Models in teaching

Recently I was fascinated by an online learning course published by Stanford University in an alliance with University of Michigan, about Model Thinking. Then at the same time I had a day today problem, that I wanted to solve and wanted to use the learning I derived out of Model Thinking to find a solution to my home problem.

The problem, "How do we teach the kids at home?".

In India the school curriculum that my kids attend follow a very generically used teaching method, which goes as follows:

1. There is a syllabus and pre-written content and books that are provided to each and every kid.
2. Teachers follow the course content and help the kids understand the content in different areas of study usually, English, Indian Language, Math, Science, History and Geography.
3. The course content is designed in a way to incrementally learn different subjects at a certain pace, known to impart the right amount of knowledge for a given age.
4. Teachers also test the kids understanding with questions and small tests during the class sessions.
5. Teachers also provide homework and small projects to the kids for them to build or create in order to learn.
6. The school conducts assessment tests along the way in order to reinforce the learning and not forget the content that is taught to them.

The school follows a system which is a time tested approach followed in India for few decades or may be for the last century, since the rule of the British in India. However a very big part of the kids education in India depends on the help, that they get at home and the additional teaching at home. From our observation more than 50% of the kids learning is achieved at home.

We cannot influence the education system at school in a day, as changing from a time tested system to something else is breaking the rules of society. However we can internally change the teaching system at home to make the kid learn better or in a different way and help them in learning.

There are two types of teaching that the kids get at home.

1. For the most time the kids get reinforcement of the subjects taught at school by their parents. 
2. At certain times the kids get taught by us with patterns and examples. 

We realized that our kids who both are very different individuals and with different kinds of skills and varied level of creativity in different areas, are capable of learning more and be lot more creative than they are now.

I took the responsibility of understanding the different kinds of teaching methods and discussing with my other half to find out how to teach them. We also agreed that the same teaching method would not apply for both of our kids. The following document is the observation that I made when I was researching different teaching methods.

Some of the teaching models we discovered are

Carrot and Stick model
Football coach model
Socrates model
Spoon feeding model
Gurukul model

Humans are unreasonable most of the time

Recently a friend expressed her views on facebook, some what disappointed about the society we live in and where it is headed to.

"Why do people get angry and agitated? Why can't some people take-in criticisms in a healthy way? Why do people carry grudge, hatred and blame others? Why do people become judgmental? Well, today's incident made me think about the healthy and unhealthy diversity around this world. I honked at an European American teen driving carelessly and was almost about to hit my car. His reaction to my honk..... A finger. . My reaction to his action.... Yuck and lol.... Well, when he was at mistake, why was he not able to accept his mistake... Because of my skin color? Well, people get agitated very easily over small things. All they want to show is their superiority. It's not only in this country but everywhere countries having diverse culture, diversity in all possible categories can't live in harmony. They might think that they are in harmony but not in true sense. What is your language, caste, culture etc? It's further dividing us a lot. We are all made up of same material but we have so much of emotions bottled up inside us. Kaama krodha Madha maascharyam. When do we come out of this? For ages, we are going through all these and still we are not tired of doing the same thing- hatred, blame game, jealousy, etc.Its not worth wasting our life over these insignificant issues. Wake up. Realize what life is. And who am I ?"

The interesting fact is that I know her for quite some time and in many instances of her life, when I was present what she felt bad at this time , seemed to be perfectly ok for her. I also noticed that the message carried the feelings of injury from living in a land made of people who are from different countries and different ethnic background. There is no argument that she is part of a very aggressive and very progressive culture which has no regard for anything other than being the best and the most fit. She is trying to preach a different religion than what is followed in the part of the world that she lives in.

My comment to her was

"He acted like a human and humans are mostly unreasonable and you can critique my statement and prove that the statement made by me is right, or you can accept the fact and also prove that sometimes humans can be reasonable."

The most basic fact is that even though we are gifted with what is called the 6th sense , the power of reasoning or the power of sensing, we hardly reason with ourselves and always try to act against ourselves, telling lies to ourselves and others and living a false life. It is ok as far as it works, and creates harmony with us and our surroundings. 

Basic principles around which this website is developed

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2. Survival and evolution is the main purpose why we live in this world.
3. Humans are humans and nature is nature. Humans are part of nature. 
4. Not knowing the purpose of life is not a sin, you can live without knowing the purpose.
5. Everything happens for a reason, you dont need an explanation for each and everything.
6. Apologizing does not mean the person who apologized made a mistake. They could be polite.
7. This is a rant, dont give anymore value to any of the messages more than a rant.
8. This is a place were i keep some information for my records and you are also getting to see it, because it is on the internet,
9. This is a training ground to improve my Tamil language skills, as I try to translate all my English blogs into Tamil ( தமிழ் ) .
10. Any or all information provided here should be verified before you use or act on it. Beware you are on the internet, accessing information provided for free. 
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13. Ok, you passed the above point , and you are still inclined to make a comment , please go ahead , I love people like you , as you are living examples of something I preach , no idea is a bad idea , no message/feedback is a bad message. If I get time, I will respond if not, please forgive me for not responding.