Typically, the term ‘infant’ applies to young children between the ages of one month and 12 months. Yet, definitions may vary including children even between birth and two years of age.
In recent years, researchers have collected about 5000 assessments of cognitive development in infants between the age of 10 and 24 months.
I am presenting here just a sample of three videos of infants recognizing words.
In the following video uploaded on September 19, 2009, baby Torin alias TNT was 10 1/2 months. He skilfully recognizes words from flashcards. Every day, his dad makes new cards to continue his language development.
The following video was uploaded two months later on November 20, 2009 when infant Torin was one year and 20 days old. It shows TNT’s progress in his reading ability.
The 19 month old girl in the following video started to recognize words when she was six months old. Now she can recognize hundreds of words in two languages and knows what every word means. She can also identify colours and shapes. She recognizes images of the planets in our Solar System.
I do not subscribe to any political party. But, when I perceive talent in any form, I will be the first person to endorse it.
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Smriti Zubin Irani, incumbent Minister of Human Resource Development of Government of India since May 27, 2014.
Smriti Zubin Irani, a former model, television actress and producer represents the Bharatiya Janata Party and is the incumbent Minister of Human Resource Development of Government of India since May 27, 2014. She is a first time Lok Sabha polls contestant and a first-time minister and the youngest in the Narendra Modi cabinet.
Born on March 23, 1976, in Delhi to a family of Punjabi–Bengali background, Smriti Malhotra is the eldest amongst three sisters. She studied up to class 12 at Holy Child Auxilium School (HCA) in New Delhi and discontinued further education.
Smriti worked as a waitress at McDonald’s before finding stardom in modelling. In 1998, Smriti was one of the finalists of the Miss India beauty pageant.
In 2000, she made her debut with TV series Aatish and Hum Hain Kal Aaj Kal Aur Kal, both aired on Star Plus. In mid-2000, Irani bagged the lead role of Tulsi Virani in Ekta Kapoor’s production Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi on Star Plus. She holds the record of winning five consecutive Indian Television Academy Awards for the Best Actress (Popular), four Indian Telly Awards, eight Star Parivaar Awards.
In 2001, Smriti married Zubin Irani, a Parsi.
Smriti Irani is a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat and is now widely acknowledged in the BJP as a key member of Narendra Modi’s inner circle.
In her message to the Subject Toppers of Senior School Certificate (Class XII) Examination, 2014 conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, Delhi, posted on the website of the Government of India Ministry of Human Resource Development she said:
I congratulate all the students of CBSE who have excelled in their schools, districts and States in different subjects.
I applaud those who have worked hard and have got good results which make them and their families proud.
Examinations, marks, and above all values and Character in life, are the means to move forward and achieve progress
I wish all the students success in achieving their dreams in whatever walk of life they find joy and fulfilment and thereby contribute to a healthy, harmonious society and a strong nation.
But, there is something to be said about Smriti Irani’s own education.
Congress leader Ajay Maken questioned Smriti Irani’s credentials to lead the HRD ministry which oversees the country’s education system including the prestigious IITs and IIMs. Hitherto, the portfolio had always been held by a person with high academic qualifications. Maken tweeted: “Smriti Irani is not even a graduate,” triggering a political row, which until then had been fuelled online solely by her main detractor Madhu Purnima Kishwar, an Indian academic, and writer, who has been going hammer and tongs at Smriti Irani since the swearing-in.
In the past, Madhu Kishwar vociferously defended Narendra Modi both on Twitter and on television channels. Now, after the swearing-in, Kishwar seems to have taken on a new role of being his critic-in-chief.
Smriti Irani seemed unfazed by the drama. However, there is more to this controversy.
“Educated at Holy Child Auxilium, Delhi and School of Correspondence and Continuing Education, University of Delhi, Delhi.“
Smriti Irani has herself provided conflicting affidavits of her educational qualifications.
In 2004, in the affidavit filed with the Election Commission of India she submitted that she had received a bachelor’s degree in Arts (B.A.) in 1996 from Delhi University (School of Correspondence).
In the affidavit filed with the Election Commission of India for the recent 2014 elections Smriti Irani claimed that she only completed Part I (first year) of her bachelor’s degree in commerce (Part I B.Com.) in the year 1994 from Delhi University’s School of Open Learning (correspondence)..
