The bad Boy: Please understand me.

Hi,
For last five years I have been in the teaching profession and let me share my observation with you.
The creativity of a student starts on the last page and ends on the first page as he writes what he is inspired to on last page and he writes what he is compelled to on the initial pages.

I visited a school for a science exhibition, a unique place where I found a student explaining a concept to a teacher. Unique because this seldom happens and is rarely seen. A question arose in my mind, every teacher as a student must have studied the same concept in school but he or she forgotten it in time. The same is the predicament with the student.

A student doesn’t respect the one who teaches very well or one who is very qualified, but he respects one who treats him special.
In today’s society everyone is allowed to commit mistakes e.g.-doctor, engineer, etc. but a student has to pay a heavy price for it.
· This is what the weakest student in the class maybe thinking:
"As I am weakest in academics in my class,
I am always scared of writing because I always make spelling mistakes.
I am always afraid of speaking because I make grammatical mistakes.
I can’t get myself to ask questions in class as they are too simple and make others laugh.
I trace my teacher but he is away from me, engaged with someone who hardly needs him.
· My poor academic affected my co curricular activity.
I cannot participate in debate,
My poetry and thoughts are rubbish,
Last thing that could have bought color in my life i.e. arts, I feel has rejected me.
· People say God blesses everyone with something special that makes him worthy of respect.

Why does no one takes the pain to identify the gift in me and as I need to feel special too."

From,
Just (NEED TO) pass.


Posting on behalf of dear Shailendra sir

Talent can be frustrating

You may have heard so many things about talented people. It is always very easy to talk about talented people. More often than not we also appreciate the talent that they have. You may have read a book named 'talent is not enough(I think it was written by John Maxwell). That is stll understandable but how can a talent be frustrating?

I was watching a cricket match recently(now that is not surprising). In came rohit Sharma and the commentator Ravi Shastri said, here comes a very talented Rohit Sharma who is frustrating the whole india. And I thought wait a minute! What is he talking about? Explaining his comments Mr. Shastri said that he is very talented and gets the starts while batting but more often than not he gets out which does not justify his talent as a batsman.

On thinking about it I felt that talented people can frustrate us more than who we believe are less talented. There is also a theory which says everyone is talented but let's just not get into that debate for now. Look at the people around you and ask yourself who frustrates you more. Look at your collegues, your friends, your students(that has to come me being teacher:)), your children, your neighbours, sportsmen, actors etc. Think about all of them.

Do we get frustrated when sachin tendulkar gets out before making a hundred? Invariably the answer would be yes. On the contrary we would not get frustrated when akash chopra(for those who don't know him he used to open the inning or India) gets out we don't feel the same way.

Now think about your children(of course if you are a parent) or students. You (at least I) tend to get frustrate more when a talented student doesn't perform. The reason? Because he is very talented yet performed badly. Comparatively a dull or not so talented student's performance doesn't frustrate us. The reason is very simple because we expect more from the talented lot than the rest.

I believe that we have a responsibility as a parents or teachers towards them. I think we should be equally patient with them. Specially the young talented youths. By being patient I don't propose to stop motivating them or not advising them. By being patient I mean to change our approach towards them.

I was watching a cricket show (again) and siddhu (who iritates me the most) said something really interesting. He said that a great coach makes the player believes in himself. That statement made an instant impact on me. Although the statement was a bit if a cleshe it got me thinking.

By looking at it from a teaching perspective, I believe that sometimes students are not aware of the fact that they are talented and can achieve or perform much better than what they have in the past. As a teacher or a parent, we don't realize that then we cannot do our job properly, what is my job if all my students perform as they are expected. In that case I might as well change the profession(sorry parents you don't have that option:)).

I think from that perspective my first job is to make those students realize that they are not all that useless as they think. Before applying any other methods on them I have to make them believe that yes they can do this. I have to make them realize that the goals that they believe unattainable are very much attainable and possible. If we can do that I think half of the job is done.

Enough from me on this topic, I know my fellow teachers along with some parents do follow this blog. I sincerely ask them for their opinions and comments on this topic.

Please ignore some spelling mistakes as I have typed this blog from my phone:).

AVM Mathletes Top in India, 11th in the world on World Maths Day 2010

Some marathons are interesting. They test your stamina, your spirit of achievement and the intensity of that spirit! Quite uniquely, there’s also this important element of teamwork in action. Add to it the excitement, the anxiety, the pressure caused by the 60 seconds timer in front of you, all adding up towards the total 48 hours given duration! And despite the burnout it may cause, you come out with an enriching experience, increased enthusiasm about the subject! All this and much more is roughly what the World Maths Day was about. In countries like the UK, Australia, New Zealand and many others, the event was inaugurated by the Prime Ministers of those countries!

Atmiya Vidya Mandir students participated for the first time along with some 56,000 schools and 11,30,000 students worldwide. World Maths Day 2010 was an international online Maths competition in which each participating student had to complete 500 Maths games, each of 60 seconds duration within a 48 hours window. This was clearly an outcome of AVM teachers’ constant endeavour of looking out for such national or international level competitions for students that would encourage them in their academics. World Maths Day 2010 was a truly unique world event and a fantastic way to promote numeracy within our school. Past results of World Maths Day competition show that students make significant improvements in their mental arithmetic skills and have fun in the process!

