The need to post and get readers/hits.

So I am going to finally move this blog into the public sphere and showcase it as one worthy of reading bcause of the fine writng it contains.
I thought I will start by putting my essay on Bruner and constructivism in here, now that it's been corrected and I got an A for it. So here goes. Heavy, but worth reading:

Deconstructing Brunerian Constructivism

Intro: The Concept Of Significance
A major development in the twentieth century for the student of theory was the evolution of a few defining terms that were seen to be highly utilitarian in their ability to refer to many of the humanities and arts disciplines simultaneously, making multiple interfaces possible. These terms are the sign, signifier, signified, signification, referent and the text - in their fullest connotations. Readers of learning theories may notice that these important terms did not leave much of an impact on the discourse of Education. My effort in this essay will not be to ask why, but to connect these theoretical terms to learning theory and my practice, finally generalizing on the output. The obvious fear that comes to the surface, whenever theories that stem from Saussurean linguistics, structuralism, post-modernism, deconstruction and political empowerment are discussed in connection with learning, is the one about whether these are anarchic and subversive and will undermine the foundations of what child-centered education is supposed to be. Deconstructionists would laugh at the idea that education is supposed, a priori, to be this or that. It is true that polyphonic discourses deconstruct commonly held assumptions. But to believe that they are automatically against learning theories like Constructivism, which is the theory I want to examine, is misleading. Au contraire, to rigorously test the philosophical concepts that underpin a system, an institution or a philosophy is to do it a great benefit.
So, to frame my present effort, through which I hope to temporarily discover my philosophy or theory of learning, let me start by asking a few questions that seem relevant. To rephrase things in terms I am familiar with as a theorist, what will be my main signifier and what will it signify? What will be its referent? What is the text and what are the subtexts? My temporary answers, simply put, are: The learner – whether in singular or plural - is the signifier under consideration. No learner, no education. The signified, consequently, is learning. The referent of the process of signification which is naught but the process of learning is - a surprisingly DesCartesian finding - the interaction and interface between the learning self and the world from which it partially learns. The text, or education, is naturally the sum of these four parts. This self-sufficient and significant system has been, contaminated, at least for me, by three subtexts which area. the ideology of powerb, the theories of learning andc. the need, due to financial, political, social and economic constructs, for ‘entrepreneurial’ middlemen between the learners and actual learning.This impasse has to be faced now because it is a reality. My attempt will be to deconstruct the subtexts after discussing some of the salient principles outlined in Bruner's version of Constructivism, of which he is only one of the proponents.

Constructivism And Bruner.
This essay is constructivist in shape. That derives partly from choice and partly from the fact that the course which is eliciting it is also, to some extent, deliberately or unconsciously, constructivist. Concurrently, the metaphoric framework I have evolved is both constructivist and deconstructive in that my key words and concepts are typical signifiers that slide in and out of one another and overlap in phallogocentric jouissance that is a reflection of the amorphousness of words and the indeterminacy of concepts that resist, ideally, fixity. Constructivism, based primarily on what Piaget stressed, the concept of cognitive structures – i.e. ; schemas - , is a wide theory of learning that comprises several perspectives and includes thinkers as diverse as J. Bruner and the neo-Marxist Vygotsky. Bruner's contribution can be summed up in the following points.1. The signifier or the learner should be the active agent in the give and take of the signified; learning.2. In the process of signification or learning the learner is not a finished referent-product, but has a sign on him that reads 'under construction,' like a good website.3. He learns not only to construct ideas and hypotheses but also to make decisions based on models that have a cognitive structure embedded in them. He thereby arrives at meaning, and patterns experience towards a definite qualitative end result and, in a sense, constructs himself with help from the world (environment) as referent.4. He learns extrapolation and transcending of subject boundaries, both typical outcomes of constructivist endeavors.5. Facilitation has to bring about the learner’s ability to recognize first principles on his own initiative.6. It must lead to a profitable exchange of views (the Socratic dialogue and method of learning).7. The top-down approach of ‘delivering’ knowledge and information has to be jettisoned for simplification, taking into consideration age and level- appropriateness.8. The building blocks or spiral method is to be followed so that by the end of the project the learner can build the entire ‘project’ by himself.9. The facilitator has to motivate structure and sequence learning, besides planning the interval and ratio of interventions that negotiate the minefield of reward and punishment.10. The historical, social and cultural aspects of the signifier have to be taken into consideration to inculcate in him the "readiness" to learn.11. The learner needs order and organization so that spiral learning will take place, whereby the learner has the skill to build on what has been previously constructed.12. Facilitation leads to the ability and potential of the signifier to learn being maximized to the extent where inferences that go beyond the mastered level lead to facility with abstractions, filling in of gaps, and decoding and remixing of all the relevant aspects of textuality. Bruner doesn't take Skinner’s concept of reinforcement into consideration and seems to place little emphasis on the learner's past, emotions or physiological needs. These can be considered flaws; not just in his theory but in constructivism in general. It is too psychological in its orientation and seems to deal only with the mind, brain, intellectual prowess and mental processes, to the detriment of other aspects of the learner and learning, unlike in the more holistic approach of Gardner. However, I remain drawn to Bruner's theory, because I am more mind- oriented than heart or body-centered.
Constructivism as a theory of learning and its postulates like Brunerism have already proved themselves quite application-friendly in U.S. and Europe and the degree of difficulty experienced by educators in trying to implement them is moderate. The Indian context requires that it be tweaked for our circumstances. It is a user friendly theory because it deals primarily with patterning the process of learning into cognitive structures for best results and thus, in its crux, is aiming at the essential. Its implementation becomes difficult only if complicated by aiming too high.


Illustrating The Theory
Coming to current practice, I would like to illustrate, using the above twelve-point explanation I have given of Bruner’s form of Constructivism, several things that I have done that parallel almost exactly his theoretical viewpoints.
To ensure that the signifier in one particular learning situation I was in last year was involved in active give and take I made them engage in activities like
a. listening to “novel readings” by two accomplished readers,
b. participating in a video-viewing exercise (the film of the novel) followed by discussion and
c attempted movie-making of one section; along with the usual activities of
d. reading and
e. writing.
The results were, I admit, mixed. But the active give and take definitely occurred.
By the end of the year, exposed to the idea of reading a by-any- standards ‘long’ novel, the group of twenty-one I have taken as the case for presentation exemplified clearly the truth that in the effort to construct and situate themselves as mature readers they varied widely in terms of achievement. While six of them actually read the entire book, which was task- fulfillment at its best, two of them read the lengthy allotted portion. The other thirteen coped by reading some of the more relevant sections of the text, listening to five chapters being read out to them, having it reinforced for them visually through watching the movie and by trying to make a section of it as a film, using auditory aid in the form of literary readings and lastly by making use of a study guide available on the net. The results of the exams showed that those who had constructed themselves as mature readers scored the highest, the ones who had done the required work came second and the others lagged behind in spite of the active give and take of the sessions. The reason for this is obvious. While all these signifiers are ‘houses’ under construction, the ones who read the entire text by themselves were the ones who participated most in the process of signification, with least intervention from the outside, and hence they were able to collect and assemble the most number of building blocks for the project. They have almost reached the target of becoming the signified in whom learning has taken place. They were deeply engaged in the process of signification – or of making sense of the text for themselves, to put it in a more germane fashion.
This was seen in their writing that is gradually developing, - reflecting not only their growth in the discipline but also personal growth – suggesting that they are beginning to imbibe not just content but the pattern of the cognitive structure embedded in the efficacious practice of learning that the theory of constructivism is when applied. They have not yet gone on to extrapolation and beyond the textual paradigms, but recognition of first principles is beginning to take place. For instance, now the group under observation has begun to understand the generalities that go into the make-up of a good novel like story, plot, setting, themes and characters and next year, by the end of the present module in its totality, they will also be able to recognize the specificities and peculiarities of a novel’s tonality that makes it stand out in literary terms due to elements like aptness of dialogue, the pictorial quality, characterization, depth in treatment of themes etc. Gradually, the constructivist approach has begun to yield profitable exchanges of views and dialogues that are definitely Socratic in nature. My approach has taken age and level- appropriateness too much into consideration. As a result of pitching the standard too low and trying to transfer concepts and knowledge in too simple a fashion to meet even the supposedly lowest common denominator, instead of delivering learning from top-down, not as much ground was gained as might have otherwise been possible. In the attempt to motivate the group as facilitator, I was able to bring the power of collaboration into play by arranging for two fine readings of sections of the novel, especially one by an expert in the field that took into consideration things like the exact accent of the local dialect that was spoken by some of the characters in the novel. The content was divided into structured units for ingestion and the ratio and interval of interventions was planned appropriately with the stress being on reward and reinforcement – an element borrowed from Skinner – rather than punishment. This bred its own kind of chaos and slackness in the group but the philosophy was not sacrificed for a year. What was most interesting was the process of whole class reviews held in camera, so to speak, to gauge the measure of group and individual learning that had actually taken place. It was an innovative venture that the group had never gone through before and led to a lot of discussion and proactive results, especially in the updating of notebooks by some of the members. An interesting facet that emerged was that gender seemed to play a part in receptivity to constructivist techniques of facilitation. Hopefully in one more year, if this whole method is fine-tuned, the group which now shows much improvement in that nineteen of them seem to have become more focused, may eventually come to a stage where all twenty-one show enough acumen to go beyond the texts and prescribed syllabus to a place where making hypotheses, spiral development and maximizing of learning potential - leading to self-improvement which is the constructivist aim - all become possible.

