I want to go back to school...........

I want to go back to school...........

On 28th Nov. 2006 the Children's Academy was holding Science Exhibition by school kids.
There were two categories junior category where kids upto class VII participated and the senior category where kids from class VIII to XII were involved.
Me and one of my colleague G.K. Padmashree from Physics Department were invited to be on the panel of judges for respective categories.

The Children's Academy is in Kandavali east and we had to start quite early in the morning at 7:30 to be there in time, i.e., 9 am. That's quite early by our standard. We had one and half an hour journey. Fortunately we were arranged AC equipped car and it was quite comfortable. We were there in time. After getting introduced to teachers and principal of the school we were given breakfast. I must say that I became quite nostalgic after seeing so many kids. In last several years I have hardly been to any school. Though on many occasions I have interacted with kids but it was for the first time in my long memory that I was there in a school among kids who were shouting, running here and there, teachers telling them to mind their manners, uniforms and above all that enthusiasm... oh! I love it. It's then and there I thought that I should go back to school!!

Well ! after a round of introduction with other guests we came to the business. We were provided sheets and were suppose to go around and look at projects of each kid and interact with them and give marks. There were about 60 projects I had to see with another two judges who were much elder and more experienced than me. My other two companion judges were senior teachers from other schools. Let me describe a bit of the location where we were. Children's Academy is a five story building. And in almost all rooms there were exhibition displayed by kids. It was open for anyone to visit. We were specially invited to choose best projects who will be given prizes and best two of them will be send to Mumbai level and in turn at state level competition.

I had a lot of enthusiasm in me in the beginning. Most of the kids were quite smart and it was real fun talking to them and asking questions. But of course, there wasn't enough time and besides my over enthusiasm might turn some of them nervous, I had to be careful. Some of the best moments I can recall were as follows. There were two kids who had idea about handling excess water on the tracks of Mumbai Local Trains. Their idea was to raise the track by a foot and put pipes all over to get the water some where else which one can use in turn after purification. It was really nicely done project and the model was very well made. On other occasion somebody wanted to reduce pollution near four-sided-ways (chauraha) by digging small holes on the roads and putting a fan under ground to suck pollution in. Really a nice idea.....
There were a lot of people worried about farmers committing suicide. It wasn't a really nice feeling to hear repeatedly that so many farmers commit suicide. They had a really some beautiful ideas about how to use a particular crop to make various things and earn more money.
I must accept that I had really tough time as I do not understand Marathi very well and there were a lot of kids who were speaking marathi. Though they understand hindi and I could ask questions to them in hindi and of course I could read there posters. On one similar occasion when they finished there presentation I turned to ask some question. Bang came the reply "bataya to tha abhi na!" it was my turn to be embarrassed.

One should appreciate the enthusiasm of teachers and children. Though it looks to me that most of the projects are made by teachers and ultimately it turns out that it is a test of skill of teachers. This should not happen. I do not know how this can be discouraged. Now it has become a prestige issue for the schools to get prizes in such exhibition. I hope that children will be allowed to think on there own, come up with really some brilliant ideas which in turn will be great for our country. Many times one could see that children have mug up the speech. But of course, at such an early stage one can not expect too much form children. The participation of teachers is must. I am only worried about the issue whether it really benefits kids in mass.

This year there was a new topic introduced on Mathematical Modelling. I was really curious to know what all are there. It was really disappointing to see very smallnumber of entries where there were some models to explain geometry such as circle and angles etc. Well! I myself can not say exactly what I expected but it is really a big issue. Later several teachers asked me what can one do on this topic. Though I wasn't prepared for such a question but I manage to tell them a few things which are quite deep surprising facts. I posed this problem to my colleagues here at my work place but they were also dumb-founded. I believe it is really big issue and one should take some step to help out. It is really a chance for us to spread mathematics everywhere and make it popular. I hope I will do something in this direction.

At the end we finished off by 6 pm and came back to TIFR. On the way we stopped by for dinner. In all it was really a great day.