Media Education in school is a pressing need…

Are our kids media literate?  Have we ever advocated our kids about internet etiquette? Do our kids have any idea about the mechanism of how some multi-media organization  and paper media offices work?  Today, our kids are exposed to various magazines, news papers, television programmes and to internet?  Therefore it is definite that they are exposed to various audio-visual information hardly realizing that these aired information can be commercially motivated-some with bias propaganda and some with chauvinistic drive. Every concerned parents and educationists should realize the immediacy of advocating kids especially upon the digital media. Today, parents cannot afford to be complacent and shift this delicate task to our teachers and play safe-in fact it’s a joint responsibilities.

In a school setting, teacher can advocate and make our kids aware of how to approach and how to react to various technological gadgets- and the information that they derived with use of such hi-tech gadgets. While at home parents can be exemplary and monitor how they respond to such gadgets and the information that they accumulated through it.  As a matter fact, educating our kids to handle multimedia with right approach is the key.

Today, modern media is aggressive-fast and tingling.  In the pretext of sustenance, at times various vulgar images and tapes are flashed to earn money.  Moreover, business orientated ads thinks in terms of profit and can go to any extent to falsify information and annoyingly play foul with the language. Let’s accept it, their intent is more to profit than product.  However, it would be naïve to blame the media-perhaps it is our complacency and ignorance that is more to blame.

The video violence through some Play station and computer games, television, movies are rampant.  At times, exhibition of pornography and vulgarism in digital gaming world is too extreme for psychological growth of our kids.  Moreover, sexism, stereotypical showcase of products and some ads are too impractical to comprehend yet viewers are easily mesmerized to it.

Can anyone really increase their heights with xyz product?  It is pretty amazing to believe that there are some products which can help to pop out our muscles without exercise?  Would you like to use perfume that makes girls run after you?  A fake dentist telling us to use his choice of product is too cheap to watch?   There is nothing wrong in watching such amazing creativity but how you respond to it after watching is critical.

Friends, we really need to enlighten our kids to handle handsomely when it comes to media information. Let’s make them media literate otherwise unpleasant rumours and subjective opinion can lead to a society that can be extremely communal and  poorly educated citizen pertaining handling media and its mechanism.

The Night

Shhhhhh Silence! Please!

Heels up and on toes

The night whispered up to the jingle- jangle stars

Then seizing his soiled shoes he sneaked into the sleepy darkness

Like an unsettle thief eyeing only for his price.

The old boring yellow moon raised his grey brows and asked,

“Hmmm, I can see you!

Daring to do away with your duty huh?”

Gasping and scowling the night replied,

“Gone! I am gone! I yearn for freedom!

Over the hushed hills and cold canyons

He rode his horse-flip flop! Flip flop!

And the wind came yapping and whining like a lost puppy,

“You can’t leave me behind-I am all yours,

This wood-the smell of our home,

Songs of our birds and your favourite-roasted corn of the early summer,

Your books and your pipe-won’t you miss them?

My love! My Love! Come home-Stay!.”

Poor wind! Her diamond like tears tickling down,

She was rustling through the dead oaks.

“I wish I could.” The night trembled

Good bye! Love! ”

The sea was calling him as death waited with oars on his hand,

Down he plunged deep into the gargling sea

Never to be seen again.

In the name of SUPW

SUPW can never be fun if you can’t really comprehend its concept and its mechanism in the first place. Let’s accept this! There are sizable numbers of people who are unable to foresee its essence.   And mind you!  The projection of SUPW was poorly handled-poorly advertised then.  Thus, people were bound to cramp it down to so called manual work that we do in the form of grass cutting, fencing, cleaning school campus-so on and so forth.  Therefore,   as an entity of school organization-teachers like us have tremendous responsibility to steer them towards understanding the concept of SUPW.  And ofcourse, educated parents probing their kids towards understanding the essence of SUPW can be a plus point for the school as well as to the student.

Personally speaking-when I was student my understanding of SUPW in school was more of community services and school campus beautification- and bit of occasional cleaning here and there.   There was no mass awareness-educative campaign pertaining to SUPW.   Perhaps, many of my friends would too share the same sentiments about SUPW. However, the spirit of SUPW was upheld in the school gardens, uprooting marijuana around, grass cutting-cleaning lhakhangs etc.