To add venom, a leak from the School of Correspondence, as reported by a newspaper, claims that Smriti Irani had enrolled in 2013, but had not written the examination.
This incidence of doubts raised about Smriti Irani’s education leads to the perennial question “What is education?“
When knowledge, skills, and habits convey from one person to another through teaching, training, or research we call it education. So, we can say that education is any experience that has a developmental effect that leads to the way one thinks, feels, or acts.
By the way, do you think that all recipients of diplomas and college degrees are really educated?
At present, most people look at education as commonly divided into stages: preschool, primary school, secondary school and then college, university or apprenticeship under the guidance of others. But many do not freely acknowledge that education may also be autodidactic.
Autodidacticism or autodidactism or self-education is self-directed learning.
An autodidact is a self-teacher. Autodidactism is a contemplative and absorptive process. One may become an autodidact at any point in one’s life. While one may have studied a particular field in the conventional method they may choose to inform themselves in other, often unrelated areas by self-study.
Many autodidacts have complemented their formal learning with self-study. Though I have a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, I am an autodidact in computer science. Forty-two years ago, I was not able to find any teacher who could teach computer science. So, I spent a great deal of time reviewing the resources found in physical libraries and buying whatever books on computer science that I came across in search of knowledge. I always say: “To learn, teach!” I gained most of my knowledge in computers by following this dictum — teaching others who sought knowledge in basic computer science.
Though autodidactism is only one facet of learning, many autodidacts have made notable contributions to the human race. Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci is one of history’s best-known autodidacts.
Since most autodidacts do not advertise themselves, why not we consider Smriti Irani as one such person.
On May 19, 2014, Smriti Irani hit back at Congress leader Ajay Maken’s comments on her educational qualifications. She said,
“Judge me by my work, I would only say this… Attempts have been made to deviate my attention from my work. The party has always entrusted me with assignments as they have confidence in me.“
The late Kamaraj Nadar, former Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, India, was a 3rd grader. He was a visionary and he opened hundreds of primary schools accessible to rural kids to improve the literacy rate in Tamilnadu.
The current Chief Minister of Tamilnadu J. Jayalalitha is a 10th grader (Matriculation). She is fluent in several languages, including English, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Hindi.
So, before you write off Smriti Irani as an ‘uneducated’ person, just listen to the speech she gave before an International audience at the International Women’s Conference in February 2014, at The Art of Living International Center, Bangalore, India, a few months before she was sworn-in as the Honourable Union Minister of Human Resource Development, and then form your opinion about her.
In 1958, I opted for French as second language for my Bachelors degree, at St. Xavier’s College, Palayamkottai, Tamilnadu, India.
Rev. Fr. Moumas, S.J. (Photo taken in 1979 by T.V. Antony Raj)
It was the late Rev. Fr. Moumas S.J., a saintly jovial Jesuit priest from Gascony, who taught me French.
Learning the language was never an easy task. I used to spend a lot of time reading French novels borrowed from the well–stocked college library. In the 1960s and 70s, after graduating, while being employed in Sri Lanka, I used to visit the Library at the Alliance Française in Colombo often, trying to brush up and augment the French I learned in college. During this time, I took down notes and found an easy method to learn French.
Recently, while browsing through my old papers and books, I came across four pages of French words I had picked about 50 years ago. Since I feel that this list would provide a shortcut to you and your children to learn French, I have presented them below. Please pass it on to your friends and their children.
The words in the list occur most frequently in ordinary French, as determined by a word count of 400,000 running words of French prose. The figures after each word indicate its average number of occurrences per 1,000 words. It will be seen that the total is 446.1; in other words, learn these, and you will know 44.6% of the words of French.
LEARN THEM NOW.
The meanings given are the common English translations. Others are possible.
à, au, aux, à l’
=
to, at, in, to, the, at the, in the, to the
=
21.4
aller (v.)
=
to go
=
2.1
autre
=
other
=
1.7
avec
=
with
=
3.4
1avoir (v.)
=
to have
=
13.7
bien (adv.)
=
well, very
=
2.8
bon
=
good
=
1.2
ce, cet, cette, ces
=
this, that, these, those
=
12.0
comme
=
as, like
=
2.5
dans
=
in, within
=
6.7
de, du, de l’, de la, des
=
of, from, of the, from the
=
54.9
deux
=
two
=
1.8
dire
=
to say, tell
=
4.2
1donner (v.)
