yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Schools beyond textbooks Title: Not just Grades – Schools That Educate Differently Author: Rajeev Sharma Publishers: Portfolio Penguin -An imprint of Penguin Random House IIM Ahmedabad Books Number of Pages: 389 Price: 599/- Published in Teacher Plus’ February 2019 issue. Thanks are due to the team at Teacher Plus . The preface and introduction are clear and concise. They convey what the book is all about and whom it caters to. Schools, the book tells us, are not free of the social and political contexts they are located in. Like children, they have a life beyond textbooks. This is the life the book focuses on. More than a book which talks of ‘schools that educate differently’, this is a book about school leadership. A book meant for practitioners, which addresses the need of the hour. The language is simple, direct and free of jargon. It will not only help school leaders and aspiring school leaders to avoid reinventing the wheel but also to raise questi...

Don’t always go by the textbook Thanks are due to Shalini, Teacher Plus and RK. The piece on Teacher Plus here . Some days ago a friend invited me to interact with students of class 8. He teaches science in a school that adheres to the CBSE curriculum. The topic for discussion was (Chapter: 7) Conservation of Plants and Animals. I took the textbook home to prepare and while I found the ‘story’ engaging, my first impression was that the chapter had spread itself a bit too thin – especially towards the end. However, as I re-read and began making notes some portions left me with a host of questions.   Some of these lines and my reactions I share below. ‘ Trees in the forest are cut for some of the purposes mentioned below – Ø Procuring land for cultivation Ø Building houses and factories Ø Making furniture or using wood as fuel ’ On similar lines is ‘ it is a pity that even Protected Forests are not safe because people living in the neighbourhood encro...

Questions in search of answers Review of a book which in some ways takes off from Ken Robinson’s much quoted line “ We are living in revolutionary times, but our educational system is a relic of the 19th Century Industrial Age ” published in the February 2018 issue of Teacher Plus. The review on Teacher Plus here and the book on MGIEP here . Thanks are due to Teacher Plus and Nirmala. Title: Textbooks for Sustainable Development: A guide to embedding Year of publishing: 2017 Publisher: United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development Pages: 186 Over the years as one dabbled in education (especially environment education) one faced a number of questions. Questions which were critical but which did not have clear answers and did not get the attention they deserved. Questions like why was our education so fragmented and removed from our lives? Was this data dr...