Math Knowledge

Two mathematicians were having dinner in a restaurant, arguing about the average mathematical knowledge of the American public. One mathematician claimed that this average was woefully inadequate, the other maintained that it was surprisingly high.

"I'll tell you what," said the cynic. "Ask that waitress a simple math question. If she gets it right, I'll pick up dinner. If not, you do." He then excused himself to visit the men's room, and the other called the waitress over.

"When my friend comes back," he told her, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to respond `one-third x cubed.' There's twenty bucks in it for you." She agreed.

The cynic returned from the bathroom and called the waitress over. "The food was wonderful, thank you," the mathematician started. "Incidentally, do you know what the integral of x squared is?"

The waitress looked pensive; almost pained. She looked around the room, at her feet, made gurgling noises, and finally said, "Um, one-third x cubed?"

So the cynic paid the check. The waitress wheeled around, walked a few paces away, looked back at the two men, and muttered under her breath, "...plus a constant."

------------------------

I found this anecdote here. Do visit the site if you want to read more.

व्याख्या : शैक्षणिक गुणवत्ता प्रश्नोत्तरे - 2

शैक्षणिक गुणवत्तेची व्याख्या कशी करतात?

शैक्षणिक गुणवत्तेची ठोस व्याख्या करता आलेली नाही. शैक्षणिक गुणवत्ता सुधारण्याशी सामाजिक उद्दिष्टे, सर्व पातळ्यांवरील निर्णयप्रक्रियेतील सहभागाचे स्वरूप असे मूलभूत प्रश्न निगडित आहेत.

शैक्षणिक गुणवत्तेच्या बहुआयामी विचारामध्ये पुढील पाच अंगांचा समावेश आहे :

1. अभ्यासक्रम

2. शिक्षकांची भूमिका

3. शाळेची संरचना

4. मूल्यनिर्धारण आणि देखरेख

5. स्रोत

ह्या पाचही गोष्टींची गुणवत्ता अंतिमतः शैक्षणिक दर्जा ठरण्यासाठी कारणीभूत होते. भारतामध्ये बहुसंख्य विद्यार्थ्यांसाठी सध्याच्या व्यवस्थेत अभ्यासक्रम फारच साचेबंद झाला आहे (किंबहुना ठराविक क्रमिक पुस्तके म्हणजे अभ्यासक्रम असा समज शिक्षकांनी करून घेतलेला आहे). शिक्षकाचे एकूण उत्पन्न आणि नाममात्र उत्पन्न ह्यातील फरक कमी झालेला आहे, म्हणजेच त्याचे "खरे' उत्पन्न कमी झाल्याने आपल्या पेशात त्याला स्वारस्य उरलेले नाही. शाळेची संस्थात्मक संरचना पुरेशी लवचिक नसल्याने नवीन बदलांचा स्वीकार करणे अवघड होत आहे. मूल्यनिर्धारण आणि देखरेख हे केवळ उपचार ठरत आहेत. शिक्षणाची जी काही गुणवत्ता अजून शाबूत आहे ती केवळ पारंपारिक स्रोतांच्या जोरावर टिकून आहे. नव्या स्रोतांची निर्मिती आवश्यक त्या वेगाने होत नसल्याने जुन्या स्रोतांना कवटाळणारे शिक्षण पुरेसे प्रागतिक होऊ शकत नाही. ह्या साऱ्यामुळे गुणवत्तेची घसरण, त्यामुळे स्पर्धात्मकता कमी, त्यामुळे अपयश, सतत येणाऱ्या अपयशाने अनास्था व अनास्थेमुळे गुणवत्तेची आणखी घसरण असे हे दुष्टचक्र आहे.

Blogging

Unless you already have a blog and/or website, I'd earnestly request you have your presence on the web. The blog (short for web-log) of course is the simplest way. It is not necessary to make your blog public, only you may view it or alternatively you can easily restrict the viewership to your colleagues associates etc. If you make it public, lay people like me will also benefit. Eventually you can make your blog into an e-book or a printed book.

