Indesign Pagesnew.indd - Azim Premji Foundation

More documents

Recommendations

Info

in places and the monotony broken by more charts and graphs. It would also be really great if the syllabus included Section C Review of new NCERT Social Science Textbooks hands-on geography of the likes of fi eld trips. Sampoorna Biswas has currently just passed XII standard. She has lived in New Delhi all her life and still does not get bored. She likes to read, blog, swim and photograph! Other than that, she also likes quizzing, basketball, programming, music and dark chocolate. She can be contacted at sampoorna1992@yahoo.com Pg No: 82
18 Section C Taking Geography to Heart Maria Athaide As a young student I would love to bury my nose in a story book that transported me to strange and exotic locations like ‘Never, Never Land’ where Peter Pan refused to grow up. My imaginary world was fi lled with castaways and shipwrecks created by Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe. I was equally enchanted by Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree. Yes, they were all about places that never existed in my school atlas that I faithfully carried around. Was that the reason why I never enjoyed geography? No. In retrospect, the teacher and the textbook were to blame for a subject that could and should have fascinated me more than molecules and microbes. But back in those days, we thought well of our teacher and guarded the textbook because it made our life easy. It also kept our memory nimble and quick. It proved to be the best technique for reaching the winning post at quiz competitions and exams. It mattered little that we couldn’t tell the climate from weather. Nor did we see the connection between plotting graphs and locating places along those crisscross lines that bound the globe in a grid. At least we knew the earth was round and fl at no more! And we did split our sides with laughter when the class comedian described the equator as ‘a menagerie lion running around the earth and through Africa.’ If the aim of geography is to nurture global citizens then: can we walk students through the labyrinths of knowledge and give them an understanding of the myriad challenges that confront our world today? Years later when I found myself with the onerous responsibility of training teachers, my lacunae in geography came home to roost. I had to do something and the best way to begin at the beginning was to ask questions. The fi rst: ‘what is geography?’ I ran into several defi nitions. The Wikipedia described it: as an all-encompassing discipline that seeks to understand the world - its human and physical features - through an understanding of place and location. Another went like this: geography is the study of the earth’s landscapes, peoples, places and environments. To put it simply – geography is about the world in which we live. The next question: what do we expect our students to gain from learning geography that they cannot gather from other areas of the curriculum? The answer is given by GA (1999) which says, “The aim of geography is to develop an informed concern for the world around us, and an ability and willingness to take positive action both locally and globally.” Yet another source like Oxfam believes that geography should build on young people’s concerns, enabling them to become ‘global citizens’. And to elaborate further -‘a global citizen is someone who cares about the wider world, knows how the world works, is outraged by poverty and injustice, and takes action to change things for the better.’(Garlake, 2000). If the aim of geography is to nurture global citizens then: can we walk students through the labyrinths of knowledge and give them an understanding of the myriad challenges that confront our world today? The effects of global warming and the need to reduce harmful emissions of green house gases, the use of fi nite resources and energy in more sustainable ways, the need to reduce pollution, the maintenance of social justice and removal of prejudice and inequality. In short, the function of geography in schools is to train future citizens to imagine accurately the conditions of the great world stage and so help them to think sanely about political and social problems in the world around them. Therefore the links between geography and citizenship are natural and obvious. Is it possible to nurture this connection in our schools? An environmental disaster comes to mind. It was July 26, 2005 when a 24-hour rainfall of 994 mm lashed Mumbai and the economic power of India “died” for two days. There was untold loss of life and property. ‘Terrible Tuesday’ would go down in history but not before an enthusiastic teacher used the experience in her geography class. Rani was keen to test the waters with her students of class IX. They Pg No: 83
