Tickling the brain: I recently read this book – What if the Earth stopped spinning and 24 other mysteries by Roopa Pai. I am currently reading Imperial Earth by Arthur C Clarke. Both these books have evoked a fresh sense of intrigue in me. My curiosity is heightened beyond its…
View More Nurturing curiosity through questions
Introduction Over the last two decades, the internet has revolutionised the way in which we access and consume information. What would take weeks of research in libraries is now available at the click of a button within microseconds. No doubt this kind of access has driven progress in orders of…
View More The vicious effect of clickbait information
My long-standing love story with reading: Ever since my childhood, I have been besotted with reading. It is the only consistent habit that has stayed with me over the last four decades of my life. “Why are you always reading story books? Read your schoolbooks!” This was my mother’s common…
View More 8 ways in which the reading habit has enriched my life
Academic stress is a huge part of children’s school-going experience. This includes the pressure to perform well in school, pressure to fit in, peer-pressure, and parental expectations. Typically, school grades are the measurement criterion of academic performance. Therefore, getting good grades in school looms large as an ultimate objective for…
View More 3 reasons why students get poor grades in school
Psychological stress is an inevitable part of human life. If it is not addressed at the right time, its toxic effects can last long and impair a child’s development. For school-going children, academic stress forms a large part of their experience. The stress-inducers include pressure to perform academically well, the…
View More 8 tips for parents to reduce stress in school-going children
“We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child’s spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself. That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious…
View More 6 lessons to learn from children
Dabbling in the kitchen: My mother has a complaint about me. She is bothered that I don’t use her carefully chosen Tupperware containers to store groceries. I am meticulous in general, however sometimes I simply don’t care too much. I only put the spices and rice that I use daily…
View More Kitchen is your Science Teacher
A week ago, an interesting conversation happened with my team during lunch time at office. A routine lunch-time conversation: We gather at the lunch table as usual; it was only the Three Musketeers that day – Varsha, Vasundara and I. Varsha’s lunch box had roti and ‘parval-aloo’ (Hindi). Varsha is…
View More Lunch-time conversation – Learning from everyday experiences
Telling the whole story When I was a child, my dad used to often tell this joke. He tells it occasionally even today and I still laugh at it. A school boy brings a prize back home. He proudly proclaims to his parents, “I won second prize in running race…
View More Context! Context! Context!
There are two tea shops in the friendly neighbourhood around our office. Shop 1 has been our only option for coffee/tea for the last few years. We discovered shop 2 over the last couple of weeks. The taste of tea in both shops is comparable. However, the shape of the…
View More Chai pe charcha – Mathematics for amusement