When we are free......

It is a general feeling that that when we are free we should not work at all, COME WHAT MAY. On the contrary, there is a school of thinkers and management gurus who advice the bad part of what we generally think! They are of the opinion that the free time of a person is the best time in the hand of a person to re-organise his thoughts, re-schedule his calendar activities, and prioritize his obligations to the family in particular and the nation in general.

So, it comes to this that when we are free, we should freely be busy doing things. This helps us to move ahead in a planned way and also it ensures that the days of freedom will arrive very frequently for you to enjoy your life and to revitalise yourself. We may like to get into a pub and forget all by guzzling the stress buster but at the same time the tranquility gained through the stress buster can be utilized positively to chalk out the next day's work. It can be an opportunity to prepare the plugs which can be fixed into the minor and the major holes that we perceive in our near future. This is a sort of peace time which is the time for maintenance of arms for the undeclared war. Preparedness is must so that we can say COME WHAT MAY and sail smoothly even when the seas are high and rough.

Merit and not Reservation

Dear policymakers,

Now we don't need any reservation in this country. We are fed up of this elite treatment "reservation" because we have understood that by providing reservation to us, our talent has been made to lie deep in its dormant stage only. You gave us the reservation and said that if we just go and appear for the examination and come out of the examination hall by writing our names in the answer copies, we will be awarded the degree of a doctor. Initially, we felt glad and kingly but later we realized that it still was the way to demoralize us and not to allow us to raise our level of intelligence. Infact, you wanted us to remain blunt all our life! What a deep-rooted conspiracy!

Thus, I say that we don't need reservation of any type anymore.

What do you think about us and our intellectual level? We can very well compete with the mass (read) the students of other category who do not have any reservation. We know, they have not been given reservation because they are intelligent classes. Are we not? Stop all this political gimmick and evaluate us at par the general students. We will show you that we can excel them.

Reservation has crippled the state of the affairs in our state. Go anywhere, there is reservation. What for? Are we born with a mentally retarded head or what? No and not at all. What is the need of reservation in studies? It is because of this reservation that we have not been able to produce devoted, intelligent, faithful and committed public servants, bureaucrats or the politicians. All of them came through reservation, only to spoil the future of the coming generation. Test the students or the aspirants to various openings at par. No differentiation. If you are so obssessed with differentiation, differentiate us on the basis of the grades, the score, the percent and the percentile. That would give you the real intelligent people in the system who will put their brains together to make the nation corruption free.

For long we have seen everything bad, now its the time to see something good. If you are blind to this epidemic of reservation, there is no way of preservation for this nation. Only the candidates with real subject knowledge, real content, true practical knowledge gained in the school laboratories, honest attempt of the examination, beautiful grades can be the saviours of our nation.

So, give preference to merit over any type of reservation. Its high time for the government to realize the need of making constitutional ammendments to abolish reservation policy in education and service(s). You may limit the reservation policy in Public Distribution System, Quota releases, Indira Awaas allotment, MNERAGA and such other channels. But education does not differentiate between Eklavya and Arjuna. Without any reservation, both of them proved to be good shooters.

SC, ST Representation in Lokpal by Mayawati

The country is going through a deadlock when Anna Hazare has entered his 11th day of fast. If Jan Lokpal is not passed or three issues defined by him are not included for debate in the parliament, the fast is proposed not to end.

The government including the opposition party seems terrified over the issue. On one hand, we have a 74 year old man fasting and on the other we have the corrupt politicians who are afraid as to what will happen to their hidden treasure(s)in the mainland and overseas. These politicians seem to have been caught between the devil and the deep sea. There is no go now. Only one go. Shout in the parliament in favour of the strong Lokpal Bill and get yourself executed. Everything good comes to an end.

Readers can imagine if the culprit is asked to sharpen his own stake for impending execution! But the way to the execution point can be smoothened by our corrupt politicians with the huge wealth amassed by them over the period. So it shouldn't be a matter of worry for them.

The matter to be worried now is the latest backstage cry raised by Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh that SC, ST should be included in Lokpal. Mayawati must know that it has become too much for the people in India to bear any more the 'reservation'. Now, we have started talking about the merit and the talent. No company (MNCs or Indian) will ever uphold your category status and offer you a lucrative package of salary. The time has gone and moreover, it is no time for us to get our vested interests fitted into something that is being done to end corruption. Look out! Very shortly another Anna Hazare (May his tribe increase) may sit on fast against reservation.

At this juncture we should go for constitutional amendment and wipe off all old laws and policies that are so insignificant in the present or do not have any strength or need for the future. Free India from the shackles of corruption and reservation to see a better India in the times to come. Corruption and Reservation are only two damp crackers which will not burst on the day of Diwali. So let us show them sun by removing them from our nation. Hail India and forget not to Hail Democracy.

