Wednesday, August 29, 2012

i am not of a lesser make...


“I am not of a lesser make” …..
We came here as one
The children of lord
Got divided in stupid shreds of caste and cultures
On color and gender
Some are happy and fast asleep
How can they? When the other is hurt so deep
I can’t get happiness in this world of distinctions
If happiness was the reason I was born to be
I can feel your pain and hence pray to thee
To relieve you of the beliefs that are not meant to be
Its not me who wants to hate
And you still call me of a lesser make ???










“I am not of a lesser make” …..
We came here as one
The children of lord
Got divided in stupid shreds of caste and cultures
On color and gender
Some are happy and fast asleep
How can they? When the other is hurt so deep
I can’t get happiness in this world of distinctions
If happiness was the reason I was born to be
I can feel your pain and hence pray to thee
To relieve you of the beliefs that are not meant to be
Its not me who wants to hate
And you still call me of a lesser make ???








Monday, July 16, 2012

language..!



Language plays a very big role in educating a child. But it is very interesting to know that it comes naturally to all of us. We were not taught to speak our local languages but we are so fluent at them.
Human beings have this capability to learn and understand language.  A few interesting facts about language:-
It is possilble to write any language in one script.
Every word is a combination of vowel and consonant in alternate.
This is because of the ease to construct a word.
Languages are quite similar – negative stays close to verb in all languages. All are either in SOV or SVO pattern. Hindi and English are mirror images of each other.
It is another interesting fact that by the age of four children leran and understand the language.
There is no problem in the child, he is capable of learning more than one language. If there is a fault then its in the teaching given to the child and not in the child himself/herself.
i wolud like to do a little research after this to know if there is another way to teach language than the way i have aways studied it.

Friday, July 13, 2012

intelect- genetics v/s environment........!!!


intelect- genetics v/s environment........!!!

Intellect is a very highly cherished possession. but why are we different in having this intellect...??
Today the discussion is on capabilities or intelligence an individual possess depends on
his/ her genetical makeup or not?
And my belief kept changing as the session moved on. So m putting the questions that cut across me in the session and the answers that I got slowly changed my belief.
The post is posted in the order the thaught process and beliefs changed with the progress of the session.
There is a range in which the capabilities of an individual can be divided. Someone has a liitle more of some capacity and someone has a little less of some capacity. The point is what is this range?
iQ = mental age/ chronological age*100
here is something that came to me in between the discussion i.e.
the intelligence depends on your genes, its  with environment that you are exposed to that you can build up on it but cannot deny that with birth there was some genetical difference in IQ of all of us.
When you build IQ more with proper environment,  it can increase per individual but still there is some level of intelligence that all individuals carry some IQ in their genes. Eg – a mentally challenged kid and a normal kid will definitely have differnet gene structure and hence they are the way they are.
We had an exercise of putting words in between words in 30 seconds. But if suppose I have never heard so many words before how would I put them in?
So I came to believe that environment plays a very dominant role in improving IQ but still there is a limit to which it may increase.? Is there really a limit ???????????
Another question shakes all that I have said above….. HOW TO CHECK IQ????????
There is always a subjective criteria to measure intelligence and IQ which depends on community. Eg for a farmer iq could be related to hard work and tilling land, etc, for me (as a student) it could be expert in maths, ability to solve all maths questions I am exposed to.
IQ tests only learning. I agree. And the degree we all differ genitically is negligible.
So iQ does not check ur capacity to learn and mental abilities an individual is capable of but it checks learning.
Is grasping power in a time limit not a parameter to say two individuals have different intellect?
Answer – genetics plays a very little role in learning. Grasping power is a mix of analyzing, argumenting and questioning which will come to you on learning.
Another meaning of grasping is understanding.  Understanding is better if he is exposed to it before. So he will take less time to understand.
Now the other question is a student prepares for an exam just 2 days before exam and tops it, and the others prepare whole year but cant top the exam.  How can we explain this on the basis of what I mentioned above??
The answer is that grasping and interest  go hand in hand in the learning of a child. So may be the one who topped the exam was having intense interest in the subject as compared to others.
But the question is where does interest come from? Does interest has anything to do with genes???

Also a little bit about  knowledge.  Validated belief is knowledge. This session is still to go so not much to say on it for now.





Wednesday, July 11, 2012

problems with education..


Education is considered to be the panacea or the starting step to eradicate problems of the society to at least some extent.  But after looking at the various aspects of how life unfolds (the way of living with its cruel circumstances) at the village level, the very objective of a just, humane, equitable, sustainable society stuck me as a very big question….???
The problems at cluster or village level are to be addressed by education of the young, a very noble concept indeed. But the question that stuck me was if only education could help us achieve what we are trying to achieve? Here is a cycle that goes round and round and hinders development and our  vision as a whole.
Here is how the thought came to me:-

Lets take an example of a child who goes to school everyday and is taught the ideal way.  if every child is being taught like that , what is the problem? Change should come soon??  This cycle gives idea of the above problem that occurred to me.


So the problems of poverty, health , corruption and all the others play a very crucial role along with the education of a child through which a just, equitable society is to be achieved.
Another point I thought as an answer to the above question is that there could be a way to hold students back in the schools whatever their situation may be.
                               
1)      Governments role : The government exercises control over these issues. The gram panchayats check as to why someone is migrating or taking children out of school. Gram panchayats have their own funds, so they could address these issues by providing any help to the child and his family to make him stick in that village and that school.

2)      Individual effort: now as people working in the field I suppose if some little help from my side helps retain a kid to this ideal system of education that we talk about, we can try to do it ourselves with a little bit of help from my pocket as well. If that means a lot to someone`s education, we should readily di it.

3)      I also thought about a strict law that govt could put to stop misutilisation of funds but that is still a question to me. If someone would like to give any comments on this point…

4)      Looking into this I would like to know how other countries have maintained a quality level of education for all its citizens who have had similar problems like us. Specially Finland.