=
to give
=
1.4
elle; elles
=
she, it, her; they, them
=
8.0
en (prep.)
=
in, while
=
6.3
en (pron.)
=
of it, of them, some, in the matter
=
2.6
enfant
=
child
=
1.1
et
=
and
=
19.1
1etre (v.)
=
to be
=
20.6
1faire (v.)
=
to make, do, have (something done)
=
4.5
femme
=
woman, wife
=
1.2
grand
=
tall, big
=
2.0
homme
=
man, husband
=
2.4
il; ils
=
he, it, him; they them
=
13.7
jour
=
day
=
1.2
le, la, l’, les (art.)
=
the
=
69.4
le, la, l’, les (pron.)
=
him, her, it them
leur (pron.)
=
to them, them
=
2.6
leur, leurs (adj.)
=
their
lui (pron.)
=
(to) him, her, it
=
3.8
mais
=
but
=
3.7
2je
=
I
=
15.0
2me
=
me, to me
2moi
=
me, I
mon, ma, mes (adj.)
=
my
=
4.5
ne … pas
=
not
=
10.5
notre, nos
=
our
=
1.2
nous
=
we, us, to us
=
4.1
on
=
one, they, we
=
3.9
ou
=
or
=
1.9
Ou … ou, soit … soit
=
either …. or
où
=
where
=
1.1
par
=
by
=
3.7
pas (neg. adv.)
=
not, no
=
5.6
petit
=
little, small, insignificant, petty
=
1.7
plus (adv.)
=
more
=
4.3
pour
=
for, in order to
=
3.2
1pouvoir (v.)
=
to be able, can
=
1.9
1prendre (v.)
=
to take
=
1.2
que (conj.)
=
as, than
=
12.8
que? (interr.)
=
what?
=
3.0
que (rel. pron.)
=
who, whom, which, that
qui? (interr.)
=
who?
=
7.6
qui (rel. pron.)
=
who, whom, which, that
sans
=
without
=
1.8
1savoir (v.)
=
to know
=
1.4
se
=
himself, herself, itself, oneself, themselves, each other
Internet users coin “internet slang” to save time on keystrokes. It saves the writer’s time, but most writers do not realize that the reader of their slang spends more than twice the time to understand what the writer is trying to say. That is why I strive not to use internet slang in my communications.
While surfing, and by searching the internet, I deduced the meaning of a few internet slang plus a few others which I would like to share here with you.
Listing of Internet Slang and Acronyms
Slang and Acronyms = Meaning
1 = One / exclamation mark
2 = To / Too / Two
4 = For or Four
AFAP = As Far As Possible
A&F = AAF Always And Forever
A3 = Anywhere, Any time, Any place
AA = Alcoholics Anonymous
AAB = Average At Best
AAK = Alive And Kicking
AAMOF = As A Matter Of Fact
AAP = Always A Pleasure
AAR = At Any Rate
AAYF = As Always, Your Friend
ABD = Already Been Done
ABH = Actual Bodily Harm
ABN = Asshole By Nature
ABT = Absolutely
ABT = About
ADL = All Day Long
ADMIN = Administrator
ADN = Any Day Now
AEAE = And Ever And Ever
AEAP = As Early As Possible
AFAIAC / AFAIC = As Far As I Am Concerned
AFAICS = As Far As I Can See
AFAICT = As Far As I Can Tell
AFAIK = As Far As I Know
AFC = Away From Computer
AFD = All F***ing Day
AFT = About F***ing Time
AGW = All Going Well
Aight = Are you alright, Yo
ALOL = Actually Laughing Out Loud
ANY1 = Anyone
AYSOS = Are You Stupid Or Something?