The blog is actually your digital diary where you can store anything from videos, music, graphics, pictures and text. The beauty is in the ability to pack almost infinite information in a single textual word or character by simply hyper-linking it to the information you want to classify/store. You go on posting the way things come your mind. Then you can categorize with labels/tags and the posts get automatically classified. You need not publish under you own name. But when you publish something of value, why not?

It's a way of keeping your personal thoughts and knowledge effortlessly recorded. You can easily draw upon it as a resource pool in future. You can also save your posts as drafts indefinitely, before you ultimately publish them. Moreover you are not using your pc's valuable hard disk space. It is stored on some hosting company's server. Everything is free. (Just give yourself a Broad Band connection for ease of operation). More importantly, you do have a duty towards your talents. Your talent already known to others and as well as known only to a few but not others. Now could be the time to make it known too.

Through the ages the typical enlightened Indian mind is against perpetuating its footprint and its achievement. It is a sublime and insouciant stance of the recognised, against the impermanence of things and against materialism. As a result we have a glorious history and rich heritage of knowledge but little or no documentation. This is yet another reason why one should overcome the reluctance and/or phantasm (doubting relevance and utility of your writing) and start blogging.

Why add another project to your already heavy burden?

To help ease your psyche. While writing, you may write only a few sentences but in the process 'n' number of things cross your mind. Thereby your many conscious creations get automatically externalised, (though not actually recorded) giving you a much needed relief.
A thinker once said that he could see some promise in me as a writer. "Do you write?'' he asked me. When I replied in negative, he said I should write, write anything, even a diary, so that I should not repent later that I did not write. I started writing 20 years after that incidence and I am really repenting that I did not start earlier. My son was asking me to write a blog since last three years and I am repenting that I did not start writing it then.
From students and professionals to eminent scientists and thinkers, everybody is blogging. Why not you, and if you do, please let everybody know!

शैक्षणिक गुणवत्ता प्रश्नोत्तरे - 1

शैक्षणिक गुणवत्ता म्हणजे काय?

अनेक विकसनशील देशांमध्ये, विशेषतः "दुसऱ्या' जगातील देशांमध्ये चर्चेत असलेला हा प्रश्न आहे. ह्या प्रश्नाकडे पाहण्याचा भारतीय दृष्टिकोन असलेला लेख येथे वाचता येईल.

अंदाजपत्रकातील तरतुदी, शिक्षकभरतीचे धोरण, अभ्यासक्रम, भाषाशिक्षण, विद्यार्थ्यांना मार्गदर्शन, विद्यार्थ्यांच्या कलानुसार त्यांचे शिक्षणशाखांमध्ये वर्गीकरण, शैक्षणिक व्यवस्थापन, शिक्षक-विद्यार्थी गुणोत्तर, शिक्षणसंस्थेचा परिसर, शिक्षकांचे शिक्षण आणि प्रशिक्षण अशा विविध शिक्षणविषयक बाबींचा विचार त्यामध्ये येतो.

ह्या क्षेत्रात कार्यरत असलेल्या काही स्वयंसेवी संस्थांनी आपल्या कामाची दिशा नक्की करण्यासाठी ज्या चार महत्त्वाच्या प्रश्नांची उत्तरे शोधण्याचे ठरवलेले आहे, ते प्रश्न असे आहेत -

1. आपल्या विद्यार्थ्यांनी काय शिकावं असं आपल्याला वाटतं?

2. विद्यार्थ्यांनी ते शिकून आत्मसात केलेलं आहे का हे आपल्याला कसं कळेल?

3. विद्यार्थ्यांनी ते आत्मसात केलेलं नसेल तर आपण काय करणार आहोत?

4. ज्या विद्यार्थ्यांनी हे आत्मसात केलेलं आहे त्यांना आणखी सखोल ज्ञान देण्यासाठी आपण काय करणार आहोत?