Conclusion: Deconstructing Constructivism As A Means To Power
Several issues swam into focus in my attempt, of a very specific nature; therefore not addressed by constructivism directly. If the three or four areas that needed to be addressed urgently were reading, writing, student variability and lack of know-how regarding researching and thinking skills; perhaps it was because Bruner’s suggestion that the historical, social and cultural contexts also need to be taken seriously into consideration to bring about a solution that would actually create “readiness” in the group was ignored. However, to do so would have opened a Pandora’s Box, one which I would love to address next year. The predicament in doing so consists of the following question. What is the price tag on education for rich kids? Is advanced theory applied to learners in select Indian settings a modus operandi of the convoluted machinations of power, whereby the children of the rich get immunity from having to do what their less fortunate counterparts have no choice but to, while being assured that power will remain in their hands because of the superiority of the quality of education they get? Does the effective implementation of theories of learning like Bruner’s indirectly foster and maintain in a country like India a new caste system, more rigid than the old, in its raising up of a class of learners who are elite because of the training they can afford and who learn, beyond cognitive structures, the only lesson valued by the ‘strong’ of the world – how to increase in power and wealth and become rulers; an end for which the means is this kind of specialized learning?
If it is so, it is a case of the ‘constructivist’ text called education being falsely constructed, without recognizing the gaps and discontinuities in the arbitrary and perennially changing relationships between the signifier, the signified, the referent and the world. The gap becomes fatal if the system does not realize that textuality is closed and kinetic but just outside of it, un-quantified by any theory, there are large human factors that consist of much more than parents, business entrepreneurs, position, fame, assets, high finance, aristocracy, influence and .... expensive education! The ‘much more’ is signified primarily, for the present writer, by elements like the children themselves, elementary and high school teachers, learning support staff and counselors, the work- force that cleans an establishment daily and the non-teaching staff, to name just a few, and many other factors that are not quantified by most of the advanced, learned theories of learning. The factors include respect, equality and a developed awareness that the earth is part of a vast, beautiful, living web of life that always finds amusing the attempts of a few strands in it to consider themselves greater than the sum of the parts. In brief, theories of learning must be supported by a socially viable network like the one Aditi is certainly striving to be, communities of practice that take history and the world into consideration in such a manner that those in the echelons of power like the management and the parents and the facilitators in authority are sensitized to the adverse effects of a system that relies only on intellectual, aesthetic, scientific, technological, economic, bodily- kinetic or academic achievement. At the same time, this shouldn’t result in a loss of motivation in creating achievers in these fields. None of these achievements are essential life skills, if they stand in isolation.
To sum up, theories with constructivist goals seem to me pragmatically sound but not humanizing enough, if its application is only limited to international schools. Education’s general theoretical drift today is similarly constricted by such theories being boxed into narrow strips in vibrant democracies like India. Any theory of learning which ultimately doesn’t send the learner in the direction of truth, and that includes responsibility to all one’s fellow men; is, by inference, incomplete and needs deconstruction so that one may come up with a practice that creates in the signifier the innate drive to ask the age-old question: What is really "significant" enough to learn in the brief life each human being has on earth?
Bibliography attached in an earlier post.

farewell to three of my wonderful students

Artist: John Cale
Song: Hallelujah
Lyrics
I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
It goes like thisThe fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah etc.

Baby I've been here before,
I know this roomI've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya
I've seen your flag on the Marble Arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah etc.

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do ya?
I remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah etc.

Maybe there's a God above,
all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who out drew ya
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah etc,
Hallelujah etc.

I know your dream

findings

1.teaching creatively and teaching for creativity
2.dimensions of learning
3.integrated curriculum
4.multiple intelligences
5.learning about, from and with technology
6.differentiated instruction
7.bloom's taxonomy
8.maslow's heirarchies
9.understanding by design

my tool box of theories is full

i can pick and choose

makes skills and attitudes clearer for me now....

plus learned a lot of things like what a project is etc...

last part of my essay

A Select Bibligraphy

Bruner, J.S. (1960) The Process of Education, Harvard University Press, U.S.A
Lye, John (1993) CONTEMPORARY LITERARY THEORY, Brock Review Volume 2 Number 1, pp. 90-106, USA . http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/2P70/contemporary_literary_theory.html. Last updated July 2001
Smith, M.K. (2002) 'Jerome S. Bruner and the process of education', the encyclopedia of informal education http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm. Last updated:January 2005:
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/constructivism.html
This is a gateway to much material on Constructivism
http://www.psy.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/Bruner.htm
This site is a gateway to much material on Bruner.

finished

it's done - now for the bibliography and the formatting - yay!!!!

exactly below 2750 words.

Continuing

Constructivism as a theory of learning and its postulates like Brunerism have already proved themselves quite application friendly and the degree of difficulty experienced by educators in trying to implement them is moderate. It has been the same for me too, although theIndian context requires that it be tweaked for our circumstances.

The Essay - Part 2

Construcivism and Bruner.

This essay is constructivist in its shape. That derives partly from choice and partly from the fact that the course which is eliciting it is also , to some extent, deliberately or unconsciously, constructivist. Concurrently, the metaphoric framework I have evolved is deconstructive in that my key words and concepts are typical signifiers that slide in and out of one another and overlap in a phallogocentric jouissance that is a reflection of the amorphousness of words and the indeterminacy of concepts that resist, ideally, fixity. Constructivism, based primarily on what Piaget stressed, the concept of cognitive structures - schemas - , is a wide theory of learning that comprises several perspectives and includes thinkers as diverse as J. Bruner and the neo-Marxist Vygotsky. Bruner's contribution can be summed up in the following points.
1.The signifier or the learner should be the active agent in the give and take of the signified; learning.
2.In the process of singification the learner is not also a finished referent-product but has a sign on him that reads 'under construction' like any good website.
3. In the same process he learns not only to construct ideas and hypotheses but also to make decisions based on models that have a cognitive structure embedded in them. He thereby arrives at meaning and patterns experience towards a definite qualitative end result and , in a sense, constructs himself with help from the world(environment) as a referent.
4. This includes extrapolation and transcending of subject boundaries , both typical of constructivist endeavours.
5.Facilitation has to bring out about the ability to recognize first principles on the learner's own initiative.
6. It must lead to a profitable exchange of views ( the Socratic dialogue and method of learning)
7.The top-down approach of delivering knowledge and information has to be jettisoned for simplification, taking into consideration age and level appropriateness.
8.The building blocks method is to be followed so that by the end of the project the learner can build the entire house by himself.
9.The facilitator has to motivate, structure, sequence and plan the interval and ratio of interventions that negotiate the minefield of reward and punishment.
10. The historical, social and cultural aspect has to be taken into consideration to inculcate "readiness" to learn in the 'signifier' of learning.
11. The learner needs order and organisation so that spiral learning will take place. whereby the learner builds on what has been previously constructed.
12. Facilitation leads to the ability and potential of the signifier to learn being maximised to the extent where inferences that go beyond the level mastered leads to facility with abstractions and filling in of the gaps.

Bruner doesn't take reinforcement into consideration and seems to place little emphasis on the learner's past or emotions or physiological needs. These can be considered flaws; not just in his theory but in constructivism in general in that it is is too psychological in in its orientation and seems to deals only with mind, brain, intellect and mental prowess to the detriment of other aspects of the learner and learning , unlike in the more holistic approach of Gardner. However, I remain drawn to Bruner's theory partly because of the lack of empirical proof for some of Gardner's classifications and partly because I am more of a mind- oriented personality than a heart or body-centred personality.