B = Be
B4 = Before
Bb = Bye Bye, Goodbye
BBIAB = Be Back In A Bit
BBL = Be Back Later
BBS = Be Back Soon
BD = Big Deal
BRB = Be right back
BRB = Be right back / Bath-room break
BRT = Be right there
BTW = By the way
C = See
CSWS = Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
CU = See you
CUL = See you later
Cuz = Because
CYA = See you
CYS = Check Your Settings
da = The
dat = That
der = There
DIAF = Die In A Fire
Dunno = Don’t know
FAQ = Frequently Asked Questions
FOAD = **** Off And Die
FTL = For The Loss
FTUW = For The Uber Win
FTW = For The Win
FWIW = For What It’s Worth
FYI = For Your Information
G2G / GTG = Got to go
GAL = Get A Life
GFY = Good For You
GG = Good game, Good going
GIYF = Google Is Your Friend
HAND = Have A Nice Day
HS = Holy Shit
HTH = Hope This Helps
IACL = I Am Currently Laughing
IANAL = I Am Not A Lawyer
IANARS = I Am Not A Rocket Scientist
IC = I see
ICYDK = In Case You Didn’t Know
IDGI = I Don’t Get It
IDK = I Don’t Know
IIRC = If I Recall Correctly
ILY / ILU = I Love You
IMHO = In My Honest Opinion
IMNSHO = In My Not So Honest Opinion
IMO = In My Opinion
IRL = In Real Life
ITT = In This Thread
IYDMMA = If You Don’t Mind Me Asking
JJ = Just Joking
JK = Just Kidding
JOOC = Just Out Of Curiosity
JP = Just Playing
K = Okay
KKOk = Cool / Ok Kewl
KL = kool, cool
Kwl = Cool
L8r = Later
LLAH = Laughing Like A Hyena
LMAO = Laughing My Ass Off
LMFAO = Laughing My F*cking Ass Off
LOL = Laugh Out Loud
LQTM = Laugh Quietly To Myself
M8 = Mate
MYOB = Mind Your Own Business
NLS = Not Life Safe
NOYB = None Of Your Business
NP = No Problem
NSFW = Not Safe For Work
NVM = Never mind
NWS = Not Work Safe
O = Oh
O3 = Out of Office
OIC = Oh, I see
OJ = Only Joking
OMG = Oh My God! / Oh My Goodness!,
OC = Out Of Character
OP = Original Poster / Original Post
OT = Off Topic
PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between The Keyboard And The Chair
Pic = Picture
PITA = Pain In The Ass
Pix = Pictures
Plz / Pls = Please
PPMSLL = Pissing/ Pissed Myself Laughing
POSL = Piece Of ShIt
PPLL = People
PTTLL = Pop To The Loo
RL = Real Life
ROFL = Rolling On The Floor Laughing
ROFLMAO = Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off
ROFLMAOL = Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Out Loud
Shudda = Should Have
SMH = Shaking My Head
SO = Significant Other
SOS = Same Old Shit
Soz / srry = Sorry
SSDD = Same Shit, Different Day
STFW = Search The F*cking Web
sup = What’s up?
sup homes = What’s up, friend?
SWW = Sorry, Wrong Window – typing in the wrong box
“Teachers like being appreciated, but they usually don’t expect recognition from students. When they get it, it does feel good,”
– Suma Padmanaban, Principal of Asan Memorial Senior Secondary School.
.
During the 20th century, the concept of celebrating Teachers’ Day took root independently in many countries. Unlike many other international days, people in many countries celebrate Teachers’ Day as a unique day to appreciate the contributions made by teachers within the field of teaching or for their service to their community. They celebrate a local educator who is or was an important milestone in education in their country or region. This is the primary reason countries are celebrating this day on different dates though the World Teachers’ Day is celebrated on October 5th every year.
Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Since 1962, India celebrates Teachers’ Day on September 5, the birthday of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a philosopher, statesman and the second president of India from 1962 to 1967.
According to UNESCO, the teaching profession is currently losing its status in many parts of the world.
The Voice of the Teacher Survey 2013, conducted by education service provider Pearson and market intelligence firm Spire Research and Consulting represents the views of 3,262 teachers from 223 cities across 25 states, collected between July and August.
This nationwide survey reveals that three out of four teachers rated gratitude from students as a form of recognition more valuable than the salary or praise from their employers.
While the study found that a majority (72%) of teachers in the south feel students adequately acknowledge them for success, 61% teachers in northern India feel there has been a decline in gratitude over the past decade.
Among cities, Jaipur has the highest percentage (85%) of teachers who feel that students thank them enough for their success. Next comes Bangalore (82%) and Chennai (78%) is listed third.
