AN INTERESTING BRAINSTORMING CLASSROOM SESSION

FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

 

 

 

 

 

AN INTERESTING BRAINSTORMING CLASSROOM SESSION

 

In a school classroom during the last period before a week-end, a brain-stormy and thought-provoking session started with the teacher asking a student to tell him which, according to him, was a great invention/discovery. Pat came the reply, “It is a bicycle, Sir.” The teacher questioned the student, “When there are myriad contraptions, inventions and discoveries, how come your choice is a bicycle?” The student confidently declared, “When you are riding on a bicycle, you sit pretty well in comfort on it and the moment you stop pedaling bringing the cycle to a halt, you simply lose balance and fall; isn't it? That comes amaze me. A marvelous phenomenon, Sir?” Another boy affirmed with a nod, “Yes Sir, it is true. The same is the case when I play with my tyre (of a bicycle/two-wheeler) rolling it by prodding and guiding with a stick.” Both students joined together and beamingly asserted and insisted on what they felt as ‘wondrous and inexplicably mind-blowing’.  The teacher having expected something very big to emerge as an answer, though taken aback by this seemingly weird response for a while, managed to smile it off with a gentle nod at those two boys. He then turned to another student seeking her response.

 

That girl declared an airplane as her favourite. The choice was obvious because airplane is an excellent invention of the mankind which took cues from flying birds. Exclaimed she, “Inter-continental flights are awesome transport models with mind-boggling speed making distances shrink and rendering them irrelevant these days. Aren’t they?”

 

Some students were fascinated by modern communication and information dissemination devices like Radios, Transistors, Television, Phones – both wired lines and wireless (mobile) – Internet, email, etc. These students particularly felt mesmerized as to how come one is able to see things, persons and scenes quite far away, and communicate and interact with them comfortably sitting at home and/or workplace.

 

Another student insisted that a train moving on two parallel rails running at mind-defying high-speed and transporting a large number of people to different distant destinations without much of after-travel-effects like fatigue or wearisome, was the most-awesome one for him.

 

A different response was a simple catamaran or boat (oar-driven or fuel-driven), and of course the gigantic ships also  (including warships and submarines) sailing on water territories.

 

Yet another settled for water - blend of Oxygen and Hydrogen (H₂O) - an essential for all living-beings that needs no elaboration.

 

A further stunning response was ‘virus’. “One can't see the virus with naked eyes, but can with magnified lenses available in labs. The mode of the virus getting into the human system is through air, water, person-to-person contacts, etc. They then grow in multitudes, manifest into infections, and cause diseases like fever, headache, cold, etc. in simple forms, and like Typhoid, Hepatitis, T.B., etc. in wilder forms.” Though a negative factor, still it was the choice of that student. But equally challenging invention is the ‘antibiotics’ that kill the viruses relieving people from its clutches.

 

Different students named different things or concurred with the ones already named by others. Now came the turn of the teacher to disclose his opinion. The teacher quipped, “In my opinion, spectacle/vision glasses in different versions - bi-focal, D-bi-focal, progressive lenses, contact lenses, etc. - are the best inventions without which I could not read, write or teach you students.” He happened to have eye-power related issues right from his young age and but for the vision glasses it would not have been possible for him to complete his studies and accomplish his avowed dream of becoming a teacher and to stand before the students for teaching, which, according to him, was his most favoured choice. Standing erect with pride he asserted, “Being a teacher, I have the opportunity to interact with children and mould them into enlightened future citizens and also the future think tank. I thank God for the golden opportunity”.

 

No sooner did the bell ring marking the end of the period and the teacher called it a day than the students rushed out of the classroom.

 

All this points to the truth that all are not alike in their emotional contours, and levels of discernment and appreciation of things. And, all don’t have the same perceptual wave-lengths in their choices.

 

Summarizing, different people have different insights, sensitivities, and sensibilities about different things. As observed by our former President and nuclear-giant A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, every child is a scientist in his/her own way and according to their mental make-up, area of likes/dislikes and interests, they develop themselves to become whatever they want to - like Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Scientists, Pilots, Astronauts or anybody else in any field. After all, knowledge is power and more power means empowerment.

 

 

 

R.SAMPATH

24/12/2021