Sunday, June 30, 2013

ROLE OF TEXTBOOKS IN EDUCATION

Texts and Books

Popular perception treats the textbook as the prime
site for curriculum designing. Though curriculum
planning is a much wider process, curriculum reform
seldom goes beyond changing the textbook. Improved
textbooks that are carefully written and designed,
professionally edited and tested, offering not merely
factual information but also interactive spaces for
children are important. But curricular reform can go
much farther if textbooks are accompanied by several
other kinds of materials. Subject dictionaries, for
instance, can relieve the main textbook from becoming
encyclopaedic, burdened by carrying definitions of
technical terms, and instead allow the teacher to focus
on understanding concepts. The triangular relationship
between high-speed classroom teaching, heavy
homework and private tuition, which is a major source
of stress, can be weakened if textbook writers focus
on elaboration of concepts, activities, spaces for
wondering about problems, exercises encouraging
reflective thinking and small-group work, leaving the
definition of technical terms to a subject dictionary.
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Saturday, June 29, 2013

ROLE OF HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

It is widely acknowledged that health is influenced by
biological, social, economic, cultural and political forces.
Access to basic needs like food, safe drinking water
supply, housing, sanitation and health services influences
the health status of a population, and these are reflected
through mortality and nutritional indicator s. Health is a
critical input for the overall development of the child,
and it influences enrolment, retention and school
completion rates significantly. This curriculum area
adopts a holistic definition of health within which
physical education and yoga contribute to the physical,
social, emotional and mental development of a child.
Undernourishment and communicable diseases are
the major health problems faced by the majority of
children in India, from the pre-primary to the higher
secondary school stages. Therefore, the need to address
this aspect at all levels of schooling, with special attention
to vulnerable social groups and girl children. It is
proposed that the midday meal programme and medical
check-ups be made a part of the curriculum and
education about health be provided that address the agespecific
concerns at different stages of development.

Friday, June 28, 2013

WORK AND EDUCATION (SOCIALLY USEFUL PRODUCTIVE WORK)

WORK AND EDUCATION

Work, understood simply, is an activity directed toward
making or doing something. It also means making
one’s work or capabilities, or both, available for
someone else’s purposes for monetary or other forms
of return. A number of these activities are related to
producing food, articles of daily use, looking after the
physical and mental well-being of people, and other
activities related to the administration and organisation
of society. In any society, in addition to these, two basic
dimensions (producing goods and establishing smooth
functioning), various other activities also contribute to
human well-being, and in that sense are considered
forms of work.

Understood in this sense, work implies a
commitment to other members of the society and/or
community as one is contributing one’s work and
capabilities for fulfilling their needs. Second, it implies
that one’s contribution made through work will be
submitted to public standards of performance and
hence will be valued and judged by others. Third, work
implies contributing to the functioning of social life as
it either produces something that makes life possible
or helps in the functioning of society in general. Finally,
work enriches human life as it opens up new dimensions
of appreciation and enjoyment.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

ROLE OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN EDUCATION

Critical Pedagogy


Teacher and student engagement is critical in the
classroom because it has the power to define whose
knowledge will become a part of school-related
knowledge and whose voices will shape it. Students
are not just young people for whom adults should
devise solutions. They are critical observers of their
own conditions and needs, and should be participants
in discussions and problem solving related to their
education and future opportunities. Hence children need
to be aware that their experiences and perceptions are
important and should be encouraged to develop the
mental skills needed to think and reason independently
and have the courage to dissent. What children learn
out of school — their capacities, learning abilities, and
knowledge base — and bring to school is important
to further enhance the learning process. This is all the
more critical for children from underprivileged
backgrounds, especially girls, as the worlds they inhabit
and their realities are under represented in school
knowledge.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

ROLE AND NEED OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF PLANNING IN EDUCATION

Approaches to Planning


Our educational practice is still based on limited ‘lesson
plans’ aimed at achieving measurable ‘behaviours’;
according to this view, the child is akin to a creature
that can be trained, or a computer that can be
programmed. Hence, there is too much focus on
‘outcomes’, and presenting knowledge divided into bits
of information to be memorised directly from the text
or through activities after ‘motivating’ children, and
finally on evaluating to see if children remember what
they have learnt. Instead, we need to view the child as
‘constructing knowledge’ all the time. This is true not
only of ‘cognitive subjects’ such as mathematics and
science, language and social science, but equally of
values, skills and attitudes.

CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL OF EDUCATION

Teaching for Construction of Knowledge

In the constructivist perspective, learning is a process
of the construction of knowledge. Learners actively
construct their own knowledge by connecting new ideas
to existing ideas on the basis of materials/activities
presented to them (experience). For example, using a
text or a set of pictures/visuals on a transport system
coupled with discussions will allow young learners to
be facilitated to construct the idea of a transport system.

Initial construction (mental representation) may be
based on the idea of the road transport system, and a
child from a remote rural setting may form the idea
centred around the bullock cart. Learners construct
mental representations (images) of external reality
(transport system) through a given set of acti vities
(experiences). The structuring and restructuring of
ideas are essential features as the learners progress in
learning. For instance, the initial idea of a transport
system built around road transport will be reconstructed
to accommodate other types of transport
systems—sea and air—using appropriate activities.

AIMS OF EDUCATION

AIMS OF EDUCATION

The aims of education serve as broad guidelines to
align educational processes to chosen ideals and
accepted principles. The aims of education
simultaneously reflect the current needs and aspirations
of a society as well as its lasting values, and the
immediate concerns of a community as well as broadhuman ideals. At any given time and place they can be
called the contemporary and contextual articulations
of broad and lasting human aspirations and values.
Educational aims turn the different activities
undertaken in schools and other educational institutions
into a creative pattern and give them the distinctive
character of being ‘educational’. An educational aim
helps the teacher connect her present classroom activity
to a cherished future outcome without making it
instrumental, and therefore give it direction without
divorcing it from current concerns. Thus, an aim is a
foreseen end: it is not an idle view of a mere spectator;
rather, it influences the steps taken to reach the end. An
aim must provide foresight. It can do this in three ways:
First, it involves careful observation of the given
conditions to see what means are available for reaching
the end, and to discover the hindrances in the way.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

FORMAL EDUCATION AND ALTERNATIVES OF FORMAL EDUCATION

INTRODUCTION
The word education is derived from the Latin word Educatum which means the act of teaching or training. There is another word in Latin that is Educare which means to bring up or to raise. The word Educare means to lead forth or to come out. All these meanings indicate that education seeks to nourish the good qualities in man and draw out the best in man.Education helps to develop the inner capacities of man.

  By educating an individual we attempt to give him some desirable knowledge, understanding, skills, interests, attitude and critical thinking. That is he acquires knowledge of history, geography, arithmetic, languages and other sciences. By education people develops some understandings about the deeper things in life, complex human relations and cause and effect of relationships etc. The person gets some skillsinwriting, speaking, calculating, drawing, operating some equipments etc.
     Education is necessary for the survival of the society. It is a purposeful activity. The aims of education will vary from time to time and from people to people. Educational aims can be immediate and ultimate. Immediate aims are those which fulfill the immediate needs. The ultimate aim of education is the perfect happiness.
Education has been classified into three types,
1. Formal education
2. Informal education
3. Non-formal education