Ever seen a bicycle with square wheels

In the Math Week celebrations at the school, one of the most intriguing sights was the Indus Square Wheel Bicycle. Most people were amazed to see the cycle. But making it was actually the easiest part. The difficult part was to design its road! It looks like a speed breaker, but has to be very accurate in terms of the shape and size of the curves.

Can you think of a road for a triangular wheels? And what if the triangle was not equilateral? What if it was a right-angled isosceles triangle?

There were quite a few interesting and exciting questions answered in the Math Week that we don't really come across in our Math books. But that's exactly what makes us so different in our approach, isn't it?

Television for children at home

As a mentor, and a parent, I am always intrigued with the discussions revolving around the TV viewing habits of our children. Parents always lament on the excessive time their children spend in front of the idiot box. Invariably, their complaint is about the quality and quantity of programmes. Pre-teens are usually seen engrossed in cartoon shows that seem to be a nuisance to an adult mind. Teenagers, on the other hand, prefer reality shows and film-based programmes.

As a mentor believing in the code of "free-will", I would want to give the child freedom to choose. The only way to achieve this to give the child viable choices. If the parents give a child an alternative like "Do your homework" or "Read a book" to TV, the child doesn't seem to have a comparable choice to the TV show. How then do we expect the child to happily accept the not-so-good choice? Even if the child goes into her room to study, her ears will always be craving for the sound coming out of your favourite soap on TV. More so, her mind will also be questioning the unfair treatment from an adult human being to a child human being.

Now try this: Just start doing a "real experiment" in the room next to the TV room with your door open. If you are like I am, you would find it difficult to creatively think of a ingenious experiment. No fret! Just browse for some exciting stuff on the net, and you can just start by "copying" something off the net. One of my favourite starters is creating a volcanic eruption by mixing some vinegar, floor and baking soda. You can do the experiment in the lawn to give it a more natural touch. When I did this one the first time, my children didn't even seem to acknowledge the presence of the TV. You could get some really cool ideas from sites like www.instructables.com and www.thereifixedit.com.

The bottomline is: If you want your children off the TV set, do it yourself first. Do something together and you would have given your children a "viable" choice.

PS: Add me (anirudhphadke) to your delicious account to browse through some of the interesting bookmarks that may just come in handy in doing something creative with your children.

Sir Ken Robinson: Schools Kill Creativity

In his imitable witty way, Sir Ken Robinson, makes the most serious observations about how schooling is not getting our children ready for future.

Our Schools are pressure cookers...didn't we know it anyway!

I came across some really alarming news reports about levels of stress in school children today and I thought of posting the links here with some quotes from them too:

The first one was from CNN: Student suicides worry Mumbai educators

By Mallika Kapur and Harmeet Shah Singh, CNN

February 4, 2010 12:42 a.m. EST

(Video may take time to load...you can go through some quotes from the same story meanwhile)

""It's hard to talk about our experience again and again. But I do it. I do it for my daughter."
--Mahesh Poddar (father of Mini, who committed suicide at the age of 15 years)"

"India has one of the highest suicide rates in the world -- and recent studies suggest about 40 percent are adolescents."

"India's education system is based on rote learning, or memorization, with a strong emphasis on scoring high marks. Classrooms are typically places filled with boiler cooker pressure."

"The suicides were a wake-up call for educators, said Sangeeta Srivastava, principal of Sardar Vallabhai Patel Vidyala, a government school in North Mumbai...Recently, a student from her school ran away from home before exams. "As teachers, we have a lot of effect on the students, even more than parents do," she said."

The second one is a BBC Story: Alarm at Mumbai's teenage suicide trend

By Zubair Ahmed
BBC News, Mumbai 

11:32 GMT, Monday, 1 February 2010

It begins with Neha Sawant's suicide story in Mumbai and then takes us through the main causes of high suicide rates in India.

Some quotes from this story:

"There is also a general agreement between psychologists and teachers that the main reason for the high number of teenagers taking their own lives is the increasing pressure on children to perform well in exams."

"World Health Organisation Assistant Director-General Catherine Le Gals-Camus points out more people die from suicide around the world than from all homicides and wars combined."


"The home ministry estimates that for every teenage suicide in Mumbai there are 13 failed attempts."


"Ms. Timbekar says that she recently met a child who had not eaten for four days. The child's parents said they were upset with him because he only got 89% in exams and stood third in the class, compared to coming first in previous years. "Such parents need to be counselled," she asserts."

"Dilip Panicker argues that there is a simple solution."If parents love their children unconditionally, with all their successes and failures, the problem would be greatly alleviated."" 

Is this what our school education is moving to? At Indus, thankfully, we are completely aware of our responsibilities and are committed to ensure a healthy environ. 

Rote Learning in schools to end

Indus World School has always believed in the philosophy of discouraging rote learning in keeping with the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) Guidelines. A recent article in Hindustan Times (dated Jan 31, 2010) strengthens our belief, and we hope that other schools will also follow the same.

Read the full article here...