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Greetings
and Welcome
to the September issue of news.desk
Today,
most families worry about the
messages being sent to children
via the television, video games,
and the media. When children
pick up the unsocial messages
and carry them to school
settings, it becomes a grave
concern. Child psychologist
Robert Coles stresses that
parents and all adults should
"… live out what we
presumably want taught to our
children. Our children are
taking constant notice, and
they're measuring us not by what
we say, but what we do."
There's a need for parents to
focus on teaching good manners,
social skills, family values,
moral behaviour, and overall
character education.
Stephen
Carter, author of Civility:
Manners, Morals, and the
Etiquette of Democracy, advises
parents to closely observe their
children's activities so they
can determine where conflicting
messages regarding moral and
civil behaviour come from. He
names peers, television, music,
and the Internet as areas that
can compete with a parent's
teachings on values, morals, and
civil behaviour.
Good
manners and acceptable social
behaviour are all on a negative
slope. Seemingly the traits that
have caused the moral decay of
our society have infiltrated our
school system and more and more
teachers remark on the change in
the calibre of students that
they are faced with every day in
the classroom. "Children
are just not the same";
"They no longer act like
children" are common
statements from teachers today.
Our
society no longer values common
courtesy and as a result our
children are growing up
deficient in good manners.
Children today have more
resources available to them, but
achieve far less because they
hold little or no respect for
the value of the efforts of
their parents, schools and
teachers.
We
can talk about the dilemmas,
stand by and do nothing, or we
can make a decision to turn the
tide around. Each parent, each
child, every school can make the
decision to do their part in
bringing our schools, homes and
communities at large back to
civility. No child is too young
or old and the lessons of
civility and etiquette can be
applied to any area of work,
school, home life or play. Most
children behave badly because
they just don't know any other
way. It is our responsibility as
parents and teachers to get them
back on a positive track - one
that will lead them to success
in their varied endeavours in
the years to come.
In
this edition:
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We
welcome our Guest editor,
Parwez Samuel Kaul
Director & Principal -
Tyndale-Biscoe and
Mallinson Society Schools,
Srinagar, who writes on
"Can we try this in
India for character
building among students?"
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Our
Business Editor, Melwin
Braggs with his views on
"The School
Advisory Council"
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I
share my views on "Inequity
in Education"
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Web
links on the happenings in the
education industry
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You
could know more about
services offered by
Develop Schools, the
itinerary of our
associates for you to
benefit from during their
visit to your locations
Send
us your articles. If your
entry is selected we will
cover your article in our
forthcoming newsletters.
I
now invite you to read on and
send us your feedback / suggestions. After all we
improve when you assist us.
Feel free to FORWARD
this newsletter to your
Trustees / Managing committees
/ References.
Sincerely,
Rita
Wilson
Chief
Editor
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Can
we try this in India for character
building among students?
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Our Guest
Editor,
Parwez Samuel Kaul
Director
& Principal - Tyndale-Biscoe
and Mallinson Society Schools,
Srinagar
 For
decades we have been trying to
think of ways and means of
making our school education
system workable. Somewhere down
the line our school education
has not succeeded in producing
men and women of substance.
Thus, I am tempted to make the
following suggestions for
achieving minimum standards in
Character Building:
1.
A school must insist on
employing only such teachers who
are willing to learn. It should
be a pre-condition to
employment. As far as academic
competence is concerned,
qualified teachers must not only
have requisite degrees but an
aptitude for further enhancing
their communication skills under
the guidance of a senior mentor.
The system of employing trained
teachers is good enough only as
long as the concerned person is
ready to upgrade his/her
knowledge and skills regularly.
2. Teachers must be physically
fit and able to take part in
activities pertaining to fitness
among students. An active
teacher must be an above average
performer and must be
compensated well to live a
comfortable life.
3. For schools, while it is
important that students have
enough academic instruction,
nevertheless, their moral and
personal upliftment is dependent
on their participation, en mass,
in physical activities that
inculcate a spirit of adventure,
awareness of environment,
strengthening of will power and
appreciation of hard work. These
values can be developed by
involving students in group
activities like hiking,
trekking, swimming, etc. It is
important and vital that every
student takes part compulsorily
in such activities.
4. Schools must have a calendar
of activities running through
the academic year which makes it
possible for a child to be
exposed to such collective
activities along with his peers
and teachers at least four to
five times in a year.