Second attempt. - Intro: The concept of significance

The essay requires that I pick a theory first. This is difficult for me because I generally move with a complex, complicated, approach to theory - believing that one must have no theory to go by initially, then go on to take what is good from all the theories after being initiated into them , form one's own multi-faceted theory over time and transcend theory eventually after finding out the right balance between theory and practice. Another difficulty that presents itself to me is that I am, by nature, a strongly theory-oriented thinker/writer, and left to myself I would keep writing theory and leave out documenting the practical aspect totally, because the latter is what I'm good at.
(Leave out this first paragraph safely)

Of the given theorists , due to familiarity and inclination the ones that attract me the most are Dewey, Skinner, Piaget, Bruner, Vygotsky, Gardner and the brain-based learning theorists. This is not a value judgment. Since that's still too long a list and the brief is to choose primarily just one or two I would like to concentrate, perforce, on Bruner and constructivism, although I will be referring, if necessary, to the other theorists.

(Leave this paragraph out too)

A major development in the twentieth century for a student of theory in the transdisciplinary field of linguistics, stylistics, literature, criticism, art, anthropology, sociology, history, politics, philosophy and psychology was the evolution of a few defining terms that were seen to be highly utilitarian in their ability to refer to all the above mentioned disciplines simultaneously, making multiple interfaces possible. These terms are the sign, signifier, signified, signification, referent and the text - in their fullest connotations.

(First paragraph of essay)

These words or defining terms stand for key concepts that show a shift in perception that occurred in the twentieth century, bringing in a new paradigm in theory and practice in all the above mentioned fields. The shift was away from nineteenth century trends and open to twenty-first century changes which have had to take rapid breakthroughs in science and technology - resultantly in media -into consideration.

(Leave out the above paragraph)

As to what the terms stand for - to put it in a very simplistic way which subverts the very effort of the proponents of these terms to expand their frame of reference to include, if possible, all disciplines - the sign stands for anything with symbolic value, the signifier is usually its re-presentation and the signified is the interpreted or interpretative Meaning of the sign/ifier. The branches of learning which study these phenomena are called semiotics and hermeneutics. The how, why, when , where, who and what of Meaning's occurrence , also called semantics, is called signification or the signifying process and deals primarily with the relationship between the signifiers and how it generates meaning. The sign and the signifier always stand in relation to its referent - and studying the connections between such multi-pronged terms was the contribution of Structuralism which dealt with the relationship between elements rather than the understanding of the elements themselves. The final concept I have mentioned, that of the text, assumed staggering importance after Derrida's mercurial and controversial rise to prominence in the theoretical world, with his notion of textuality as perenially closed and kinetic; a chain of endless signifiers based on difference rather than identity and repetition, a notion that neatly yet radically does away with the concepts of the the signified and the referent.

Second paragraph - for the layman. Should I use it? - depends on final word count)

Naturally, with this kind of modernist theoretical grounding, theory in these disciplines moved towards post-structuralism, post-modernism, deconstruction, post-colonialism, post-feminism, post-Marxism, post- colonialism and decolonization, subaltern studies, minority and marginalized discourses being given voice etc. All this was made possible because the previous theorists had opened up whole schools of debate and their discourses dealt with subjectivity and relativization, making it difficult in the post- Nietzchean & Foucaultian ambience to come to conclusions on any "subject" without first rigorously testing whether one was thinking clearly. Theory had become meta-theoretical, a natural concomitant to its rising importance.

(Leave out the above paragraph)

As readers of learning theories may notice, these important terms did not, seemingly, leave much of an impact on the discourse of Education. My effort in this essay will not be to ask why but to connect these theoretical terms to learning theory and my practice, finally generalizing on the output. The obvious fear that comes to the surface whenever theories that stem from Saussurean linguistics, structuralism, post-modernism, deconstruction and political empowerment of the sort envisaged by Foucault are discussed in connection with learning and education is the one about whether these are anarchic and subversive and will undermine the very foundations of what education, especially child-centered education, is supposed to be. Deconstructionists will, of course, laugh at the idea that education is supposed, a priori, to be this or that . It is true that such discourses deconstruct commonly held assumptions. But to believe that they are automatically anti-constructivist is misleading. Au contraire, to rigorously test the philosophical concepts that underpin a system, an institution or a philosophy is to do it a great benefit. From this kind of scrutiny they have a chance to emerge positively cha(r/n)ged, unscathed or diminished.

So, to frame my present effort, through which I hope to temporarily discover my philosophy or theory of learning, let me start by asking a few questions that seem relevant to me. What is my main signifier and, to rephrase thnigs in terms I am familiar with as a theorist, what does it really signify? What is its referent? What is the text and what are the subtexts? My temporary answers, simply put, are: The learner is the signifier under consideration -whether in singular or plural. No learner, no education. The signified, consequently, is learning. And the referent of the process of signification which is naught but the process of learning is - a surprisingly DesCartesian finding- the interaction and interface between the self and the world. The text therefore will be, naturally, the sum of these four parts. This self-sufficient and significant system which might have been rampant once has been contaminated by bringing into it the three subtexts which are
a. the ideology of power
b, the theories of learning and
c. the need, due to financial, social and economic constructs, for (artificial?) middlemen between the learners and actual learning or education.
This impasse has to be faced now because it is a reality. My attempt will be to deconstruct these three subtexts using some of the salient principles outlined in Bruner's version of Constructivism , of which he is only one of the proponents.

apology in frostian/blakean terms

casw sessions make us wise
but, alas, a deadline doth me await
and i still have seven reports to write
yea, i still have seven more reports to write.....

think: a couplet

I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours- Hunter S. Thompson

when is it told then?
from five to nine?

A great poem by Miguel Hernandez

What does the wind of bitterness want
that it comes down the gully
and forces the windows
while I dress you in my arms?

To overthrow us, pull us down.

Overthrown, pulled down,
both our bloods receding.
What more does the wind want
more bitterly each moment?

To part us.

A day in the life of a poet like Tagore?
03/25/06
(edited Saturday, Mar 25, 2006 08:54)
purify your heart and find out
what the truth is and/or the truth is not
purify your heart and you shall see
God in fire ether earth wind(air) and sea
purify your heart and we can be
one as the two faces of the multiple High
purify your heart in the motives and intentions of all your dreams
purify your heart
so that all you are and say and do is more than what it seems
till you know you are your silence and not just your deeds
and your reacting and your refraining from evil purify
be good, dear heart
purify your single singular heart
and find it linked to the sacred(ness of the) heart and all the other hearts
in the expanding universal heartland(s) of the pure.

Anu's session

Teaching a chapter on stress that was both content-rich and content-heavy Anu found out that the last lesson which she made an interesting one based on brain based strategies to motivate learning was perhaps the most successful of the lot. She showed us a video of the class in which she had made use of Nina John as a subject expert.
Her consequhent reflection led to this unexpected key question - unexpected but relevant for many of us teachers who deal with lots of content and concepts in a year's syllabus - :
How - through what methods (tools) -can direct teaching be made interesting?
Direct teaching, she explained - and we concurred - was the only way to teach large chunks of theory whichroug was needed as background for the discipline - those dry but necessary sections.
For someone like me who had majored in direct teaching the question came as a pleasant surprise - because it made me rethink how it could be made interesting.

Intriguingly, of the six sessions we have held so far only two dealt directly with assessment of student work. Two dealt with motivating students to work/learn better and the other two dealt with questions connected more with improving our teaching practice as professionals.
The range is what makes this exercise worthwhile.

My suggestions for improving direct teaching included bringing in the lement of performance - body langugage, jokes, gestures, eye contact, use of movement and space by the teacher in the class, preparing rigorously beforehand for the lecture, timing things perfectly , including the pauses and the time and places for discussion in the course of this kind of "delivery".
Other suggestion I made were that tech tools like video files, audio files and powerpoint presentations be made use of in direct teaching classes to enhance content rather than as media for building the student's potential to learn. Thus interviews with famous personalities - subject experts - , case studies etc could be projected making the classroom a serious space and the things shown and heard would be a documentary nature .
The idea that Anu took to most was that of personalizing the content, because however dry the topic is, if the students find a genuine link in it to their own lives, it will enthuse them.

Bala facilitated the session ably.

During the collaborative strategy building session we formulated a strategy that helped all of us
in its definitiveness.
Bala's role in insisting that the collaborative strategy sessions should really move towards a single combined strategy is worth noting as a concrete and positive move.
So is his role in making for us a document in which we can easily write down our session notes. If fine tuned this wil be of lasting importance to future CASW Sessions.
The debriefing did not contain anything much of note except the suggestion that contextualizing
the key question sometimes get confusing becasue the presenter is busy not only speaking but also handing out notes etc.
The necessity to be punctual was also stressed.
Anu was quite happy with her take-away.
All of us heaved a big sigh of relief, having completed the first round.

"School's out for ever" - Alice Cooper

Do you remember what you felt like on the last day of school after the last school -exam you'd ever write?

