Nepali teachers, I have observed, do not use humor much or often. I am not sure why.
This blog contains embeds of two short clips from a presentation to students at a school in Kathmandu in which I use humor.
Nepali teachers do NOT use humor as much as they should. I do. And so in my workshops for them, I use it to demonstrate its effectiveness. Follow link for short videos of me in action -- telling jokes and making teachers and students laugh, to grab their attention and hold it.
Another example of how and what a teacher uses as a teaching tool or resource is really limited only by the teacher's imagination! This is about a lesson I helped a science teacher conduct using what they had.
I conducted another demonstration to a science teacher at a small private school as part of the teacher education program to show them how they can make science teaching and learning interesting and engaging. In this one I used a very topical video -- that of hurricane Dorian that had made landfall in the Bahamas just a few days before the lesson.
Another lesson I conducted with a grade 7 group using cutouts from magazines. The topic? Natural Resources. How and what a teacher uses as a teaching tool or resource is really limited only by the teacher's imagination, really!
Back in early September last year, as part of the teacher education program at a local private school, I conducted a fun and engaging lesson for grade 8 students on the topic of climate change. All I used was just some graphs that I got from the internet. Here are the details.
Pretty much every Nepali school textbook I have seen and read about, I have decided, actually hinders children's learning, forget promote -- and contribute to -- them! In this blog post, I show how a fifth grade textbook completely misses the mark.
The solution? Do away with the local and national level examinations in grades 8 and 10 and eliminate textbooks.
At under-funded and resource-strapped public schools in Nepal, teaching science in a way that brings the subject alive for students can be a major challenge. What the teachers at such schools do have is themselves and their students. There's no reason they shouldn't be using their own students (by having them model structures for example) in an effort to get across difficult and challenging science concepts and ideas!
Audio recording of some light magic I performed in front of Sanskriti International School science teachers on January 25, 2019, as part of the introduction to science teacher education program.
I have a Science Teacher Education program. Depending on the needs of the school, I can either hold interactive workshops on how to impart higher level thinking skills or hold interactive workshops on teaching the content of the prescribed textbook a little differently, a little more effectively using local resources, the teachers themselves, as well as the students.