5. The aim of the school
administration should be to
involve all the students rather
than a chosen few in physical
activities. Students must be
exposed to some essential
physical exercise every day.
6. Air conditioned buses,
classrooms, etc. do not make
students tough and able to fight
the vagaries of nature. They
must be exposed to nature to
make them understand our fragile
environment and appreciate the
need for its preservation.
Make them tough, strong and
sensitive citizens of tomorrow
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The
School Advisory Council (SAC)
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Melwin
Braggs, Business Editor
SAC
is a team of people representing
various segments of the
community-parents, teachers, ,
administrators, support staff,
business/ industry people and other
interested community members. The
purpose of SAC is to assist in the
preparation and evaluation
(developing and evaluating) of the
results of the School Improvement
Plan and to assist the Principal
with the annual school budget. 
The
group shares responsibility for
guiding the school towards
continuous improvement. The school
is responsible, by law, for
establishing an advisory council and
develop procedures for the election
and appointment of Advisory Council
members.
RESPONSIBILITIES
OF THE SCHOOL ADVISORY Council
1.
Keep the overall mission of the
school clearly in focus and satisfy
itself that the objectives of the
school are in harmony with the
mission pre-set by the Council
members.
2.
Participate in the preparation and
periodic review of the long range
strategic plans for the school in
conjunction with the approved
budget.
3.
Communicate the goals and
performance of the school to its
constituents.
4.
Work closely and interactively with
the Principal and, through him/her,
with the staff. The relationship
with the Principal should be
positive and mutually supportive.
Appropriate attention and care
should be given to maintaining a
positive working relationship with
the Principal.
5.
Make recommendations to provide for
adequate financial resources to meet
the facility and instructional needs
of the school and to oversee the
financial operations of the
school.
6.
Encourage the local school community
to interact with the broader
community.
7.
Continuously evaluate itself and
periodically devote time to
analyzing its own performance.
8.
Review academic requirements set by
the accreditation agency.
The
Council normally meets twice every year,
and gets together at other times as
needed in smaller groups to address
specific issues.
The
School Advisory Council plays a pivotal
role in the smooth functioning of the
school and is responsible for providing
strategic direction to meet the
requirements of 'tomorrow'. The members
of the council work together as a team
with the sole intention to Develop
Schools
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Inequity
in Education
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Rita Wilson, Chief
Editor
(Ex-chief
executive and Secretary, ICSE)
Why
is India still a developing country
and what is stopping it from being a
developed country? This question
crops up whenever the Indian
education system is discussed. The
Indian education system is a
stumbling block towards its
objectives of achieving inclusive
growth.
Educational inequity has always been
a subliminal issue in our country.
And that could be attributed to the
fact that its effect cannot be
easily quantified. There is no
simple solution to this problem, but
the powers that be do not want to
grapple with it and take tough
decisions. So they have resorted to
a flawed legislation -- the Right to
Education Act, to give people the
feeling that they are doing
something that nobody had done for
sixty years to address the growing
inequality of opportunity in
education in India.
The free and compulsory elementary
education across the country has
become quite meaningless today. The
government provides mid-day meals to
attract students to schools on the
premise: what use is teaching a kid
who doesn't even get two square
meals a day? But a counter to that
is: what use is feeding a kid once a
day without teaching him anything
and eventually leaving him to fend
for himself with little education
and no skills to find meaningful
employment? A classic case of feed a
fish or teach to fish. In the case
of government schools however, even
the quality of the fish is suspect.
The really critical aspect of Indian
public education system is its low
quality. The actual quantity of
schooling that children experience
and the quality of teaching they
receive is extremely insufficient in
government schools. A common feature
in all government schools is the
poor quality of education, with weak
infrastructure and inadequate
pedagogic attention.
To improve, we will need to embark
on serious and sustained assessment
and examination reform to change the
way we evaluate what students have
learnt. If we begin testing for
comprehension, understanding and the
ability to think and reason out,
there will be an incentive for
schools, teachers and students to
work towards honing those skills
rather than the ability to reproduce
the precise expected answer.
Examination reform will also require
changing the way things students are
taught in a classroom and as a
result teacher education as well. It
will take many years to turn the
system around, given the huge
inbuilt inertia. But there is no
alternative to the long hard way.
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