The Quiet Auditorium and Beyond
Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:01:06 -0800

i was found standing
in a wide but closed space
on a sleepy noonday

a tall death's head glided
skeletally past me
to a long and spectral bench

tall, swaying trees came in
hemmed in by small seats
their branches, silent; moving

the hourglass turned thrice
i was found sitting
sleeping(!), sometimes writing

pacing is distracting
pacing shows distraction
eyes feasting on fair calves

ankles, thighs and muscles
shapes, twisting and turning
chairs and skirts, leaves rustling

three aeons went by
(for them but thirty seconds?)
of minds and sinews working

the clock struck five quietly
they rushed by, in gladness
22 soft-eyed gazelles

no longer penned in by/with questions
in "convent-ual" fences
free to roam the city

as if t'were green savannahs
to their hearts' feline dis-content(s)
in the heartless neon-lit streets

no more of school-exams
no more they, school children
no more they, girls; thinking

w/trapped in women's bodies
running out , gracefully
liberated, pretty gazelles

finally 'wisdom's' children
their sparkling faces declared
at one with their lissome limbs

and i was found walking
out of the gates of division
into the place, (of) my poem

setting it free, long-legged gazelle
into the azure - "nu/ew blue" - skies
of your desirous readings.

Gnome - 2

There is no need to feign
Poetry is worth nothing
But, then again
Nothing is worth Poetry.

Writing

"Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to its vomit" - Samuel Beckett in his monograph on Marcel Proust

What is friendship , according to Proust? Two people at the same level of confusion.....

How are these things connected to writing?

A writer needs to free himself from all preconceivedness to become a potent silence.

A change of mind & the importance of the prefix RE

I am unable to post a picture of Patrick White. I think I'll drop it. I want to return to my thread on evolving a satisfactory philosophy of education that will fit and extend my present needs as a facilitator.
I would like to be a bit subject or discipline- specific this time. However, the thoughts here are, as always, in media res; and should not be taken as a final position on anything I am pondering about.
In every subject at present a knowledge of English is needed.
So students should know English well.
What is the process by which a(ny) language can be learned 'well'?
Hearing and listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Thinking in the target language
These are commonly known denominators.
But in the 20th century , after modernism and post-modernism the prefix "re-" has become important.
The process of learning is not only about the impact of the first time
but about words like
re-petition
re-membering
re-inforcing
re-ifications

In literature especially, which if a man becomes an adept at, he naturally becomes good at language too - a cycle begins to form which I now feel is extremely valid
It goes like this.

Reading - RE - reading - Note-taking - RE - reading - Note-making - P(l)anning for writing -Writing - RE- reading - RE - writing (some people plan what they want to write so well they don't need to rewrite - they edit in their head- but these are exceptions)
In the circle also comes things like hearing and then hearing again, (the second is what I call ac tual listening) , viewing and RE-viewing (actual looking/seeing), thinking and then RE-thinking, doing and RE-doing, making and RE- making, creating and RE-creating.....
In short, I speak of the importance of the prefix RE and of RE-working everything to come closer to perfection....

This needs to be explicated using examples but it is potent enough as a seed for now. Ideally everything would need to be done thrice.

One of the twentieth century greats - Derrida

This picture was called " the blind deconstructing the blind."
Derrida is on the left. You can see that his hair has been deconstructed, perhaps by the wind.

Michaelangelo once said:

"i am still learning"

5th CASW session - Viji's.

Despite the absence of Anu and Hema , the former due to invigilation duty at Sophia's and the latter due to illness ; we held the fifth CASW session of the +2 teacher's group. Mohua joined in,
which was good.
Viji's key questions were
1.For projects based on research and collection of data how can the teacher ensure authenticity of data and no manipulation of the same by the student?
2. What measures can be taken by the teacher to ensure that students maintain integrity and truthfulness in producing genuine work based on research?
The questions , I felt , went into areas of research methodology, documentation, planning, assessment, life skills and ethics - a wide spectrum indeed!
The point she stressed most was that there should have been "systematic record of data, good arrangement of data, independant market survey, creative representation" in accordance with the proposed guidelines for marking with grades for 10th ISC internal assessment in economic applications projects.
She showed samples of project work where the students had not kept the criteria but it couldn't exactly be pinned down, so because of the superior packaging of the projects, they had , in a sense, got away with it....
This is what I wrote down in my indidvidual writing session:
To ensure they have done research give them specific locations. Scout those areas early or go with them. Check facts out if not with them. Collection of data must be backed by proof, not just charts.
Stick to assessment criteria and refuse to give marks/grades if what was asked for was not done.
Ensuring integrity by modelling research.
Don't let them consider the project completed until you are satisified.
The participant discussion was rich in specifying how ideas like the general ones above could actually be put into practice. I am putting them here in short hand:
Locate much of field study in school.
Bring back proof of interviews held.
Bring back bills and receipts.
Bring in research experts - to talk of how to do research and how exciting it is.
Bring back photographs and videos of the trips -
In case of dereliction of duty on the part of the student regarding quality of work done report the matter to the higher authorities
Map the work, break it down into manageable units, plan, collect data, analyze and write/present project. This makes close monitoring possible to avoid dilution.
Talk to the students of the need for ethics in research work. teach them skills of data collection, recording findings, documenting the process.
In the presenter reflection period Viji said that grouping wouldn't work and modelling was difficult. She also said that withholdoing marks and grades wasn't a feasible solution.
Collaborative strategy building :
1. Teach the students differnt styles of research;
library research, field study, market survey etc.
Also, how to record and write the results.
2.Provide structured parameters: selected locations, people, objects for study , time, sources.
3.Call in motivators and inspirers and be inspiring ....
4. Monitor the process and its documentation - evaluate and record. Surprise inspections can also be done occasionally.
The teacher has to talk throughout to students of work ethics.
If there is a clear case of plagiarism, copying, flagrant violation of copyright, patents or wholescale lifting of material from the internet etc. or stealing of intellectual property breaking those rights connected to it, the matter has to be taken to higher authorities.
Debriefing made us aware that the collaborative strategy session needed to be fine-tuned.
The facilitator's role was clearly delineated and his participant staus was seen to be less because of having to do two things at the same time.
Time has to be handled more carefully.
The points the presenter disagreed with were thought best avoided and not discussed in the collaborative strategy building session.

Next sessions:
Wednesday 22nd: Anupama's first session and/or Koshy's review. 2.30-5.00
April 1 - The other five review sessions. 8.45 - 3.15

Voss isst du?

		03/06/06 (edited Monday, Mar 06, 2006 19:04)
		Something’s stirring like a butterfly's wings It's clear that, again, someone's going batty Somewhere there's mud It feels so gritty under one's boots the sound drives you crazy In the damp rain falling hard taking shelter in a cowshed smelling of stale hay and piss so no one can think It's so nutty I feel like i’m almost about to scream There he says he knelt the gay writer with a name like W/white! Pa-trick luna-tic and he said he came to believe in the almighty - I’ve heard taller stories but i take it easy - and he wept like a baby cursin’ the damn rain (must have been night?!) beating on his wet face like thunder - Is that where he caught the chill that led to the Nobel? - I don't have an ace like that hid up my shirtsleeve I must have cheated at the game of life, gambling Voss, isst du, poker-face? The countdown for the usual cast off begins all over this year I wait in the days of Lent in a deserted vestry standing by the river in spate Can you hear the words of my roaring it asks I listen Hear It's the same old sound the crucified one crying out in human(e) agony

P.S. The experiments in language are intentional. A photograph of Patrick White shall duly be posted.

