew few mountains.

Paw prints in the Sky Aarya, 12 years

Elephants merged- I wanted to show a bit of the zoomed part of the story itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a bit weird

On your left Paw prints in the Sky Gargi, 11 years

like the highway is greenish blue, pink etc. it was cool! I painted the huge elephant first and then with the pizza balloon and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a imaginary picture which came to my mind, in my brain it clicked me and I exactly drew it. Some part might be merging with something else because it is suppose to be weird.

STUDY

Paw prints in the Sky Vrishank Rao, 9 years

I have built up a ship in the sea. Also a pizza balloon. The pizza is just a design on the balloon. The brown and black thing is a porcupine on the big red tree. The green things are grass. The large blue elephantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trunk is green because it ate a green cucumber. The dark blue block on the elephantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tail is a blueberry.

I have built a red trunked tree and on top of it there is a porcupine (brown and white thingy). Next to the tree there is an elephant whose trunk turned green because it ate a cucumber (and about to eat another one). On the elephantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tail there is a blueberry which two hungry Sumo wrestlers are fighting on. And there is a grass maze that is very confusing because there is no start or end to it. (I ran out of blocks).

Paw prints in the Sky Ritwik KS, 91/2 years

Paw prints in the Sky Aniketh Umesh, 13 years

The pictures show a scene where there is a porcupine, an elephant, a cucumber tree, a patch of short, green grass filled with little orange flowers. The elephant, quite idiotically ate a trunk colour changing cucumber from the red cucumber tree which explains his green trunk. There is a six lane highway of which unfortunately, you can see only the one lane exit to this “area” behind the mountain. How did the paw prints get on the sky? Well, the annoying dog with a touch like Mida’s placed his ugly paw prints of different colors on the sky! The porcupine’s beastie, the cat is bust eyeing the floating pizza which happens to be a balloon having an invisible thread. The elephant rushed and gave the balloon to the cat, explaining the blueberry on his tail. The perfect reunion for Mr. Paws (the yellow dog) to sabotage it.

Paw prints in the Sky Shree Kulkarni, 15 years

An Open Letter to educators and parents,

drea ms

This is probably the most astonishing letter you will read on this topic. I am prepared to receive an outburst of angry and disapproving feedback, but I believe I am covering a different perspective on the matter at hand.

Early childhood education, much related to the name, is the teaching of young children (informally or formally). It is one of the most important learning stages of a human’s life, as the child is exceptionally open and observant. This also answers the question of why parents are always dotting and overseeing the child, and why elder siblings are prepared to become an ideal role model.

Very much of what the young one absorbs at this time shapes the character, and his or her future. They imitate as much as possible. Parents end up sending their children to preschools or special programmes for this reason- to provide early, healthy, and ideal exposure to the world and people. Co-operation, kindness, respect, and creativity are the most sought-after qualities to be taught, and teachers are very patient and do not handle the kids in rough or strict manners.

But what happens after? That is a concept most of us are ignorant about. The child spreads its wings into higher grades, and yet, still clings onto his or her childhood dreams. Even in first grade, many of us still have the notion of blooming into princesses, or artists, and living a care-free life. At school, most of a child’s energetic, whimsical ways are now suddenly confined by the chains deemed as ‘rules’. As knowledge is fed to children, their dreams slowly seep away, facing cold reality.

OK, maybe it’s not that drastic, but it’s still difficult to face reality all the time. Dinosaurs are extinct, the rule of monarchy in many countries are over, and aren’t fairies a myth? Parents struggle to confess that most of their child’s dreams are short of reality. Naturally, without learning the distinction between dreams and reality, the child would face much discrimination and hardship after graduation.

Sometimes the cold chains are even more restricting when one matures. The teachers are strict, and shape their students into ideal vessels for composure and learning, by any means. Many teachers, unfortunately, are not able to give the proper support to teenagers around the globe. Problems like bullying, peer pressure, and so on are topics which teens are hesitant to share about. They are unable to vent their emotions in a healthy way and this is why many resort to drinking, smoking and other unhealthy and unacceptable activities. They lose confidence in their abilities, become less enthusiastic about many things, and their creativity plummets. They are suddenly pressurized to take up jobs that will not make them satisfied, but their parents. We, as adolescents need to same love, care and patience.