शासकीय स्तरावरून शिक्षणाची गुणवत्ता सुधारण्याचा जेव्हा प्रयत्न होतो तेव्हा त्याला प्रचंड विरोध होतो असा सार्वत्रिक अनुभव आहे. कॅनडामधील काही राज्यांनी केलेला शैक्षणिक गुणवत्तेचा कायदा वादग्रस्त ठरलेला आहे. ऑस्ट्रेलियामध्ये शालांत परीक्षा मंडळांवर गुणवत्तेच्या प्रश्नासाठी नियंत्रण ठेवणारे मंडळ आहे. परंतु त्याला मर्यादित यश मिळालेले आहे. महाराष्ट्रातील उचपदस्थ शैक्षणिक अधिकाऱ्याने वैफल्यग्रस्त होऊन दिलेला राजीनामा हे एक ताजे उदाहरण आहे. (चौथीमध्ये गुणवत्ता प्रमाणक अशी सार्वत्रिक परीक्षा घेण्याचा प्रयत्न ह्या अधिकाऱ्याच्या अधिपत्याखाली झालेला होता.)

चीनमध्ये ह्या प्रश्नावर लक्षणीय संशोधन झालेले आहे व ह्या दिशेने त्या देशाला मिळालेले यश लक्षणीय मानले जाते.

Personal Productivity

Personal productivity is currently the most fervently discussed topic on the web. With his "First Things First" and "Seven Habits," Stephen Covey invaded the lives of managers and aspiring leaders in every field. David Allen's "Getting Things Done" made history with GTD becoming the buzz word. 'Geeks' and netizens flocked around the concept and chirped and croaked 'GTD' to no end. PIM (Personal Information Management) software applications like MS Outlook and the ever expanding G-mail incorporated GTD into their newer versions with modifications and add-ons. Many other productivity gurus joined the fray and tweaked the idea to develop their own "systems."

There are thus many "productivity schools." You have Mark Forster's 'Do It Tomorrow' (DIT), Neil Fiore's 'The Now Habit,' and ZTD - a combination of Zen Habits and GTD, to name a few. All these systems preach various systems of time management or life management.

Covey asks you to define various roles you need to play in life and classify your "to-dos" according to various combinations of urgency and importance with reference to your roles in life. The tasks are also classified as leading to spiritual and non-spiritual developmental goals and a conscious effort is advised to strike a balance.

David Allen's ('DA') system GTD advocates unloading psyche of its various minor or major preoccupations as to-dos into some system, a process of capture. The captured tasks are then classified as actionable and non-actionable and so on to the smallest actionable unit i.e. 'next action'. At any moment you choose from these next actions to act upon it, considering the elements of suitability viz. context, your level of energy etc. In this manner you progress bit by bit to your goal ('project') engaging in periodical reviews on the way, to gather your bearings. The aim of the system is to achieve a de-cluttered, stress-free, "mind like water" state akin to the idea of "flow" put forth by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.

DIT advises you to take up only chewable bites and limit your daily tasks by "closing the lists" while The Now Habit teaches you to deal with procrastination issues and also incorporates the idea of "un-scheduling".

Finally, there is also a book called "The Perfect Mess" that theorizes 'hidden benefits of disorder'. (By Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman ).

There are various e-mail groups that discuss and explore these systems.

J Krishnamurti has classified time into three varieties. Genealogical Time, Mechanical Time and Psychological Time. With a marked shift from earlier years, the modern systems are venturing into psychological time management along with management of mechanical time. However, they seem to ignore the individual's appetite for leisure (the way we speak of the risk appetite of an investor). Any prior definition of leisure tends to lose its very essence and turns it into "work." The 'let go' approach should be inducted in the right doses to satisfy this appetite. (This I find in DIT to some extent). Otherwise, to quote Krishnamurti again, it becomes an "effort" 'to become' efficient/happy/successful rather than 'being' efficient/happy/successful "effortlessly".

Warning : Productivity literature is dubbed as 'Productivity Pron' (Euphemism for "porn") in which people indulge to get pseudo-satisfaction of being productive.