Letter From The Deputy Editor: Making Learning Simple and Fun
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here are many ways to measure one’s life. And I mean measure in a literal sense. You could measure it in birthdays, anniversaries or promotions. You could, like TS Eliot’s Prufrock, do it in coffee spoons. There is another way though, albeit unconventional. You can measure it in the number of good teachers you met as your biological clock wound down. These are the people who forever illuminated some part of the jumble that passes off as the universe.  I remember Paula Ghosh, without whom I would have never learnt to love English. Then there was Mr Pattarkine—I never dared ask his first name—without whom integral calculus would have been all Greek. Electromagnetic waves would have been all harmful radiation if Ms Megha Kolhekar hadn’t come along. As good a teacher these people may have been, I found a better one a few years ago. While trying to explain to my daughter the concept of addition and subtraction, I discovered a video on the number line made by someone called Salman Khan. (Not Biceps and “Commitment” Salman Khan.) My daughter’s math improved and she won’t forget “Sal Khan Uncle”. Khan’s videos were everything learning ought to be: Simple and fun. |