Now, what will the next generation have, if there is a lack of creativity? Companies and industries will fall, life becomes useless and meaningless, and all we are surrounded with is a state of monochrome strife which we call ‘life’. I am probably reciting a scenario of a few hundred years in the future, if this keeps up.

How many dreams have been killed by our educators? How many times have we strayed from our happiest path?

Meghana Vadassery Note: This letter is written from the views of a 12 year old. Most of this information is collected from what I have read, seen or heard. I have tried to be as unbiased as possible. Any arguments against the article are acceptable.

ity

Are you a or a

turer ?

Nur L e c

Nagalakshmi Muralidhar, is the most loved mentor by students and all in her school. She tells us why it is important to be a “mom” rather than a “ma’am” to your students. Children as young as 6 or 7 years old need a role model and companion, who will facilitate learning rather than dictate discipline and rules. Are you a loved mentor ?

efore I begin on what an ideal Mentor should be like, I am reminded of “Helen Keller.” When someone asked her what was worse than being blind, she responded, “not having a vision.” It’s important for a Mentor to have a “vision” to be able to inculcate the qualities of compassion, warmth and patriotism in every child even before imparting knowledge to them. At the early stages of child development, a mentor must aim to lay the foundation for the child to be a great human being. The personality and qualities of a mentor should be synonymous with perseverance, commitment and above all caring. This should be the hallmark of a mentor. A mentor needs to play a diverse range of roles to achieve this. In the class, I have to come down to their age, talk their language and share their experiences. At times I have to behave like them, share jokes, laugh and cry with them, dance and sing for them while giving the freedom to experiment. All of this eventually takes me closer to them. My students often tell me, “Ma’am, you are my friend.” When you make children feel that you are there for them and give the confidence to come and share their thoughts with you, they will. Once a child called me “Mom”, another child said, Hey, it is Ma’am, and not Mom! But then the child who called me Mom says, Ma’am is our second mother at school. From then I decided to live up to their expectations. When I walk through the corridor, I have children running up to me with their problems. I listen to them and try my best to give them solutions or even just listen to them. For a child, having an adult hearing him/her out is very important. The sense of caring cannot be equated to any other quality. Children believe in us and we need to prove that we are worthy of their trust. There is a particular class I teach once a week on Thursdays, and it is the last session. As the week begins, a child from that class comes to me every day in the morning and says, “ma’am, three more days to go for you to come to our class.” The next day, he reminds me , “ma’am, two more days to go for you to come to our class.” And on the last day, “ma’am, one more day to go for you to come to our class.” On Thursday morning, the child starts counting down the classes to my next class. That was when I realised the importance of what I do in that one session in a week, and the difference it makes to that child. I understood the importance of the time we spend with our students and decided that I would use it with them more judiciously and ensure I add value.

INSPIRE

A mentor must also aim to pass on wisdom to every child. It is often said knowledge without wisdom is a useless tinsel. Do not forget that each child is unique. One needs to try putting concepts and learnings across in multiple ways. At times when I go to class, children tell me they don’t want to write today and would prefer to do an activity. I take this cue and present an activity that involves colouring or exploring of concepts. This makes learning fun and simple. So, it becomes very important for us to be flexible, planned and prepared. The following quiz would sum up what is most important for a Mentor. 1. Name the five richest people in the world. 2. Name the last five winners of Miss Universe. 3. Name ten people who have won the Nobel prize. How did you do? The point is, none of us remember the headlines of yesterday. These people aren’t ordinary, they are the best in their field. But over time the applause dies, awards perish, and the achievers are mostly forgotten. Here is another quiz to answer. See how you do ? 1. List a few Mentors who aided you through your life. 2. Name three friends who have helped you in your difficulties. 3. Name five people who have taught something that you still value. Is it easier? The people who make a difference in our life are not the ones with the most credentials, money, or awards. They are the ones who have always cared for us. So lets care for every child. Be a good listener, enjoy what you do, be excited with what you do, be fair, respect the children and their thoughts, be patient and confident in delivering, be resourceful and committed, be truthful, be flexible, always appreciate and most importantly do not criticize or brand a child. Do not forget that you are being observed. Children come and tell me, “ma’am you look nice in this sari” or “ma’am you wore this last Friday too.” There are many unique aspects of a mentor. No wonder the mentor community has been equated to parents in the famous saying Matha, Pitha, Guru, Deivam.

Be a mother who carries smiles that can take a child to miles. I am a mother to all my students at school.