The promised picture of T.S. Eliot painted by none other than Wyndham Lewis

Bala's CASW session

Dealing with questions that touched upon the curriculum and the syllabus, bringing in the pedagogical issues of the real meaning of 'time' and 'space' and the logistics of handling them, Bala held forth in today's session a brilliant conundrum for the paticipants of how to deal with key questions that are highly relevant but totally out of the box in that they deal with student assessment rather than assessment of student work.
Art and Design coursework for AICE A level was the frame he set for us to discuss.
The key questions were:
1. How to schedule and plan sessions (practical work) when the locations are outside the school (eg; Lala Bhag Botanical Gardens or a view of the Hebbal lake) or outside the City ( eg; Mahabalipuram or Hampi )
2. how to facilitate learning in such a situation?
3. how to ensure completion of the painting as per the schedule, even when it is unmonitored.
Vijaya Rajeshwari facilitated the entire session ably.
The whole team had a lively session in which all felt comfortable and many good strategies were thrown up.
My responses to the key questions included the suggestions that the schedule should be made ready early and contact time making use of technology should be insisted on in the case of field trips ouside schoool where the students cannot be monitored by the teacher. Though I suggested self-assessment and peer-assesment as ways to keep them on target this idea - Bala rightly pointed out - is difficult to implement in the absence of the facilitator. About making sure they complete the work and don't drop out or produce shoddy work, the only solution I could think of was raising their level of motivation and interest and making them aware of the responsibilty they have towards art and life.
Strategies towards this end would include - meeting artists, discipline gained through earlier briefer field trips, showing films and works of art to them to raise their level of understanding of the intrinsic value of art and the consequent ethics and responsibilty expected of them in terms of integrity towards their work as artists which would include things like keeping deadlines etc...
In short i wanted them to think highly of their choice and calling so that it would automatically bring about in them a heightened awareness whereby they would turn in their best work.
The ideal time for field trips would be Christmas holidays, according to me.
Bala pointed out that while best work can be done only if they do go, if necessary, to far off places there were practical difficulties connected with that.....
The session ended with a serious appraisal of how Bala could handle coursework better next year - the best idea being by the "persistent" Vijaya Rajeshwari- a meticulous year plan- and debriefing where it was suggested that all of us should refresh our memory each time about the structure of the CASW meetings because at times we did forget and interrupted each other in sessions where we should have kept silent...
I feel that one thing that got forgooten was discussion on our take away from this enriching session. Mine was thoughts on how to mix school time and space constraints with the notion of how the world itself is a school and all time is meant for learning.....
Thanks to Bala for a thought provoking and tangentially illuminating session, typical of his aesthetic sensibility which always moves in a curve that is unexpected...
And to Rags and the others for harmonious participation. We missed the gregariousness of Anu who wasn't well.
The tea helped us in the fag end of the day to stay fresh.....
And to cap it all Tara's and Shuchi's feedback on my essay made a wonderful ending to a very pleasant day....

My continuing search for a satisfactory philosophy of education.

The Supertramp lyrics I quoted in the last post are, of course, interesting; but my training in theory, especially in the fields of literature and criticism, makes me read it against the grain.
When one is young is life really wonderful , a miracle, magical and beautiful?
The lyricist adds a qualifying "seems."
I remember: when I was small I actually wanted to go to school. This was because I have two elder brothers and a sister and watching two of them dress up everyday in their uniforms and take their schoolbags with books in it and go away made me feel they were more "grown up" than I...
When I did go to school, however, through sheer bad luck I got an awful teacher - a kind of bat out of hell- in the first standard and it ruined my schooling experience....
In those days , by the way, one could go to first standard directly... no K.G. ... no test...
When I reached college I 'felt' much happier . There was freedom there.
I came away from schooling pretty muddled.
The "confusion" of "learning" that Supertramp speaks of ..... I guess?! Partly inner confusion. Good teachers were rare....
I am writing this primarily from the point of view of a student....
In two of his poems T.S. Eliot speaks about how knowledge has been the bane of modern man's existence. I sought knowledge and that was perhaps the cause for my unhappiness with the system of education.....
He says that knowledge is different from wisdom...
We in India use the words gnana and vidya ....
I acquired vidya but found that what I needed was the gnana to apply the vidya...
It is clear that from the moment of birth man needs to learn....
But how does one learn? What? When? Where? From who? And last but not least, why and to what extent, i.e; how much? In other words how can I gain the gnana needed to move beyond the duality/maya of avidya and vidya...
A lot of it(learning) comes naturally and spontaneously. Some of it is "thrust", like "greatness" upon us. :).But of what we can consciously muster of learning, there we need to choose judiciously and wisely....
Samuel Beckett who was a brilliant academician discovered one day that he wanted to be an artist and threw up scholarship for consummate artistry. He eventually won a Nobel Prize for Literature but in the early years of struggle as a writer he wrote this revealing poem aptly titled
GNOME
Spent/d the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning
My memory plays me tricks . I forget - but do not regret it - the exact tense of the first word of this gnomic utterance.
To sum up:
My children still learn in the same outdated system I grew up in, more or less, because I am (outwardly?) a conventional person.
But if I had a second conscious chance, what would I do?
What kind of schooling would I want?
Let me try and think it through......
(The photo is that of Samuel Beckett. I also wanted to post one of T.S. Eliot but I think I'll keep it for later. The photo is titled "Samuel Beckett's craggy stare" .....)

Supertramp › The Logical Song > Lyrics

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.
Now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical
Liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable
Respectable, presentable, a vegetable!

At night, when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.

I think of the lyrics of this song, along with those of many others, while evolving my philosophy of education. Is this kind of confusion at the end of the process of education a good thing or not? In the band's case they seem to have become a succes by making creative use of their confusion, crafting excellent songs out of it. The contradiction implied in that is what interests me. How much of their success was due to their education and how much in spite of it?

Third CASW session - Presenter: Joel Kribairaj

After the initial tech hiccups the session took off with Tara Kini facilitating and Satish Jayarajan as observer along with Arun from the P.E. Department.
Joel was able to put across his key questions with such conviction that we were convinced both of the necessity for the children to partcipate more actively and regularly in athletics and for there to be a democratization of such participation without bringing in the element of competition at all.
As Bala said Joel's philosophy of education shone through brightly throughout.
Joel's key questions were
Why do students in our school have immense interest in foorball and basketball?
How to create an equal interest in athletics?

During the productive discussion that followed rich strategies and perspectives emerged.
I was of the opinion that the interest in football and basketball had to do with the school's own culture, subculture and game- history and also something to with the prominence of these two games in Europe and in America, especially basketball's status as black American subculture's game. Bala opined that athletes were usually in " touch with the soil. "
Regarding equalization of interest several strategies were suggested including showing films like Iqbal and Chariots of Fire , bringing in selectors and role models , using the need for peer acceptance as a means to raise motivation through competitions, training for competitions, using an interdisciplinary method etc.
my suggestion was simulating a computer game which was like a quest for teams and weaving in things like javelin etc to make it exciting and colourful so that they would learn these sports without actually realising they were learning it first.
The question of what we took away from the session was a good one.
I personally took away the desire to motivate my students so they have equal interst in different things I teach and don't love only some of the things.
Though Joel had titled his presetation the losing battle we felt that the fight should go on and some things may have to be a choiceless entity....
The debriefing session -
I felt this session, more than the ones before , should have been video'd.....
It was the best of the three so far.
As usual, to write everything down would make it too long but there were tonnes of interesting things happening there....

Thanks to the team for another memorable experience which will feed into my teaching practice.

...and thanks to Tara for the snacks I and Anu went and had in her room at the end.

Follow up and a kind of a fare thee well ....

Trying to implement CASW sessions suggestions. I have made/am making my students rewrite the essays. parts of which I had submitted to the CASW group as their last/latest sample. While one student completed the essay , taking into account all the suggestions - and she has done a good job of it - with the other student I am following two of the strategies suggested in the CASW session - namely that her actual issues are not being given enough time and a thinking skill deficiency rather than a writing skill one...
As a result of giving her a longer time schedule and sitting and thinking what she is writing through with her - thus bringing into play another suggestion which is constant monitoring and feedback - I find that her essay is gradually becoming a satisfactory one. However the first part of my key question remains unanswered as yet. I need to look at the strategies suggested once again.

I am also wondering about something Tara wrote: are our exercises dealing with brain based learning and strategies or are they collaborative problem solving exercises? i am not satisfied with the collaborative strategy building session yet.

On a different note: I joined Aditi on May 9, 2005 for my induction course. During the course two students joined the five of us who were already there along with Tara who was mapping out evolving professional practice for us.
They were Parbati B and Mahesh. Parbati, a Bengali, had come from Vasant Valley , which was Bala's old school too.
Parbati has left us now and moved to Mumbai.
She shared the staffroom with me and Srini, two of the seven.
The time we had together was good fun She remains a good friend and I am glad I can remember her as a good colleague.
I'm sure none of us will forget your lesson on "ethnocentricism"
A pity I couldn't find the Disney Jungle Book CD to give you.
Still owing you cake. Or is it ice cream?!:)
Keep using your blog and stay in touch via email. Hoping to see you again in March. All seven of us will think of you fondly every now and then. koshy a.v. a.k.a terrestrian@gmail.com
for anyone interested in keeping in touch with Parbati her email addy is toping@rediffmail.com

Today was my presentation. Shuchi was the facilitator so things went smoothly. I presented my case using a Powerpoint presentation and also used samples of student work that included a range of unedited, edited and feedback- and - after examples. In the powerpoint presentation I explained the context. Students who are learning English literature show varied development in the case of their writing skills. Some are able to incorporate feedback instructions while some aren't. It's a question of how within the time constraints we work in , writing skills can be improved overcoming the negative impact of student variability.

