HumaneMaths

Global Competence Global competence, by its very name, would indicate that it is to do with living in the world with a certain degree of competence. It can be defined in multiple ways. Two of them stand out for me and these are: · What Is Global Competence? (n.d, para 1) defines it as “…the skills, values, and behaviors that prepare young people to thrive in a more diverse, interconnected world”. · Reimers (2009, para 3) defines it as “Global competencies are also the attitudinal and ethical dispositions that make it possible to interact peacefully, respectfully, and productively with fellow human beings from diverse geographies”. Synthesizing the definitions, building global competence would require, as a base, building in oneself a set of behaviours, values and skills that facilitate living and working harmoniously Globally. Hence the need for parents and schools to set a clear foundation for the same. Some of these are open mindedness, empathy and critical thinking. What a school ca

    The question that has directed my exploration into education is best summarized by ( Hensen , 2012) “ How do we create a fulfilling educational experience that will inspire, challenge, and engage students across all grade levels—as well as give teachers and educators the necessary tools to accomplish the same for their students?” U nless the teachers and educators do not have the right tools, one cannot expect them to develop the capacity to create “… fulfilling educational experience that will inspire, challenge, and engage students…”, (Hensen, 2012) One of the chief tools in the world today that has been experimented and explored is Technology. My experimentation has been my Maths class at a school I worked in. I found a number of advantages in using technology as well as a number of challenges. For the sake of keeping it real, I am staying with my own personal experience to compare.   Advantages of using technology 1.      Self-Paced lessons ( % and self-study using I

My Philosophy for Globally Oriented Education “During the middleschool years, young teens undergo multiple physical, social emotional, andintellectual changes that shape who they are and how they function as adults” . This is the time when seeds of the adult life are sown and sprouted. Middle school is a space of tension because of “…the need for middle schools to ease the transition from elementary school, with an emphasis on the developmental needs of young teens, versus the need to facilitate the transition to high school, with an emphasis on academic rigor”,”, (Juvonen et al). And this is when I taught maths to students! It may seem very narrow to some, but my curricular decisions, developments and all that I have done in education was provoked by the utter phobia for maths I saw among a lot of students in my classes. Phobia “…may be defined as a feeling of anxiety that stops one from efficiently tackling mathematical problems”, (Raghunathan, 2012). They were riddled w

My Social Mission in Maths Education The purpose of education is very closely linked to the purpose of life and that is to keep growing in all aspects of personality in order to maximize our potential at multiple levels. For this, it would be necessary to build right from childhood skills and attitudes that help the learners stay lifelong learners in their lives. Lifelong Learning “…serves to reject the school and post-school division to endorse learningacross the lifespan, a learning which is worthwhile to the individual citizenand, therefore to the society of which she is a part” , ( Field & Leicester, 2001, pp.18). Keeping this as the vision, when I looked at my classroom for maths at the beginning of my career, I found at least half the students were filled with fear of maths. Maths phobia “…may be defined as a feeling of anxiety that stops one from efficiently tackling mathematical problems” . This looked to me a contradiction of the true aim of life and completely u

My Milieu At the moment, my situation is the situation of teacher education in India. This is the milieu. By and large, education is board and chalk and focused on examinations. To put the pressure to shift even a little from that evokes anxiety among the educators. “ Conditions for learning refersto the factors that can enhance or diminish a student’s ability to learn” .  This is a space where learning to grow into global mind-set is very difficult as the examination expects mostly rote learning alone. Outliers In this milieu, however, there are several outliers. These are progressive schools that have broken away from being chained to examination and are focused on developing a human being. 3 of which are mentioned in my discussion, which are “… adopters breaking the mold of industrial ageschools…” . ·        There is a school called ‘keystone’ ( http://keystoneeducation.in/ ) , based on Project Based Learning. “I nstead of working on a single project in a math class, pr

Global Mind-set  “Despite debates over immigration policy, or perhaps in light of it, it’s important to teach students to see themselves as global citizens. The world’s economy is deeply intertwined, and technology continues to evaporate borders”, (Barack). Global mind-set is here to stay and grow. And with that come new challenges, especially in education. The industrial model of education, with its sameness across borders, is no longer relevant. When you have classrooms with multi-linguistic and multi-culture students and a staff room filled with similar variety, education as it is seems fossilized. “If there is a growing realization of the desirability of flexibility and diversity and of the need to move away from a ‘one size fits all’ mentality in education, what vision of development is this thinking related to?” (Dighe, 2000). A number of attempts have been made. Special needs support, language support for second languages and remedial classes. However, each of thi

I imagine a classroom for myself where I have students from 7 Indian states, all with extremely different dialect and 4 different countries, non-native English speaking. I wonder how I will design my lessons! Considering maths is a universal language, so much of learning maths happens through English language in my country for all private schools, that I wonder how I will map the English speaking with the non-English speaking students. These are culturally and linguistically diverse [CLD] students, henceforth addressed in this paper as CLD. While cultural diversity can be managed with immersive experiences including various cultures, language diversity is a challenge considering I speak English alone as an international language! “Today’s teachers are faced with the complex responsibility of educating the growing student population who speaks a wide variety of languages/ dialects (more than 177), come with varying levels of formal schooling, and represent a varying number of cultura

I met a veteran IB teacher at a get-together once in the IB school that I used to teach in. He had been a travelling teacher for 30 years with his wife. Originally from the USA, he and his wife had decided finally to settle in Bangladesh, and he called it ‘home’. “There is emerging literature on modes of belonging that focuses on migrants’ constructions of their own identities in relation to different places, groups and countries”, (Bauböck). Home, today, is where you feel a ‘connection’. “What you realize is that connection is why we're here. It's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives” . un-conditioning yourself from the system you were born into, one can choose consciously the home by staying attentive to what feels as home. It can’t be easy though to be able to feel the connection to a place far away from one’s ethnography. It requires a set of skills, attitudes and values that can be consolidated in the term ‘global mind-set’. “The biggest challenge is to change o

What is it to Be Vulnerable? A lot of us are not taught how to express our emotions at home or in school. School, by its very structure, expects everyone to toe the line. To stand out is risky! To expose one’s emotions at the risk of being rejected is very hard for most of us. “Vulnerabilityis basically uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure” . We avoid it and try to connect to others while wanting them to like us. There lies the conflict that leads to wavering relationships. What Gets in The Way? “ Vulnerabilityis the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness” . We live a strange life curve. As a child we are applauded for all emotions for we look cute, but as we grow, the same emotional expression provokes the adults to ask us to grow up. As our sense of worthiness relies on the adults, we condition ourselves to behave in a way that is approved of by the community that we belong to.   And since “…vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle

My Work Towards Building Cultural Harmony  “The architect first asks the client whom the building is to serve and what the building's function will be. Then the forms emerge. In a similar way, our Curriculum 21 teams should always begin thinking about new versions of school by asking whom are we serving ultimately, and how can we best meet the needs of our specific learners?" (Jacobs, 2010). Here I am serving the students in order to develop global mind-set. The way I would use is ‘experiential learning’ in order that the form required, inter-cultural understanding, emerges out of the experience. The experiences that I organize outwardly are all around settings such as (a) whole group discussion, (b) small group work and (c) individual work. I would, however, start with self-awareness. Self-Work “As community builders, understanding culture is our business. No matter where you live, you are working with and establishing relationships with people--people who all have c