Lesson concept development: Use of stories

When  we were young, it was customary for mothers and grandmothers to tell value based stories to their children so that they developed as good human beings. We were also taught to respect secularism. Besides parents, schools were also involved in teaching values to children.

When working as a teacher, I had always included stories to teach values and curricular concepts to my students.   I have taught a range of concepts (from dispersal of seeds in middle school science to diffraction of waves in precollege physics) by using stories. Yesterday, I got a communique from someone in Australia commending my idea after reading an article. 

Another significant advantage of stories is that they can be dramatised as illustrated in the following photograph (which shows my Grade 9 children engaged in a mini play on dignity of labour in a high school in Bangalore, where I had the joy of teaching children besides being the school principal).

  
I wish our textbooks contain a lot of stories through which children can be taught effectively.          

Off the beaten track

Yesterday I flew down from Ahmedabad to Chennai on a week's leave so as to spend Makara Shankraanthi back home in Chennai.

Though my flight was at 1155 AM, I was at Sardar Vallabhai Patel International airport before 9 itself. Thanks to my travel agent and Manoj Bhai, the call taxi guy, I could leave my residence at Vadodara well in time on a pleaseant sunny morning.  The A C system at the airport was very much within tolerance limits unlike in many airports and offices.

I wish Chennai airport too maintains a comfortable level of AC.

Off the beaten track: Shortwave musings

After nearly 20 years, I returned to my hobby of DXing last week, thanks to the simple radio receiver that I managed to buy from a small radio shop in town, after trying to buy one in speciality outlets in modern malls in Chennai and here in Gujarat. 

I had two very good receivers, one analogue and one digital, with nearly 13 bands in the FM, AM and SW range. When the gadgets fell down on two occassions and had minor problems, I gave them to radio repairers in Chennai and Benglaluru (where I was working at that time).  The guys returned them to me in the same condition after a month as they "could not get spare parts". Though my present receiver is far less expensive, very modest in looks and perhaps old fashioned as some people would perceive it, it serves my objective. 

In  the past week, I could listen to some of my most favourite stations including, Radio Nederlands (which is now known as Radio Nederland Worldwide), Deutsche Welle, BBC and Radio Canada International.

As 2011 begins, I think that I  may have some more free time to spare away from work and hence hope to be on the blog more frequently than in the past few months.

Best wishes to all my friends and others who read my blog.