The job satisfaction levels of teachers in TN (82%) and Chennai (80%) is higher than the national average at 66%.
Teachers can trim, shape and mould or maul the minds of their students the way they want. Ha Ha … I know this because I was a teacher too…
A century ago, the name Macaulay was often associated with cultural withdrawal of ethnic Indians from their Hindu-based traditions. It began with the incorporation of the Indians into the then expanding English-speaking civilization.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, a British historian and Whig politician held political office as Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841 and Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848. He was also an essayist and reviewer. His books on British history were hailed as literary masterpieces. Between 1834 and 1838 he lived in Calcutta and served on the British “Supreme Council for India”. His “Minute on Education,” touches on the relation of Western and Indian civilizations.
Today, I saw the following message posted on Facebook:
Speech purported to Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay about Indians
.
I felt tempted to share this with my Facebook friends. However, as usual, I delved into the matter and noted a few anomalies in the quote. First, the language is modern. Second, Lord Macaulay was a devil’s advocate of the British empire who considered Indians as an inferior race compared to the British.
The Project Gutenberg EBook of “The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay,” Vol. 4 (of 4), by Thomas Babington Macaulay, is a compilation of speeches of Lord Macaulay from March 2, 1831, to June 1, 1853. I quote from his Preface:
I therefore unwillingly, and in mere self-defence, give this volume to the public. I have selected, to the best of my judgment, from among my speeches, those which are the least unworthy to be preserved. Nine of them were corrected by me while they were still fresh in my memory, and appear almost word for word as they were spoken. They are the speech of the second of March 1831,… The substance of the remaining speeches I have given with perfect ingenuousness. I have not made alterations for the purpose of saving my own reputation either for consistency or for foresight. I have not softened down the strong terms in which I formerly expressed opinions which time and thought may have modified; nor have I retouched my predictions in order to make them correspond with subsequent events. Had I represented myself as speaking in 1831, in 1840, or in 1845, as I should speak in 1853, I should have deprived my book of its chief value. This volume is now at least a strictly honest record of opinions and reasonings which were heard with favour by a large part of the Commons of England at some important conjunctures; and such a record, however low it may stand in the estimation of the literary critic, cannot but be of use to the historian.
However, I could not find the quote: “I have traveled across the length and breadth of India …” anywhere in this volume or elsewhere other than in social websites such as Facebook, where this quote is widely circulated among Indians, and blindly shared by many self-styled ‘Indian patriots’.
I have reproduced below what Macaulay said on Indian education and his chauvinistic attitude towards Indians and their traditions. This passage also shows clearly that Lord Macaulay said things directly opposite to the quote attributed to him:
On Indian Education
We now come to the gist of the matter. We have a fund to be employed as Government shall direct for the intellectual improvement of the people of this country. The simple question is, what is the most useful way of employing it?
All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India, contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them. It seems to be admitted on all sides, that the intellectual improvement of those classes of the people who have the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be effected only by means of some language not vernacular amongst them.
What then shall that language be? One-half of the Committee maintains that it should be the English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit. The whole question seems to me to be, which language is the best worth knowing?
I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic.-But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is, indeed, fully admitted by those members of the Committee who support the oriental plan of education.
It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded, and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgements used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.
How, then, stands the case? We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign language. The claims of our own language it is hardly necessary to recapitulate. It stands pre-eminent even among the languages of the west. It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us; with models of every species of eloquence; with historical compositions, which, considered merely as narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and political instruction, have never been equalled; with just and lively representations of human life and human nature; with the most profound speculations on metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence, and trade; with full and correct information respecting every experimental science which tends to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth, which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the course of ninety generations. It may safely be said, that the literature now extant in that language is of far greater value than all the literature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of Government. It is likely to become the language of commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the language of two great European communities which are rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in Australasia; communities which are every year becoming more important, and more closely connected with our Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature, or at the particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongest reason to think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which would be the most useful to our native subjects.
The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power to teach this language, we shall teach languages in which, by universal confession, there are no books on any subject which deserve to be compared to our own; whether, when we can teach European science, we shall teach systems which, by universal confession, whenever they differ from those of Europe, differ for the worse; and whether, when we can patronise sound Philosophy and true History, we shall countenance, at the public expense, medical doctrines, which would disgrace an English farrier [note: a horse shoer] -Astronomy, which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school, History, abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years long, and Geography, made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter.