Page 2 and 3:
Editorial Team Aanchal Chomal, Gaut
Page 4 and 5:
CONTENTS Issue XV : August 2010 Soc
Page 6 and 7:
S E C T I O N A The Broad Picture
Page 8 and 9:
snares and pitfalls of any examinat
Page 10 and 11:
02 Section A Contested Terrain of S
Page 12 and 13:
The views stated in NCFSE, 2000 wer
Page 14 and 15:
“given stock of knowledge availab
Page 16 and 17:
that the framework used to create i
Page 18 and 19:
03 Section A The ‘Defi cient’ S
Page 20 and 21:
into the mainstream in the context
Page 22 and 23:
social science are also changing. T
Page 24 and 25:
kind (education being one of them)
Page 26 and 27:
political science and sociology tex
Page 28 and 29:
05 Section A Vexing Questions in So
Page 30 and 31:
the common language used to referen
Page 32 and 33: scientifi c. Natural science has a
Page 34 and 35: evolve around what the child alread
Page 36 and 37: 06 Section A Social Sciences and th
Page 38 and 39: main focus should be on contemporar
Page 40 and 41: 07 Section B Learning Social Scienc
Page 42 and 43: During this period I had the privil
Page 44 and 45: hunter-gatherers did not know how t
Page 46 and 47: see everything as transitional, as
Page 48 and 49: 09 Section B Building Tomorrow’s
Page 50 and 51: understanding of rights that emphas
Page 52 and 53: 10 Section B Facing history and Our
Page 54 and 55: asserting, for example, that the Ho
Page 56 and 57: 11 Section B Maps and Politics M. H
Page 58 and 59: Maps as Creations of Politics Polit
Page 60 and 61: 12 Section B Geography in Daily Lif
Page 62 and 63: a times we discussed and debated on
Page 64 and 65: 13 Section B Oh! Panchayat: Loose L
Page 66 and 67: Lesson 3 Accidental Crossing of Bra
Page 68 and 69: 14 Section B Geography Education fo
Page 70 and 71: Re-imagining geography Education in
Page 72 and 73: 15 Section B Issues in History Educ
Page 74 and 75: initially believe that history is j
Page 76 and 77: In tune with the overall emphasis o
Page 78 and 79: at this end. Linking Textbooks, Tea
Page 80 and 81: 17 Section C Review of new NCERT So
Page 84 and 85: were an attentive lot, eager to sha
Page 86 and 87: 19 Section C Vignettes - The Journe
Page 88 and 89: I followed more or less the same me
Page 90 and 91: 20 Section C Does Neutral = Controv
Page 92 and 93: also argue against the teacher pres
Page 94 and 95: S E C T I O N D The Role of Assessm
Page 96 and 97: 4. 5. 6. Understand the role indivi
Page 98 and 99: compare different periods and place
Page 100 and 101: Our experiences with open-book exam
Page 102 and 103: Answer 4 Answer 5 Section D Assessm
Page 104 and 105: Equally important is the need to ma
Page 106 and 107: 22 Section D Beyond Retention: Mean
Page 108 and 109: What was the contemporary political
Page 110 and 111: • What crops do you predict might
Page 112 and 113: also. So what is the objective of a
Page 114 and 115: 24 Section D Exams: The Need to Res
Page 116 and 117: in. However in the process cognitiv
Page 118 and 119: 25 Section D Role of Projects, Fiel
Page 120 and 121: which may be worth raising: Questio
Page 122 and 123: 26 Section E The Importance of Bein
Page 124 and 125: which produce professionals who cer
Page 126 and 127: sides to any story. For example, th
Page 128 and 129: 28 Section E Why the Social Science
Page 130 and 131: Alas! These were unrealised dreams:
Page 132 and 133:
seeing another part of the world an
Page 134 and 135:
30 Section E How History has Shaped
Page 136 and 137:
31 Section E The Social Sciences—
Page 138 and 139:
32 Section F Beyond Dates and Fight
Page 140 and 141:
is not boring and does not tire one
Page 142 and 143:
D. Some Useful Books • Samajik Ad
Page 144 and 145:
• • • • • • Section F T
show all

Indesign Pagesnew.indd - Azim Premji Foundation

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?