In this year’s World Maths Day 2010 competition, our dearest students performed an amazing feat. Following are details of our school in the World Maths Day 2010 Hall of Fame (Age group: 9-13):

Class results:

Class 8 Team secured 11th position worldwide and 1st in India.

Class 5 Team secured 42nd position worldwide and 4th in India.

Class 6 Team secured 50th position worldwide and 5th in India.

Individual results:

Suraj Patel (Class 8) secured 59th position in the world and 5th in India in the age group 9-13.

Through this event, we witnessed the basic philosophy of Atmiya Vidya Mandir in action. The students of different standards working in the same computer labs were seen many a times encouraging each other regardless of whatever their personal score was. Even remarkable was the event that the students who did not participate in the event, continuously kept sending their messages in pieces of papers motivating their friends to give it their best shot.

As a school, we also learnt that nothing is impossible if the enthusiasm of students is guided in the right direction.

Students experienced the unique power of brain that God has gifted us. We saw them applying a lot of skills that are important in real life like – teamwork, time management, pride for colleague’s achievements, confidence, working under pressure, Maths skills and many more. They realised that the whole world is like a classroom and they will have to compete with other students around the world in the future.

Classroom is a physically restricted learning area in a way, but such an online competition provides a much bigger platform to play and perform and simultaneously the students become aware of where they stand in terms of their skills at a global level and hence can set their personal targets of learning.

Rigorous 48 hours session on basic operations of Maths – helped develop critical thinking and problem solving abilities, something that is reportedly lacking in the younger generation employees. The test seemed to be designed keeping in mind child psychology facts and hence has proved to be more effective in bringing up their enthusiasm.

Above all, we saw their unshakable faith in God in any circumstances.

There are so many factors that made this event possible here at Atmiya Vidya Mandir –

• Our dear Principal Shri Yogeshbhai Raval who is always in favour of providing real life learning opportunities to the students that would prepare them for the realities of tomorrow.
• Our students’ enthusiasm to learn which was pushed further up by the practice sessions held by the World Maths Day team in which our classes secured the Top 5 ranks in the world and majority of our students secured within in the top 10 positions in their respective age groups.
• The whole hearted support of the staff.
• School’s technology infrastructure with very high speed dedicated Internet connection

Above all, the blessings of our founder, His Divine Holiness Hariprasad Swamiji Maharaj whose vision is to provide unique education to each child. With this grand vision, he has also blessed the school with very enthusiastic and dedicated teachers.

For more information about the event please visit: www.worldmathsday.com.

Quite eagerly looking forward to the World Education Games 2011...

Till then, the students with even more enthusiasm to learn continue to sharpen their saw.

World Maths Day 2010 Event Final Results

1,133,246 students and 56,082 schools from 235 countries participated in the marathon event organized by the World Maths Day Team!

Our dearest students performed an amazing feat in the past 48 hours.

Class results:

Class 8 Team secured 11th position worldwide and 1st at India level with a lead of 36000 points ahead of the second team in India!

Class 5 Team secured 42nd position worldwide and 4th at India level.

Class 6 Team secured 50th position worldwide and 5th at India level.

Individual results:

Suraj Patel (Class 8) secured 59th position in the world and 5th in India.

Kishan Khanpara (Class 3) secured 96th position in the world and 5th in India

Congratulations to all the teachers and students and all those wonderful people who have spent their time and efforts in making this possible!

Great job guys!

(Detailed report will be posted shortly)

The Little Masters still dominate on the Second Practice Session! Stay tuned and witness History.

If you've been on a trade floor of an investment bank, you'll find something quite remarkable, something that'll definitely sweep you off. It's the energy level. There's so much excitement, hurrays of victories, sighs due to losing, a constant never say never again attitude "breezing" across the floor! I can say it without any hesitation that its the same kinda atmosphere around the Admin building here at Atmiya Vidya Mandir. You'd maybe feel as if you've entered some textile looms factory due to the keyboard noise all around. Actually its been that way since yesterday noon time.

The young wonders of AVM have been doing wonders, mathematically, this time around. Despite the already impressive performance by the end of the day yesterday, they started off today with an ever more zeal to outperform their own selves. At the time of writing this, the following were some of the mind boggling statistics during the second day of practice. (NOTE: Those with a weak heart or blood pressure problems, please leave this page from this point.)

Student Rankings - Age 5-8: Positions: 11 and 14

Class Rankings - Age 5-8: Positions: 18 and 20

Student Rankings - Age9-13: Positions: (30 students in the top 100 out of the 12000 students the world!)

2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41, 42, 44, 46, 56, 67, 83 and 85.

Class Rankings - Age 9-13: Positions 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7! (All our four teams within this age group, basically.)

Student Rankings - Age 14-18: Positions 11, 14

Class Rankings - Age 14-18: Position 1 (The one team from AVM in this age group!)

I guess I need a break now to digest what I just typed here!

We shall be back soon with further updates and some screenshots....

What a day!!