My key question was:Taking into account the fact that I can spend only the same amount of time on both students, how can I equalize the learning of writng skills to mainimze the damging effects of student variabilty.
( a very pertinent remark made was that the word 'damaging' was not as appropriate as 'negative').

The group discussion and collaborative strategy building sessions after that were rich in suggesting alternate strategies to the ones I am using.
I am putting down the memorable ones:
Make the students write movie reviews.
Make them understand they are "authors."
Solicit feedback for the written pieces from other teachers, (warm feedback), classmates, and "unknowns"
by writing a description of the blog in such a way that people will leave comments.
Inspire and motivate by using things the students like.( Movies for instance)
Teacher feedback must be constant and immediate.
Marks and grades must be given.
A word limit could be given.
Collaborative writing projects. However this was considered a risky proposition in that it could create either anxiety through comparison or envy through competition.
Writing skills not being developed , a teacher rightly remarked, could mean that thinking skills was what was actually impaired. This has to be looked into at greater length.
Another strategy that was suggested was giving more of a time span for the student who is in need of more input

The issue was hopefully generic enough.

During the debriefing session an important point that came up was the one of ensuring that during the participant discussion the presented must not be involved in anyway, not even through eye contact.

The participants included our team of Bala,Joel, Viji, Anu and For quite some time Uday was there as an observer.

It was a very satisfying experience.

On being asked what strategy I would take back to class and implement , I felt that I would start with the last piece of written work of these students and try to improve that using the strategies suggested by the teachers and then bring the result in for my CASW review.

The first session of the CASW

We six , +2 group , namely; Hema, Bala, Joel, Anu, Viji and myself met at 2.30 p.m. in the A.V. room. Kalpana was also there as an observer . The session was facilitated by me. Hema presented a project on fuel cells and the use of hydrogen fuel cells in space shuttles and other applications like cars and buses. The powerpoint presentation shown was that of a project done by five 9 D students. She shared the learning objectives she had set and the guidelines she had given and also the assessment criteria. She also shared with us the mark sheet filled in by Mrs. Kausalya who had been the judge of the presentation. After presenting the work she asked the group her three key questions.
1. How can one assess if all the participants in a group do/divide the research work equally while doing group projects?
2. How to assess if learning has taken place?
3. How can students who have fear in presenting be helped to ovecome it?

After her presentation we asked clarifying questions.
This was followed by individual writing and reflection and then the group discussion of the participants in which Kalpana also offered valuable insights .
Many interesting insights and strategies were thrown up.
Some of them were
a. closer monitoring of the process
b. shared mentoring of the groups so that things could be properly monitored.
c. smaller groups
d. a common work diary or proof that the presentation had come out of individual and group effort.
e. that the students have a bibliography.
f. connecting the learning objectives to the assessment criteria
g. fluid guidelines.
h. proper documentation
These are only some of the views expressed. The actual discussion was richer than this.

After the group discussion ended, the presenter reflected on what had been shared and spoke of how it had helped her and said that for her next project on fire extinguishers she would implement the suggestions she approved of and bring back the result for review.

The collaborative strategy building section lacked focus but again threw up various suggestions . One thing that was clear was that projects should have a single unifying theme but the subtopics could be chosen bythe students. Work would be delgated according to liking within each group and proof that work was taking place would have to be shown. Presentation skills could be taught or there could be a mock presentation and the teacher could even be a counsellor in case of emotions like fear.

The session then went on to debriefing.
Certain clear suggestions came forth,
It was decided to have only two key questions maximum.
The key questions would be framed more carefully.
Copies of LO's, etc. would be a help.
Time for each part of the tuning sessions was much discussed.
A significant suggestion was that each participant keep a CASW notebook
Blogging was also emphasised.
After thanking all concerned mutually the group dispersed.

Thanks to Pande and the tech team and Satish and Kalpana for making things possible in/for the first session.

After four days of intensive learning

It was good to get a grip on how the brain learns and strategies that can help in this. Dealing with one's own problem in the light of this was a satisfying experience.

Collaborative strategy building.

The videos of the tuning protocol and CASL were interesting and the CASW exercise was suitably gripping. Shuch and Tara did a fine job of faciltiating everything and ensured that it was a level playing field which made for a satisfying experience.

Now for the attempt to put theory into practice. Interesting....

Hello

A happy new year to all.

Two more well written edited articles written by my students on subjects that are not in the prescribed syllabus

I need to explain why I'm posting my students' work.

For one thing , I edit what they write and put it in. Secondly, it is a reward. Their thoughts , when well expressed , need recognition on various counts.

The third thing is this:
This blog was started with the decision to make it a professional record and I hope some of my colleagues at least will join in the work of evaluating each other's blogs.

Student records can be online samples too.

The two articles I'm posting here are both individual efforts and I felt that, after my having spruced them up, they are interesting enough to make good reading for anyone who wants to visit and read my blog. The process would really become intersting if they also comment so that the students and I are benefited.

The last and most important reason is the fact that education has to move towards description and not assessment while dealing with student specimens of writing. This , as far as i am concerned , helps more than marks or grades. The criteria for such descriptions needs , of course, to be decided. Prescriptions would then come from the students themselves and not form the teacher.

Article I

Where does the road of today's youth lead?

Why is there this great need to conform in today's society? When I talk about society, I mean the life and social circle of a Teen living in Bangalore City! Of late, a person who comes to Bangalore will not be struck by its beauty, the horrendous traffic, the disparity between the poor and the rich or any of the other supposedly wonderful attractive or unattaractive qualities that Bangalore has to offer. Instead he or she can't help but be “shocked”, yes, I think that’s the mildest word possible which I can use, and shocked at the way the children of this metropolis are behaving! Drinking alcohol at 5 in the evening, doing drugs in the presence of an elder brother or with friends, watching blue films on cell phones, smoking and trying out new methods to test the limits of CLEAN fun...the list is endless. What happened to innocent gaiety? Where have Sunday picnics or an outing to a park or friendly get togethers gone? Instead, at the drop of a hat today's adolescents; i.e., the young men and women of Bangalore are quite keen to do-nothing; and I literally mean absolutely zilch. They sit about at popular coffee cafe's ( and maybe by sheer chance or by mistake they might actually order a coffee!) meeting up with friends who they have met but an hour back in school, smoking or doing hookah or trying to guzzle as many beers as they can lay their hands upon. However, the minute they catch sight of a policeman some instinct in them tells them to hastily stash their Bacardi Breezers and Bottles of Beer aside or quickly get on their bikes and go for a quick zip in case these " nosey, pesky, annoying cops" have a sudden fit of moral duty to check these teenagers "borrowed" licenses. With the influx of Western culture, Bangalore seems to have absorbed the darker side of it all. Be it the music or the fashion statements, barely there skirts and tops and garish jerseys and baggy jeans the boys and girls of today are eager to test how far they can go, physically with each other and emotionally with their parents. The minute you hit thirteen and above, it’s the norm to be seen out, late at night, wrapped around your current date, and be seen with the latest Bling i.e. your ipod, the latest cell phone, a cigarette drooping from flaccid lips and with red bloodshot eyes. With not a care in the world these young adults see no problems in trying to push the edge of reason.

What do you think of this state of affairs? I am however glad that there does exist certain people who don’t give a damn about fitting in. Sure, we all have the desire to experiment but the difference between stupidity and smartness is that the latter recognizes the need and essentiality to stop.
The road of today’s youth leads somewhere….. but where?!

by Kruthika Chittiappa

Book Review of Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

11/29/05

I can definitely say that “Memoirs Of A Geisha” has joined my list of favorites when it comes to literature. Having just completed reading the book yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, I would like to share my experience of the book with you while it is still fresh in my mind. And believe you me, reading this book was not like the sometimes-mundane task of reading a text you are not interested in, but was truly an experience.

The book starts off with the protagonist Nitta Sayuri as a little girl, when her name was Chiyo-Chan, living in a tiny village on the coast of the Japanese island of Kyoto. She is a girl born to a family living in poverty in a tiny wind-blown house she fondly calls “tipsy-house”. The story tells us how Chiyo was never an ordinary girl, from her prominent intelligence to her startlingly rare eyes, an exquisite shade of grey-blue.
Chiyo’s mother lies in bed, continuously battling fatal bone cancer, while her emotionless father sits around the house wordlessly expressing his sorrow.
Then one day Chiyo and her sister are taken away by Mr.Tanaka, a man they mistake for a kind human being, who buys them from their father and sells them in Gion, for one to be trained as a geisha, and the other as a prostitute.
Chiyo is sent to an Okiya to be trained as a geisha because of her startling beauty, evident in her even as a child, but conditions are harsh and her outspokenness and desire to escape the Okiya lead her to be removed from training and she spends her days as a maid, abused by the resident geisha, Hatsumomo.
Everyone is unkind to her and the only act of kindness she is shown is by a man on the banks of the river who she remembers only as “the chairman”.
Every day passes with her clutching onto the meager hope that she will see him again, some day and it keeps her alive.
One day however her luck changes and Mameha, one of the city’s most prominent geishas decides to adopt Chiyo as her “younger sister” or geisha in training and then the story follows Chiyo, now Sayuri(her geisha name) as she experiences the luxurious illusion-filled world of the geisha, not without its share of emotional hardships thatshe has to endure in trying to secure the affections of “the chairman” who does not remember her as the girl he was once kind to.

