Want to play logic games, analyze them, and learn HOW to think? In other words, how to analyze, apply, evaluate and synthesize through modeling, the way some mathematicians and scientists do? Read this blog post and follow the instructions if you are game!
In part II of this two-part blog, I shred the contents of a grade 12 chemistry paper the students took last month. It's full of mistakes showing how little attention to details the examiners and board have paid in creating it. The contents also show how the syllabus has NOT been revised and updated at all to reflect newer practices and topics that have evolved over the last few decades etc., indicating how the whole point is just to put the students through a wringer.
A look at how the board managing the grade 12 examinations have failed the students. The examinations, originally slated for May, was cancelled and, finally, in October, rescheduled for November. The examination, supposed to consist of questions papers in the new format, did go ahead in spite of the student not having seen any sample papers prior to it.
What's more, analyzing the chemistry paper, it had some major issues. The whole exercise, as far as I am concerned, has amounted to putting the students through a wringer.
Nepanglish is Nepal's very own English, but it's a little beast of a language. It inflicts a lot of harm in many children, holding them back. If we are to improve the quality of our education, we must do away with Nepanglish and use and teach English English.
Math education in Nepal is limited to committing to memory formulae after formulae and, using them, how to solve problems that have been attempted over and over again using rules and steps also committed to memory. Little to nothing about WHERE the formula came from, WHY they work, and HOW they reflect something in or about life and the real world is taught. But all that can be taught and therefore how to think. For the details of HOW to do that, read on!
A short blog post about what happened, why, and what next in Nepal with the coronavirus pandemic in terms of mostly testing data, as random and limited as they are.
In Nepal, respect for teachers and administrators is instilled in student through the threat of violence, i.e. fear! That, of course, is despicable, just as Albert Camus says. Getting students to respect teachers is easy: just show them respect by listening to them.
Raise a child by beating her, the sense of unfairness and the mental agony accompanying it will not only inflict trauma in the child, she'll lose respect for you. Raise a child by showing her respect, by listening to her, she'll grow up learning what respect means and will, in turn, respect you.
A fascinating short account of the circumstances and context around -- and the story behind -- the founding of St. Xavier's Godavari School, my old school in Kathmandu, Nepal by the Jesuit Priest Fr. Marshall Moran. The extract comes from a book about the founder.
I read English books and novel voraciously as a child because, firstly, I loved it and, secondly, I knew it would help me improve my English. Looking back, I think it benefited me in many other ways, ways that I didn't know and anticipate.
So now, back in Nepal, one of the many things I am trying to do is impress upon schools, teachers, and students the value and importance of reading. This blog post reproduces a presentation I made about that to a group of students at Kopila Valley School.