#tCIQ2014 3 Days 35 Speakers 900 participants Limitless learnings

thinkCIQ Â 2014 SPEAKERS July 11th, 12th and 13th The stakeholders in a c h i l d â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s l i f e - p a r e n t s , teachers, schools and experts in the field of curriculum and design gathered under one platform- thinkCIQuest.

“

Thinking is the most important of all mental traits. Its also the most diﬃcult to nurture. The problem is due to our schools. The solution too is our schooling. Children and teachers have no platform to share their ideas and thoughts. Parents need to partner with schools. It’s easier said than done. thinkCIQ is the result of the intention/dream to start small and show how it can be done. Now after the 1st edition of ‘thinkCIQ’ , I am sure it's only a question of time before our education will be a world model.

”

thinkCIQ 2014 PARTICIPANTS July 11th, 12th and 13th Visionary founders, Passionate speakers and the enthusiastic participants, made the quest for “what is missing in our schools today”, an exciting and exhilarating journey.

thinkCIQ Â 2014 PERFORMANCES July 11th, 12th and 13th The performances by children, just proved that we have unlimited talent and potential in our children. All we need to to is nurture their thinking and foster their talents.

think TANKS

Solution to the Puzzles

Thinking Hats

C calls out that he is wearing a black hat. Why is he 100% certain of the color of his hat? After a while, C comes to the realization that he must answer. This is because D can't answer, and neither can A or B. D can see C and B, but can't determine the colour his own hat. B can't see anyone and also can't determine his own hat color. A is in the same situation as B, where he can't see anyone and can't determine the colour of his own hat. Since A, B, and D are silent, that leaves C. C knows he is wearing a black hat because if D saw that both B and C were wearing tan hats, then he would have answered. But since D is silent, C knows that he must be wearing a black hat as he can see that B is wearing a tan hat.

Singapore Math Problem

Fork in the road

The first half of the sentence is obvious — Albert only knows the month, but not the day — but the second half is the first critical clue. The initial reaction is, how could Bernard know? Cheryl only whispered the day, so how could he have more information than Albert? But if Cheryl had whispered “19,” then Bernard would indeed know the exact date — May 19 — because there is only one date with 19 in it. Similarly, if Cheryl had told Bernard, “18,” then Bernard would know Cheryl’s birthday was June 18. Thus, for this statement by Albert to be true means that Cheryl did not say to Albert, “May” or “June.” (Again, for logic puzzles, the possibility that Albert is lying or confused is off the table.) Then Bernard replies: I didn’t know originally, but now I do. So from Albert’s statement, Bernard now knows that Cheryl’s birthday is not in May or June, eliminating half of the possibilities, leaving July 14, July 16, Aug. 14, Aug. 15 and Aug. 17. But Bernard now knows. If Cheryl had told him “14,” he would not know, because there would still be two possibilities: July 14 and Aug. 14. Thus we know the day is not the 14th. Now there are only three possibilities left: July 16, Aug. 15 and Aug. 17. Albert again: Well, now I know too! The same logical process again: For Albert to know, the month has to be July, because if Cheryl had told him, “August,” then he would still have two possibilities: Aug. 15 and Aug. 17. The answer is July 16.

The logician points to one of the roads and says to the native, "If I were to ask if this road leads to the village, would you say 'yes'?” The native is forced to give the right answer, even if he is a liar! If the road does lead to the village, the liar would say, "No" to the direct question, but as the question is put, he lies and says he would reply "Yes". Thus the logician can be certain that the road does lead to the village, whether the respondent is a truthteller or a liar. On the other hand, if the road does not go to the village, the liar is forced the same way to say, "No" to the question. This solution uses a known truth, specifically that the one must tell the truth and the other must lie, in the question we ask, so that we can be sure of the validity of the answer. We can use the same technique to find out any information either man knows. Notably, if all we want to know is whether a man is telling the truth or lying, you can test this by simply asking "Is a truth, true?". As a truth is always true, this is a tautology and hence a known truth which we can test against the answer they give.

TOP 100 AWARDS

TOP 100 awards is to encourage promising schools, teachers and students to focus on their best areas. Develop skills to document and present to a jury, in competition with the best of the country. thinkCIQ will help the aspiring contestants in the application process. There will be multiple stages of selection to reach the meritorious 100. The TOP 100 awards will be announced at thinkCIQ 2016.

TOP 100

Innovative Schools Creative Teachers Promising Scholars

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