Yoga is fine but Schools’ Infrastructure is more important!

Guest Column: Dr. N Prabhudev, Former Vice Chancellor Bangalore University

Bangalore, Nov. 17: Mindful yoga is still in its infancy. The science behind the yoga for school children is an area of ongoing research. Yoga positively helps Self-regulation skills, attention span and emotional stability. It has shown to Increase the Academic Performance of students. It strikes the right set of chords and brings that perfect mind-body balance! It enhances creativity and self-esteem. It is shown to reduce students Behavioural Problems.
Each morning, every classroom should begin the day with a prayer and some notes on topics such as gratitude, good citizenship and civic sense. Yoga is a Reset Button that has positive effects of self-regulation skills. Research suggests that yoga improves attention and memory and alleviate academic stress, three factors that are important for academic success.
School-based yoga may also help students cope with negative life events like disharmony at home. Many students report getting bullied. Bullying can lead to a variety of negative effects on students, including difficulties with academic performance. Yoga might help. Yoga is particularly well-suited to provide non-competitive, gentle ways for youth to engage in physical activity.
Schools with tomorrows class rooms!
The last few years have seen classrooms around the world are — shedding walls, gaining mobility, going smart and getting ambitious with its design. We have heard of Finland schools breaking down barriers and have made a name as one of the best schooling systems.
We are still teaching the same way we did 100 years ago. What students can do with what they know is a completely different education problem. The traditional model was designed for the industrial age with a teacher-driven pedagogy, encouraging obedience, following rules, being good at repetitive tasks — skills valuable in a factory.
The need now is for inter-disciplinary work, focussing on skills like cognitive flexibility, creativity, and emotional intelligence — and to give kids the freedom to do different things, in different ways, at different times.
A school is a home away from home for any student! Experienced teachers play a critical role in shaping students’ academic lives. Infrastructure is vital for students’ holistic development. In India the physical classroom is still a critical part of the learning experience along with classroom-based activities.
The conditions at the schools – the ambience should be calm, spacious with good amenities and utilities in a visually appealing landscape. The school should have enough lighting, useful facilities such as libraries, toilets, playgrounds, multipurpose rooms, work areas for administration, etc.
The impact of technology on education.
Technology has greatly expanded access to education. New technologies are steadily altering educational patterns. For successful teaching and learning experiences, the educational sphere is increasingly reliant on new technologies. They are enabling teacher’s interactions with students and presenting new ways to teach that could entirely transform the way learning environments look in the years ahead. Blackboards, textbooks, and libraries seem primitive in the age of tablets, smartphones, and e-books.
The most crucial component of any education is accessibility for simple and efficient learning. Professionals from around the world can give lectures to students via video streams.
Teaching is all about introducing students to a whole new world of concepts that they were previously unaware of. The impact of technology on education has opened several doors which aids better learning and understanding. With the Internet’s global reach and the prevalence of smart devices that can connect to it, a new era of anytime, anywhere education is coming into focus.
With knowledge and information available and constantly changing it is not how much they can remember, recite, repeat but how they can adapt and use that knowledge to make change, to innovate and be creative.

Please follow and like us: