29 March 2017

Apt advertisements in academic settings

This morning I happened to see an advertisement on Bhakti TV Channel about a high school in Hyderabad (India). It lists "Inspiring potential" as one of the many positive factors developed in the school. I do know that characteristics such as behaviour, humility can inspire but not characteristics such as attitudes and potential as these are innate. These can become inspiring only when they are displayed externally as hard work, good behaviour etc. I think that schools should use language correctly.

There is another TV commercial by a dish TV company with similar problem. The setting is a school classroom. One of the children has a vision problem and uses a telescope to view the chalkboard. At one point of time, the the teacher says,"Keep quiet" pronouncing the phrase as if it is spelt "Keep quite". Even well educated adults make such mistakes in pronunciation. This problem can easily be averted if teachers give importance to factors such as stress and intonation.

I don't know as to how children's linguistic capabilities can be developed in linguistically skewed circumstances.

Appropriate advertisements are indispensable in highly competitive consumer driven scenario.    

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About Me

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Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
I am a retired K-12 Education Management Professional. I have worked at different levels in K-12 school systems, textbook publishing, elearning and Education NGOs. I have held memberships in The Association for Science Education (UK), American Association of Physics Teachers and The Malaysian Institute of Physics. I hold a 1st class B Sc Degree in Physics followed by B Ed [English and Physical Science] and M A [Childcare and Education] degrees. My published works include 59 articles in teacher development magazines in India and the US and a book entitled `Creative Classrooms and Child Friendly Schools' (listed in Amazon). This book is almost an anecdotal account of my professional experience in six countries (including Cambodia where I worked as Technical Adviser to the Ministry of Education, Youth And Sports). I served as mentor in the Certificate of Teaching Mastery Program offered by Teachers Without Borders.