Crossword Puzzle: Number One

Books Recommended for English Teachers

There are number of books. Books and Books everywhere and all around. This creates a chaos in proper selection of a suitable book by a learner of english language. The names of few books, which even the CIEFL faculty also have recommended during their lecture sessions are being put here through my blog. I'm sure it would be of great use to the young learners of English language. Have a look:
1. 'Language' by Leonard Bloomfield
2. 'Aspects of the Theory of Syntax' (1965) by Noam Chomsky
3. 'English Grammar Practice' by R.N. Bakshi
4. 'Balasubramanian's Book on Phonetics'
5. 'A Course in English Grammar' by R.N. Bakshi, Published by Orient Longman
6. 'Shakespeare's Sonnets' by Sunil Kumar Sarker, Published by Atlantic Publishers
7. 'Introducing Applied Linguistics' by S. Pit Corder
8. 'Linguistics' by David Crystal, Published by Penguin Publishers
9. 'A University Grammar of English' by Randolph Quirk
10. 'The Use of English' by CIEFL, Hyderabad
11. A Handwriting Manual' by Alfred Fairbank
12. 'One Step Ahead Punctuation' by Robert Allen, Published by OUP
13. 'Writer's Guide to Style and Usage', Published by Rajiv Beri for Macmillan
14. 'Communicative Grammar of English' by Leech and Svatvik, Published by ELBS

Happy Reading.
May many more such books be the treasure of your Library!

Teachers should be equipped with Laptops

Yeah! Its already late. The teachers of today should now at least be provided with Laptops by the employers. In this age of MNCs and Globalization and Brand value, schools too have started getting the clients as their students and in order to impress the clients (read students) it ihas become very important for the teachers to present the content through latest means of teaching aids.
Thus, we see that the teachers are in dire need of i-pads and smart pads or laptops. When internet has expanded the horizon of knowledge and brought about content-enrichment in the field of various studies, use of tech gadgets as mentioned hitherto is unavoidable. The government may argue that we can give loan to the teachers and they could buy a laptop of their own. But that would sound like an employer asking a teacher about ten-fifteen years back during his appointment to bring a blackboard and chalk-sticks along with him everyday to the school! Yeah! Surely that sounds funny. So this too sounds funny that the employers very generously talk of interst free loans for purchase of laptops by teachers. After all they will recoup the loan amount from the teacher. So what benefit does a teacher get? Nothing.
Teacher is also one of the stake-holders in the system of education who is equipped with knowledge dissemination but the via medium of this dissemination should be provided by the government. Has the government ever done anything beneficial for the teachers except slashing down the pay as and when it desired? The future of the children, which the government talks about the most, should be made safe and secure. Not by giving frrebies but by making each and every child responsible for his acts. If he wins, brings laurels, does some innovation, he should be applauded but if he does something ghastly, he should be tried in child juvenile court by giving exrtra powers to the head of the institutions to initiate such proceedings against him. How mute we stand before the student power sometimes and allow them to grow anti government, anti democratic and unparliamentary. This is not the right foundation we are laying. We are rather digging their graves and they don't understand since they believe on us and the policy makers.
So, it is time their future is really made bright by bringing them to classrooms, a place they actually belong to. They may not loiter out because a teacher's voice is hoarse and he is old and he gives only lectures and he does a lot of talking himself in the class, and he does lot of writing on the blackboard. He may stick to class if his teacher goes well equipped with the videos and clips and games of his subject on his laptop. This will certainly improve the sad face of education in our schools.

Essence of Curriculum for Value Education

1. Value Education should be considered as a central core in the school life and in the life outside.
2. Curriculum should have specific periods to deal with some vital sapects of human values.
3. Some of the aspects can be included in the larger functions of the school like Daily Prayer, Social Service, Camps, Sports Meet, Festival Days, National Days etc.
4. Internalisation of values in thoughts, words and deeds is the goal and not merely the knowledge of it.

Aims of Teaching Values

• To create new values.
• To eradicate communal and social disharmony.
• To help individuals to adjust physically and mentally.
• To boost self-expression, self-preservation and self-confidence.
• To utilize limited resources effectively for better achievements.
• To impart the practical knowledge necessary to live a useful life.
• To develop problem solving abilities ans positive approaches to life.
• To enable individuals to control environment and fulfill responsibilities.
• To preserve, transmit and enhance the values from one generation to another.

Academic Excellence-barriers and way to achieve it

What is the utility of education? The utility of education is to prepare the child to face the realities of life. In other words, education should be able to make a child physically fit, mentally alert and emotionally balanced. Education is a way to developing the competencies in a child.

Requirements of academic excellence are: -

• Child should have competency at language.
• Child should have competency at numerical operations.
• Child should develop a free hand practice of computer applications.

Barriers of academic excellence are: -

• Adjustment problem with the teachers and the students.
• Low morale due to improper or no orientation at all of the teachers.
• Unplanned teaching resulting from the unsatisfactory efforts for the right kind of teaching-learning processess to be adopted in the classroom by the teacher.
• Strong dislike for studies in the child.
• Socio-economic status of the child.
• Irresponsible behaviour of the parents.

In such a situation when the requirements of academic excellence are only few while the barriers are too many, it becomes the duty of a teacher to work out on these issues in a systematic and planned way so that the objective of achieving academic excellence can be reached. In government schools, a teacher must concentrate on improving English language of the students besides working on the areas which can help the child develop his neuro-muscular co-ordination. The duty of developing English language of the children in government schools does not merely rest on the English language teacher or the Spoken English trainer. It should be supervised by the head of the school before he requests his faculty to contribute their best in developing the English language of the students. He would ensure that a fearless atmosphere is created in the school campus where the children find enough time and opportunities to speak English.

It would be a first step but a giant leap in achieving academic excellence.

Values with regard to Teachers

1. Teachers are predominant in theatrical, social, religious and economic values.
2. Gender educational training and experiences do not influence teacher’s values.
3. Location of the school influences the values of a teacher.
4. Teachers differ in their values because of the type and nature of the school and as such it influences the students.
5. The age influences the teacher’s aesthetic values.