Finally here!

Where do I start from? What should I start with? The most sorted, not so great way – to google what do others usually start with! Or for a beginner like me (entering the shop really late, while many of them are already done shopping), to google what people usually write on their blog might also be a very obvious suggestion! I am sure my search pages will be overloaded with numerous examples for me, making it too trite for me to try! Not to complicate, I want to keep this blog simple – to share ‘anything’ that may mean ‘something, everything or nothing’.

What really pushed me to start off blogging today was my visit to a few government run schools at Hoskote, which comes under the rural Bangalore. At about 10 a.m., as the town was getting up, children were there at the schools, some playing, some praying!  Having witnessed teaching-learning at the high school mathematics classes for the entire day, I feel so full with so many questions, thoughts and concepts at the end of the day.  Was there real facilitating, or did children just copy down the problems solved on the board? Did every child get the logic of the ‘problem’ discussed? To be precise, what percentage of the students were really pushed into thinking analytically? Are we making math relevant for their life, or it is simply another subject in their textbooks? Was there ‘real care’ taken in making sure every child falls in love with math? As I am reflecting on these, what also confounds me is the size of learning, the three thousand odd high schools across Karnataka. I don’t dare to think beyond Karnataka at this point of time.

But, not to forget the lovely children. The love and the respect they showered at us surely made it very hard for me not to teach them. In spite of dealing with various social elements such as poverty, little or no access to good infrastructure, illiterate parents; their energy and enthusiasm was mind blowing. Teach them anything, and they would take it. I guess this is true with all the children, always. My last question for the day – what do I really have to offer these kids? What do we have to contribute to their lives?