During those days I did my SUPW not because I was motivated to embrace and respect the idea of blue collar job nor was I made to feel that sense of belongingness of one’s environment.  Partially-yes there was this instinctive feeling of rendering yourself for social cause.  Rather my notion of doing SUPW was largely motivated by grades-like-for getting “A” grade.   As long as I was ensured by my teachers about the grade, I wouldn’t mind doing any manual work.  But, if the teacher was simply assigning a task without the promise of awarding grade(Marks) then there would be a sudden change of mood towards the work.  I felt like as if I was imposed.  Thus, that sense of betrayal was felt and I would feel that I have wasted my time, energy-and the work was done for free (This realization was wrong!).  The whole idea of SUPW looked like a business-make me work but give something in return. I will work if you give-that kind of belief grew strong and gradually the values like being selfless –sense of belongingness-volunteerism-collective responsibility to help-and the word, “Volunteerism” had to be with some benefits towards volunteers.   Therefore, at times what we have intended-our cause with certain noble initiatives can simply turn otherwise.

We have core human values which SPUW can never equate-but yes-it can further strengthen. in fact SUPW  is suppose be a stimulating factor for sustaining human values.  And we have to understand that SUPW goes beyond those manual works which kids do in the schools.  Exciting-School club activities and assignments-outdoor simple survey catering to their passion-hobbies can give the real meaning to SUPW. Intriguingly, monitoring kids’ activities during break by recording their services is timely and thoughtful.

 But, sadly, SUPW is imagined as a bait to make kids do social services and it is becoming quite a challenge to make them appreciate the idea of having SUPW in the school arena.

Perhaps sitting together and finding a certain common definition, its characteristics and its mechanism-essence can help.  Simply limiting SUPW to gardening, maintenance of furniture in the name promoting vocational skills and some other  physical activities without making kids intellectually aware of why they are made to do SUPW can be futile for the kids in the future.  

SUPW is here to stay and lets all stop for while and brood over it...

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”  Albert Einstein

High level of creativity is a reflection of high level of visualization-of that particular kid.  Knowledge can programmed into our kids but imagination cannot-unless parents and educators create a learning setting which will make them to invoke their mind to higher level of questioning-higher level of discussion within active groups and of course providing them a space to experiment. 

A learning process that demands exploration-discovery and strong reasoning helps kids to achieve high level of realization at end of task.  Such activities can drive them to visualize-and when their visualization is materialized-it is creativity-it is pure imagination! 

An imaginative kid is more likely to succeed and led an interesting(meaninful) life than kid who always runs for facts and figures.  A kid that is imaginative is generally characterized by keen sense of maturity in terms of creativity and critical thinking.  Rigorous curiosity and eagerness to learn new things is overwhelming. These kids are thinkers-planners-highly aware and realized in their respective fields.  He is an insatiable explorer  of his mind who firmly believes in his power of imagination.

Whereas the kid who is more glued to framed information is likely be to be stagnant –rigid in terms of originality and will be too bookish in nature.  Moreover in life, he/she will be docile to their bosses and to their company.  If he becomes a boss, he will be one-sided- shamelessly and animatedly pushing his views to be the reckoned as a universal truth by his subordinates.  As a boss, he will create more panic-indecisiveness  will be apparent and weaken his managerial profile through constant threatening and ofcourse shying away when problems arises. Their speeches, interviews and presentation will boring. If they are panelist-judge-it will be stereotypical-demanding nothing more than facts and figures.  His/her understanding of the world will be within his home to his office. And their presentation of life would of complete obedience to their environment knowing that there is more for amendments-room for innovation.  These kids in life would never learn the true meaning of freedom. Limiting his rights-limiting his mind he won’t even realize that he had killed his power of imagination!

Imagination leads to creativity and creativity leads to success (Success may not necessarily refer to high post in govt. / some corporate companies-here success means being able to realize your imagination and deriving satisfaction from it-its freedom.)

 Blindly bombarding the kids with bookish information and shaping accordingly to your thoughts and beliefs is a deadly way of killing a child’s imagination.  As parent-as an educator, lets create more thinkers than robots-because robots never ask why two plus two equals to five-instead, annoyingly, they keep on repeating-two plus two equals five...