We are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes several analogous cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There are in modem times, to go no further, two memorable instances of a great impulse given to the mind of a whole society,-of prejudices overthrown,-of knowledge diffused,-of taste purified,-of arts and sciences planted in countries which had recently been ignorant and barbarous.
The first instance to which I refer is the great revival of letters among the Western nations at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. At that time almost everything that was worth reading was contained in the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors acted as the Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto acted; had they neglected the language of Cicero and Tacitus; had they confined their attention to the old dialects of our own island; had they printed nothing and taught nothing at the universities but Chronicles in Anglo-Saxon, and Romances in Norman-French, would England have been what she now is? What the Greek and Latin were to the contemporaries of More and Ascham [note: English humanists of the 16th century] our tongue is to the people of India. The literature of England is now more valuable than that of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanscrit literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors. In some departments,-in History, for example, I am certain that it is much less so.
In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them, that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.
Source: Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian Education,” Macaulay, Prose and Poetry, selected by G. M. Young (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), pp-721-24,729.
A Muslim girl in a classroom.. (Photo: A.M. Faruqui / The Hindu) This photograph is for illustration only.
ALL INDIA PARENTS ASSOCIATION
Aggarwal Bhawan, G. T. Road, Tis Hazari, Delhi -110054
M- 09811101923, 9810133325
05/04/2013
To
Prof. Ms. Kiran Walia,
Education Minister,
Government of NCT of Delhi
Secretariat, I.P. Estate,
New Delhi-110002
Sub: Muslim Girls want to study – Delhi Government School says NO
Dear Madam,
3 young girls in the age group 6-7 years belonging to Muslim Community have come to my office today morning complaining that they want to go to school to study, but a Delhi Government School at Patparganj is not admitting them in school on the excuse that the school does not have seats for them. It is all shocking that despite Constitutional Guarantee to these children, a State-run school has denied them admission. It appears that the Government is least interested in the education of the children belonging to the minority community like Muslim, otherwise it would not have happened.
Nasima Khatoon (DOB 26.01.2006) d/o Mohd Mustafa, Shenaj (DOB 07.08.2007) d/o Sadray Alam (M-9213982480) and Jasmeen (DOB 22.10.2006) d/o Aslam, all resident of E 77/224, Nehru Camp, I.P. Extension, Patpar Ganj, Delhi-110092 have been illegally denied admission by Sarvodya Kanya Vidyayala, Patparganj, Delhi-91. It is a very serious matter. Even after 65 years of independence and three years of RTE Act, 2009, the Government Schools are still not sensitive and child-friendly.
You are requested to kindly look into the matter and do the needful on urgent basis.
With regards,
Ashok Agarwal, Advocate
National President, AIPA
M-09811101923
Do you mean to say that there is no maximum seat limit per school and one school can admit any number of students ?
Your mail is not clear about
-what is the maximum seats in that school for that particular class ?
-whether all the seats are filled up.
-whether these 3 girls have applied admission on time ?
-whether they failed to meet the minimum selection criteria ?
If you are writing to a minister, please include the above details.
Just because the girls are from a particular religion – they don’t get automatically qualified if the admission is over and maximum number of seats filled up.
In India, any student can approach to any school. They should look for a school, where some seats are vacant.
Manoj Padhi
(Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre – PMARC initiated with the support from a group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society advocates and facilitates Dalits issues in the mainstream media. The primary objective of the PMARC is to create proper and adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/International on Dalit issues.)
.‘Student discomfort is not a reason to deny access,‘ says education commish
Shame! Shame!
A new, official interpretation of state law released by Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester requires schools to permit “transgender” boys to use girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms and changing facilities if the boys “assert” they’re really girls.
“Some students may feel uncomfortable with a transgender student using the same sex-segregated restroom, locker room or changing facility,” the official document admits, but then concludes, “this discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender student.”
Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, however, says there’s something far more significant than “discomfort” at stake.
“The School Commissioner’s first duty is to protect all students, from kindergarten to grade 12, not endanger them,” Mineau said in a statement. “The overriding issue with this new policy is that opening girls’ bathrooms to boys is an invasion of privacy and a threat to all students’ safety.”
