Visual Critical Thinking X: What's happening with all the carts?

Photographed by K. Ramnath Chandrasekhar

Today’s class was interesting as I had decided to bring awareness about a topic that was close to home using this picture.  The children had to observe the picture and come to a conclusion as to what was happening and give evidence to the claim they make.

Shahul observed that these looked like poor villagers transporting sand to build mud houses as they couldn’t afford concrete houses. Cessie agreed with Sal and mentioned that they transport mud to make their home and wet sand was needed for it.  When questioned what is the difference mud and sand and do they use sand to build mud houses, they thought maybe clayey soil or sand mixed with water is mud. 

Izzy mentioned that they were transporting the sand as construction material to other places. Saharban told that it looked like they were collecting even wooden planks to help construct their houses or they were using the wood for making more carts. That’s when Mooz jumped in with his observation that one cart was empty and turned in the opposite direction which meant that they kept going back to get more and more sand. Ruqayyah observed that they seemed to have travelled far away for transporting the sand and were just in the middle of a vast plain where it had rained as there were water puddles and agreed with Mooz’s observation of one cart going to get more sand perhaps.  On closer look, they all agreed that the wooden planks were in place to hold the sand, filled to the cart’s brim, from slipping off.

The caption of the picture was revealed and we zoomed in on the picture, we could see the blurred images of at least three earthmover equipment mining sand.  I referred them to the photo story by noted conservationist and educator, Ramnath Chandrasekhar, on how monsoon failure and dry rivers leads people on a sand mining spree. We discussed the dire consequences of this environmental imbalance which sometimes even leads to the river changing course or disappearing entirely not to mention how people lose life in this illegal sand mining incidents.

The children were shocked to know the details and had many questions on why does the government not intervene, how can someone continue to destroy natural resources despite knowing the consequences and how were they permitted to wreak such havoc in society. Does the construction industry deploy such means to procure their material and are they not aware of the illegal sources of their material?  Questions, that are very difficult to answer by any one person. 

The impact this activity has on these young minds is tremendous. Some of the outcomes are the ability to observe, analyse for evidence to back their observations, form thoughts and voice their opinions, accept others’ perception even when it did not align with one’s perception along with learning to take a stand for what is right.  All this not mentioning the awareness created about social issues. Can I ask for more in an English class for grade 7 as I foresee influencers being shaped out of my students?  

- Naqeeb Sultana

Middle School English Teacher

Nanowrimo and the Reluctant Writer

For the past two years this kid never took part in Nanowrimo. Last year's Nanowrimo writing class was no different despite going through the process. This year also the child started with, "Do I have to attend the nanowrimo class as I am not writing a story."

I told this child to join me on this rollercoaster ride to pick a few skills while enjoying the process.  The child agreed. 

Although a little skeptical in the beginning, I gave up my English classes for this creative writing workshop. We've been going through all the elements of creative, narrative writing in depth and assignments to implement the learning.

 Last class this kid asked me, "Aunty! Is it too late to start the nanowrimo. As I am writing this story and want to develop it, can I use it for my Nanowrimo."

"It's not late yet," chorused the class drowning my voice in answer to the query.

The back and forth discussion, suggestions, corrections, modifications, improvisations - SubhanAllah! I am looking forward to each of these classes now.

Waiting to read this story of the fussy twins caught in a parallel dimension of their routine world and their adventure which brings them closer to each other despite their love-hate relationship.

Alhamdulillah online or offline, lockdown or no lockdown, this child's transformation to writing a novel spanning thousands of words is my treasured take away from this entire process. 

Masha Allah thoroughly enjoying this journey, Alhamdulillah.

- Naqeeb Sultana

Middle School English Faculty

Teaching Critical Thinking through Big History - The Big Bang

There's got to be a million reasons why I love teaching Big History to my 8th graders. But the first and foremost is that it leads to wonderful discussions in the classroom - which afford me a peek into the minds of my students and how they are developing various skills. Another facet of the course is its strucutre and how it develops vital academic skills in students - critical thinking, evaluation, argumentation based on evidence, deep reading and high quality written communication.

We recently started up the 2nd Unit on the Big Bang. The first activity required students to think up of a natural disaster and then list causes that led to it - in the short, medium and long term.  The students worked for this assignment using the Breakout Rooms feature in Zoom. As I kept popping in and out of their rooms, I witnessed interesting discussions. One of the teams had chosen the 2004 Tsunami - they listed the earthquake in Indonesia as the immediate cause but were able to go back further into continental drift to use plate shift tectonics as a core reason. They were further back into the formation of the earth's crust and mantle to explain how plates were formed and are constantly moving even today - which led to the earthquake and therefore the tsunami.

The Vocab Wall activity was an incredible way to help students and deepen enhance their understanding of word meanings. Each student was assigned 2 words which they had to research - meanings, synonyms, antonyms and context. Words ranged from "parallax", "evidence", "intuition", "astronomical" & "hydrogen".  Then they had to browse the BH unit to find their word's usage in articles or activities. Finally we had a WORD WAR - where students had to justify using evidence why their word was the most important word in the entire unit. For this, the students really had to understand the context in which the word was used. Next, they had to identify another word in the list which was connected with their word. Again, they had to justify their connection. Students readily challenged each other's arguements. Some also stepped into to support a flailing classmate - which reflected a sense of empathy and connection. 

From there we dived deeper into understanding what the Big Bang was through videos and discussions. The article on Complexity provided a context for how each Threshold emerged through Goldilocks conditions which provided increasing complexity.  

Today we worked on understanding a graphical representation of the first threshold and students had to come up with interesting hashtags to briefly summarize their understanding. Hashtags ranged from #beginnings, #allmatter, #lifebegins, #whereallenergywas released.

We watched the Big Bang video and classified learning into the S-E-C model - Support - Extend - Challenge. For this activity, use used the Zoom Whiteboard where students could collaboratively add their ideas in real time. We discussed how it was easy to identify ideas which "Supported' our thinking and also those which "Extended" our thinking, but extremely difficult to find ones which "Challenge" our thinking. I told the students that they should constantly be aware and analyze the readings for such ideas and tease them out - a good pointer on metacognition and deeper thinking.  

For next time, they have to do a "Literature Review" by finding and reading articles on the latest scientific understanding of the Big Bang and make a group presentation. They have to use their newly learned skills on Claim Testing to evaluate the authenticity of the article and website by assessing whether the author of the article is an "authority" on the subject or not.  We discussed how "authority" can be achieved - through education, experience and reputation in the field, but how also, "authority" is sometimes attributed implicitly and incorrectly based on race, gender or socio-economic condition. This led to a discussion on how women scientists and mathematicians often have a battle on their hands to garner equal respect and authority for their work as men. 

Truly, teaching Big History can give any educator a well deserved buzz, especially in these trying times of school lockdowns.