In the end Sayuri is reunited with him, the only man who had truly seen her soul.

The book is written well and it is evident that a lot of research has gone into its writing because it is written so realistically that the scenes of the book almost flash before our eyes, and we are enveloped in the world of the geisha.

I would recommend this book to everyone.

by Ahalya Alvares

Exhibit Three

One gets, sometimes, rarely, from a student a piece of writing that needs almost no editing. This was one such piece. It just needed touching up. So the entire credit goes to -
Loud applause -
Ahalya Alvares.

A comparison between The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and Edward Thomas's The Signpost.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

The Signpost by Edward Thomas

The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,
And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,
Rough, long grasses keep white with frost
At the hill-top by the finger-post;
The smoke of the traveller's-joy is puffed
Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.
I read the sign. Which way shall I go?
A voice says: "You would not have doubted so
At twenty." Another voice gentle with scorn
Says: "At twenty you wished you had never been born."
One hazel lost a leaf of gold
From a tuft at the tip, when the first voice told
The other he wished to know what 'twould be
To be sixty by this same post. "You shall see,"
He laughed -and I had to join his laughter -
"You shall see; but either before or after,
Whatever happens, it must befall.
A mouthful of earth to remedy all
Regrets and wishes shall be freely given;
And if there be a flaw in that heaven
'Twill be freedom to wish, and your wish may be
To be here or anywhere talking to me,
No matter what the weather, on earth,
At any age between death and birth, -
To see what day or night can be,
The sun and the frost, tha land and the sea,
Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, -
With a poor man of any sort, down to a king,
Standing upright out in the air
Wondering where he shall journey, O where?"

Both “The Signpost” by Edward Thomas and “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost are

fascinating poems with a similar undercurrent or theme running through them.

Both poems talk about life as a journey, and one that is fraught with decisions,

alternatives and choices, but both take a different stand on the impact that these decisions ultimately have on our lives.

The poem “the signpost” starts off with a beautiful description of the background where the poet is walking and it tells us of Thomas’ surroundings, which are bleak and almost lifeless. “The dim sea glints chill” evokes an image of a dull cool mass of water, masking its many mysteries and wonders and simply lying on its bed, comatose.

The phrase “the white sun is shy” also invokes a bleak image as the reader imagines a sun, pale in its whiteness, fixed idly in the middle of the sky, yet trying its best to hide from the world behind the façade of clouds.

“The road not taken” however, does not start with much description, but is more straightforward and simply begins with Frost addressing his theme of life’s decisions in the form of two diverging paths.

Both poems express the poets’ confusion and puzzlement over which path to take in life. In “The Signpost” Thomas says “I read the sign. Which way shall I go?”

And in The Road Not Taken, Frost says “

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood”

However, the similarity ends here as both poets take different stands on these paths of life.

Frost says that both paths look good to him and it would be easy for him to choose either, but he chooses the one less traveled, less trodden upon, although the first road too would have been an equally good experience. This can be seen in the lines “

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear”

Thomas on the other hand takes a different view as he says “I read the sign. Which way shall I go? A voice says: you would not have doubted so at twenty. Another voice gentle with scorn says: At twenty you wished you had never been born.”

Thomas sees the paths as confusing too, but says that no matter which path he takes, he knows he will have some sense of regret, and a sense that the past or future is always better than the path he has taken in the present.

In this way, the poets’ views are almost starkly contrasting. Frost sees the choices life throws at us as a positive experience, one that he cherishes, and he accepts that other paths and decisions are all equal, thereby dismissing the idea of regret at having taken one path and not the other, Thomas, on the other hand, adopts a more melancholy attitude where he says no matter what path you take, the grass will always look much greener on the other side.

The contrast between their views continues as the poems flow on, as Frost goes on to explain that although both paths were attractive and excellent, the decision he made about his life or the path he chose to travel has affected his life profoundly, and intensely in a positive sense, and has changed his destiny completely.

We can see this in the lines “

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

Thomas’ viewpoint differs entirely from this, as it seems he sees life- changing decisions we make almost futile because ultimately they lead to the same outcome. The final and inevitable swipe of the sword slays us all- and that is death. In his own words “whatever happens it must befall”. Thomas speaks with a mood of resigned sadness which borders on emptiness and his joie de vivre is lost in the fact that he sees life as being chock full of regrets and wishes, like those timeless moments where we reflect on our lives and say to ourselves-“What if…” Thomas says in his poem “regrets and wishes shall be freely given”

He even says that no matter what path we tread, we are still essentially fated to the same destiny and will all, no matter how rich, poor, intelligent or ignorant, be affected by the same things such as the seasons, death and birth. This is seen in the lines “No matter what the weather, on earth,
At any age between death and birth, -
To see what day or night can be,
The sun and the frost, the land and the sea,
Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, -
With a poor man of any sort, down to a king.”

It is because of this disparity in their very philosophioes of life that both poems, although talking about the same subject, end on two very different notes. Frost ends with an attitude of resolution, understanding of his choices, and gratefulness that he was able to make a decision that so enriched and made up the very essence of his life when he says”

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

Thomas however ends on a confused note, where he is left in the spiraling web of his own negative thoughts and is left questioning the very decisions he made in his own life, which have left him unfulfilled, still searching for the ever-hidden truth he is unable to uncover and we see this in the way he ends his poem, with the stark question “Wondering where he shall journey, O where?” The question mark at the end is a clear indicator of his irresolute take on life.

Comments, if you please?

Assessment

The criteria must be clear.

But what if it isnt clear to the student even if it is to the teacher? Can group grades be turned into individual grades? Is it good to be someone who stirs up a hornet's nest wherever one goes? I facilitate well for adults but the challenge is to do it for eleventh graders in General English. How to achieve evenness and excellence?

Different needs and levels. Assessment is not the issue but development is.

More of the Same

Floating through Fantasy
Taara Manian, Jalasaya Federoff and Tara Fernandes



Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic as a primary element in plot, characterization, theme and setting. Fantasy films deal with the visual representation of magic and the powers of the imagination.

One of the fantasy movies that we have looked at is “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”. This is the first part of J.R.R.Tolkien’s and Peter Jackson’s famous trilogies.

For those of you haven’t seen the movie, its story starts off with the spotlight on an ancient Ring thought to be lost for centuries being re-discovered, and through a strange twist of fate being given to a small Hobbit named Frodo.When Gandalf the Wizard discovers that the Ring is in fact the One Ring of the Dark Lord Sauron, Frodo must make an epic quest to the Cracks of Doom in order to destroy it! However he does not go alone. Gandalf, Legolas the Elf, Gimli the Dwarf, Aragorn the heir to the throne of Gondor, Boromir and his three Hobbit friends Merry, Pippin and Samwise Gamgee join him. Through mountains, snow, darkness, forests, rivers and plains, facing evil and danger at every turn, the Fellowship of the Ring must go. Their quest to destroy the One Ring is the only hope for Middle Earth. If they fail the Dark Lord will reign!

Credits

Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring
Directed by Peter Jackson
Screenplay: Fran Walsh & Peter Jackson
Director of Photography : Andrew Lesnie
Film editing : John Gilbert
Score: Howard Shore
Year of Release: 2001
Some of the actors: Frodo : Elijah Wood Galadriel: Cate Blanchett
Legolas: Orlando Bloom Arwen: Liv Tyler
Aragorn: Viggo Mortenson Gandalf:Ian Mckellan
Pippin : Billy Boyd
Sam Gamgee : Sean Austin

The film won 4 Oscars and got 81 nominations, which we think it rightly deserved for its excellent direction, camera work, acting, music score and editing. Seeing as it was adapted from such a lengthy novel, we think that the script has also been reasonably well done.

Another movie that we have decided to look at is the first movie in the Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” because it makes for contrast and comparison with Lotr 1.