Furthermore, the policy document explains, neither doctor’s note nor hormone therapy nor even parental permission is needed for a student to switch sex: If a boy says he’s a girl, as far as the schools should be concerned, he’s a girl.
“The responsibility for determining a student’s gender identity rests with the student,” the statement reads. “A school should accept a student’s assertion of his or her gender identity when there is … ‘evidence that the gender-related identity is sincerely held as part of a person’s core identity.’”
The document further warns that referring to transgendered students by their birth name or sex, if it doesn’t match their current, preferred name or sex, “should not be tolerated and can be grounds for student discipline.”
The document creates policy related to a law that went into effect in July of last year called “An Act Relative to Gender Identity,” which in turn amended G.L. c. 76, §5 “to establish that no person shall be excluded from or discriminated against in admission to a public school of any town, or in obtaining the advantages, privileges and courses of study of such public school on account of gender identity.”
According to the 11-page policy paper, that means that boys who identify as girls should not only be addressed by the feminine pronoun and be listed as girls on official transcripts, but they should also be allowed access to girls’ facilities and be allowed to play on girls’ athletic and club teams. Likewise for girls who insist they’re boys.
Andrew Beckwith, attorney for Massachusetts Family Institute, however, warns that the document’s definition of transgender “is extremely broad.”
“If a male student tells his teacher he feels like a girl on the inside, the school has to treat him in every way as if he actually is a girl,” Beckwith explained, citing the policy paper. “School personnel may be forbidden from informing the parents of their child’s gender decisions, and students can even decide to be one gender at home and another at school.”
The Massachusetts Family Institute notes during the debate the law giving rise to this new policy had been dubbed the “Stealth Bathroom Bill,” even though opening public bathrooms to self-identified transgender people were specifically removed from the law out of legislators’ concerns for the safety, privacy and modesty of all its citizens.
In schools, however, the bathroom provisions will now effectively be put back in.
“Each situation needs to be reviewed and addressed based on the particular circumstances of the student and the school facilities,” the education policy states. “[Yet] in all cases, the principal should be clear with the student (and parent) that the student may access the restroom, locker room and changing facility that corresponds to the student’s gender identity.”
The policy also gives the following example: “In one middle school, a male-to-female transgender sixth-grader socially transitioned after spring break. For the rest of the school year, she used the nurse’s restroom and the other unisex restrooms at the school. Beginning in seventh grade, she used the girls’ restroom.”
Democratic State Rep. Colleen Garry has introduced amending legislation to the current law says she would prevent precisely these scenarios by ensuring that people use the restrooms and locker room facilities consistent with their anatomical sex.
“Like many of my colleagues, I am very concerned about Commissioner Chester’s directive to open public school bathrooms to all genders,” said Garry. “This was not the intent of the Legislature, and we need to pass legislation that clearly defines the use of such facilities.”
WND contacted Commissioner Chester’s office for comment, but received no reply. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education can be contacted through its website.
WND has also reported previous attempts by state lawmakers in other states who have attempted to open up shower and bathroom facilities to cross-dressers and “transgendered” individuals.
In Maryland, for example, Montgomery County used the courts to squash a petition of 27,000 residents concerned about county legislation that granted men access to Womens’ restrooms, and vice versa, in the name of “gender identity” and “anti-discrimination.”
And in New York City, a lawsuit opened up the bathrooms in Grand Central Station after a man in woman’s clothing was arrested for using the ladies’ room.
The massacre of school children known as the Columbine High School massacre or the Columbine Incident took place on April 20, 1999. Two senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine High School in Columbine, in Jefferson County, Colorado, murdered 12 students and one teacher. They also injured more than 21 other students. After the shooting spree, the pair committed suicide.
The Columbine incident sparked heated debates across the nation over gun control laws, gun violence involving youths, and emphasis on increasing security in schools.
Last October, Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a district policy change to allow teachers to carry guns to prevent any incident in the future, similar to the Columbine incident. Their employees can carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings. However, the teachers have to follow certain requirements.
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The mass murder committed on December 14, 2012, at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, by a heavily armed young man who gunned down 20 children and six adults, has surpassed the atrocity that took place at the Columbine High School.
Scott Wilson, president of the Groton-based Connecticut Citizens Defense League suggested that lawfully arming school faculty and staff might help.