The plot goes thus: Harry Potter has had to lead a hard life, what with losing his parents when just a child and having to live with his mean Uncle Vernon, his Aunt Petunia and their obnoxious son Dudley. On his eleventh birthday, Harry finds out that he’s a wizard and is invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Once there, he learns that his parents were a wizard and a witch who actually died saving him from the evil Lord Voldemort, and that although he was just a baby, he escaped the evil Lord’s wrath with just a scar on his forehead. (Picture of Harry with scar)
He strikes up a friendship with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and together they go about discovering the many secrets and mysteries that envelop the magical school. Their quest for the philosopher’s stone leads them through many obstacles including keeping up in everyday school life, a bewitched Quidditch (a magical sport) match, coming face to face with Fluffy, the three-headed monster dog, and battling the Dark Lord, Voldemort.

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ( American name)

Credits:
J.K Rowling –the novel
Steven Kloves – the screenplay
Released on November 16th, 2001.
Directed by Chris Columbus
Main Actors
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Albus Dumbledore: Richard Harris
Professor Quirrell: Ian Hart
Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Snape: Alan Rickman
Camera: John Seale
Music: John Williams

The main question that we are dealing with in discussing these two films are whether they encourage in young viewers escapism and a lopsided view of life that makes one unfit for life or whether they are in fact a help in dealing with reality. We have interviewed people of different age groups and have therefore got a variety of answers.

One view that was prevalent in all the answers was that fantasy did encourage escapism. However, the differences that arose in the views were as to whether this was beneficial or harmful to the viewer. Most believed that fantasy encouraged the individual to flee the harsh realities of today’s world by making them bury themselves in realms of imagination. They viewed this as a negative quality.

When we think of fantasy movies, one of the first things that come to mind is the clear distinction shown between good and evil. For example, in LOTR, the fellowship is “good” whereas Sauron, Saruman the White, the Nazgul and the Orcs are “bad”. And in Harry Potter, the three children and Dumbledore are always good and Voldemort is the evil one. Both movies either have many fights or culminate in one important fight at the end, in which good prevails. Many critics dislike this aspect of fantasy as they think it too unrealistic, as nothing in our world is as clearly black and white. They feel that if these ideas are taken into the real world, they might result in disappointment or embarrassment for the individual.

To this, we have two responses. One is that not all the characters in these two movies are easy to place into the two categories, good and evil. Boromir is a man from Gondor, who lets his weakness for power get the better of him and although he is a part of the fellowship, he tries to steal the ring from Frodo. At the time we think him bad, but later he dies an honorable and valiant death so he is redeemed in the audience’s mind. In Harry Potter, Professor Quirrell is a teacher at Hogwarts who tries to help Voldemort return to power. Although we condemn his cowardly actions in helping evil, we can’t help feeling sorry for him initially, as he is timid and pathetic with his stutter. These two characters are just among a few that go to prove that not everything in fantasy is as clear-cut as we would like it to be. The second response would be that perhaps it’s okay for people to want to escape to a land where there is a definite good and bad and not just a gray area. It is a world where it is possible to live by your morals and ideals without having to make compromises in every situation.

Many said that fantasy awakened the child in them and allowed their minds to wander back to days of childhood innocence and wonder.
One said, “Heaven knows we need something like this to counter the horror of today’s world.”
Others stressed the help that fantasy films gave them in helping deal with the real world. They talked about the many issues that exist in our present world that are discussed freely in the worlds of fantasy.
Tolkein, especially, deals in many parallels.
The Lord of the Rings was written in the thirties, when events in our world were leading up to the Second World War. The Dark Lord could be seen as a prototype for Hitler, and Middle Earth , threatened Europe. Tolkein speaks against Fascism by portraying Sauron as he does, as an evil, ruthless dictator, wishing to conquer the world.
The longing for peace that the Hobbits have shows a love for the philosophy of Pacifism which is not divorced from courage or heroic qualities like loyalty. The hobbits represent many of the people of the world in the thirties who fought Hitler’s armies.
The deep love and respect for nature that is often depicted in the movie was in tune with the environmental movement of his time. This is an issue that we can relate to today, as well. Another universal issue that is addressed in the movie is the importance of fellowship. Although the members of the fellowship are from different races, and animosity is high between many of them, for example, the dwarves and the elves, issues of race are cast away as they work together for a greater good, the saving of Middle Earth. The fact that Aragorn, a man from Gondor, and Arwen, an elf from Rivendell are in love, and that Gimli the Dwarf and Legolas the Elf actually strike up a close friendship give the viewers hope that there might someday be more co-operation between different races in our human world.

In Harry Potter too, there are elements of racism that are discussed, as Hermione is a “Mudblood” and not a pureblood like the other students at Hogwarts. There are other forms of discrimination that are also shown, such as the contrast between the rich and the poor –through Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, yet Ron is willing to do anything for Harry as when he sacrifices himself in the chess game . Hermione too later gives up her earlier values of “Books and cleverness. There are more important things- friendship.” They leave their differences behind and enter a world where petty issues such as money and identity do not matter because friendship matters much more.

It may be argued that viewers feel inferior to fantasy characters as the latter have supernatural powers. However, one idea that is clear in both the films is that of the small and insignificant person being able to change the course of the world. In the first Harry Potter movie, and in the following HP movies, in the end, the children have been let down by the adult world and have set out to combat evil alone. The viewers are able to relate with the hero better, thus. When Harry walks into the vault at the end , the music builds up and the way down is shot from Harry’s point of view, which makes it seem to the viewers that it is their own adventure and that they are the hero. Through fantasy, the common individual can have his own adventure.

In the case of the Lord of the Rings, the hero is an unlikely character- the little Hobbit , Frodo Baggins, whose life changes drastically from a peaceful, existence in the Shire, to saving the world from the evil Sauron. Gandalf’s words on this have a very important impact on us – that even the smallest person may change the course of the world, and have a part to play in the destiny of all. (clip of Gandalf saying the words). .

Some miscellaneous views that were expressed were that fantasy movies are good because they encourage viewers to see a more mystical side to reality, which definitely makes it more interesting.
Some viewers criticize fantasy writers for coming up with extremely wild ideas. But we believe these seemingly wild ideas are all based on our world (as shown above).
“Fantasy tales are today’s parables.” (Weis, Margaret)
Sometimes we see so much evil and pain all around us, that we slowly get immune to it. fantasy presents the problems of today in a different world, making them more apparent to us. For example, some find fire-breathing dragons too horrific, but are they not less terrible than napalm bombs? “Wars that ravage cities, refugees, starving children and dictatorships are all present in our world. “ (Weis, M)

We do not deny the fact that fantasy encourages escapism from the real world in some instances. What we do argue with is the common assumption that fantasy deals with unreal issues , emotions and ideals, because what has essentially been done is that the fantasy writers have simply taken the burning issues of today, and put them in another context, to allow the viewer to understand the problems in their own social systems. We would like to encourage people to watch more fantasy because apart from being incredibly fun and entertaining, it deals with mature ideas and issues that will actually help you deal with real life!

Coming to the main question as to whether the influence and power of film is waning in the present world because of competition from other forms of new media, we would say yes. Our answer is based on the study we have made of fantasy films.

In our opinion, the main competition that fantasy movies face is videogames. Youngsters spend hours in gaming cafes or on their PS 2’s, getting lost in the realms of fantasy. However, this is the way things go – The movie comes out. The fans go to watch it. Only then do they buy the videogames. Thus, the movie is actually promoting the sale of the games. There is some controversy concerning this opinion when games like “ Final Fantasy” are discussed. This started out as a videogame and having formed a cult following, has developed into comics, books and a hit TV serial. It has spawned countless music videos.There is talk of it being adapted into a series of movies. When this does happen, it will offer serious competition to movies like LOTR.
Comics are another form of competition. There are avid comic fans who are disappointed when the comics are turned into movies but most of them love watching their childhood heroes come to life on the silver screen.
Fantasy films have enthralled many for the last century, starting with Disney’s classic adaptations like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty etc. The latest Potter film “ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, is as usual a big success, and the first movie of of the Narnia Chronicles series “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, adapted from the book by C.S Lewis, is all set to take the theatres by storm on December 9th. This shows that the fantasy films genre is far from dying out and is in fact only growing in popularity.

Bibliography
The movies:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,Warner Bros.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, New Line Cinema.
The books:
Tolkien, J.R.R., The Fellowship of the Ring , Harper Collins, London, 1995 rpt.
Rowling J.K. , Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Bloomsbury , England,2001.
Weis, Margaret & Hickman, Tracy. Treasures of Fantasy.

Acknowledgements:
We would like to thank Mr. Koshy, our Literature teacher, Miss Suravee Banerjee,
Madhav Chandavarkar, Mr. Federoff & Mr. Maheswaran B. for all their help.