On Monday, December 17, Attorney General Greg Abbott said that 78 Texas school districts do not meet the state-mandated safety standards to protect their students.
State Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas
Jason Villalba, the newly elected state representative from North Dallas said: “Unfortunately, law enforcement personnel cannot be everywhere at all times, … We need to talk very frankly, about how we can protect our children if the unthinkable should occur.” He further added that he would file legislation to allow public school teachers to carry concealed weapons while on campus.
The bill, which Villalba calls the “Protection of Texas Children Act,” would allow schools in Texas to appoint a member of their faculty as a “school marshal.” The marshal, with training and certification, would be able to “use lethal force upon the occurrence of an attack in the classroom or elsewhere on campus,” said a press release from Villalba’s office.
We can hear questions such as these floating around:
Should teachers be armed?
Should parents with permits be allowed to bring guns to school?
Would it give a school a fighting chance when under siege by armed lunatics?
Would the guns lead to more violence?
Now, debates have heated up between the advocates of “gun control” and those favoring “gun rights”. Both factions agree on what happened in Newtown on Friday as unthinkable, but when the discussion turns to preventing future school shootings, they disagree.
“On this day, we call for teachers to receive supportive environments, adequate quality training as well as ‘safeguards’ for teachers’ rights and responsibilities…We expect a lot from teachers – they, in turn, are right to expect as much from us. This World Teachers’ Day is an opportunity for all to take a stand.” – Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General.
The teacher can mould or trim the minds of students.
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The World Teachers’ Day was established in 1994 by UNESCO.
UNESCO and its partners, the International Labour Organization, UNDP, UNICEF and Education International (EI) have the slogan “Take a stand for teachers!” for celebrating World Teachers’ Day 2012 on October 3, 2012.
According to UNESCO, the teaching profession is losing its status in many parts of the world. “World Teachers’ Day” calls attention to the need to raise the status of the profession, to acknowledge the crucial role teachers play in building the future.
Why take a stand for teachers? According to UNESCO the profession is losing its status in many parts of the world. World Teachers’ Day calls attention to the need to raise the status of the profession – not only for the benefit of teachers and students, but for the society as a whole – to acknowledge the crucial role teachers play in building the future.
Having been a teacher, I can vouch that a guru can trim, shape and mould or maul minds the way they want.
In present times, in many countries, people celebrate Teachers’ Day as a unique day to appreciate their contributions within the field of teaching or for their service to their community.
During the 20th century, the concept of celebrating Teachers’ Day took root independently in many countries. Unlike other International days on “Teachers’ Day “people celebrate a local educator who happens or happened to be a milestone in education.
Since 1962, India celebrates Teachers’ Day on September 5 on Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s birthday – a philosopher, statesman and the second President of India from 1962 to 1967. Since 1915, Argentina commemorates the death of activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and its seventh President, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento on September 11 as its Teachers’ Day. This is the primary reason why countries are celebrating this day on different dates.
The following countries celebrate Teachers’ Day during the month of October.
Country
Date of Teachers’ Day
Notes
Afghanistan
Oct 15
Schools have a holiday, but students and teachers gather to celebrate in schools with special traditional food, cookies, music and presents for the teachers
Armenia
First Sunday in October
Australia
Last Friday in October
Azerbaijan
October 5
Between 1965 and 1994, the first Sunday of October. Since 1994, on October 5.
Bangladesh
October 4
Belarus
First Sunday of October
Brazil
October 15
A decree regulating the elementary schools in Brazil. The celebration gained popularity throughout the country, and October 15 was officially designated Teachers’ Day in 1963.
Bulgaria
October 5
October 5 was recognised as Teacher’s Day by the government on September 29, 2006.
Chile
October 16
In 1967, September 11 was chosen as “Día del Maestro” (“Teacher’s Day”). The date was moved to December 10 in 1975, because on that day in 1945, the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral received the Nobel Prize. In 1977, the date was renamed to “Día del Profesor” (also “Teacher’s Day”) and was moved again, to October 16, to honor the founding of the Colegiode Profesores de Chile (Teachers’ Association of Chile).
Estonia
October 5
Germany
October 5
Laos
October 7
Lithuania
October 5
Between 1965 and 1994, the first Sunday of October. Since 1994, on October 5.
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Impressions 