Like I said, we started our practicals recently and so far, I'm not impressed.

Science practicals were already a disappointment but, computer practicals were even worse.

First of all, I love computer practicals. Not because it's easy for me, but because I love seeing my technologically challenged classmates.

Well, this time, our syllabus for the practicals was blogging, Google translate and Google maps. Blogging is fine but the other 2 topics are useless as it is. Mostly because any idiot knows how to use it. All you have to do is type in words in a search box. And, Google is smart enough to correct spelling mistakes too, so... those topics are just meh.

Plus, for all topics, we had to use the internet. My school's internet is pretty similar to what I get at home and I can barely make do with that. But in school, the speed is divided over 20 - 30 computers. The original internet plan is around 500 Kb/s - 1 Mb/s but when it's divided into 25 computers, it's barely 20 Kb/s - 40 Kb/s.

That makes it tough to even log into blogger for the practicals. I'm not saying the school should spend thousands on internet but, at least conduct the practicals in groups of 5 or something.

Then, we started the practical. Well, some of us did. Others were just waiting for their stone age PC to run Internet Explorer, since they didn't have Firefox or Chrome. It wouldn't kill the teachers to install at least one good browser...not like it takes that long anyway.

So, we were given topics. What topics? Blog. Google map. Google translate.

Nothing else was told.

Then, we found out that we had to WRITE the practical exam. Now, writing for science practicals is fine, there are observations. But, what do you need to write for a computer practical exam? Then, she told us we had to write the steps. Steps for what exactly, I still don't know.

There was no real assignment. We just had to do what we can using our topic and write down steps of how we did it. She didn't even check what we had done. Just took our papers and pushed us out of the room.

If the practicals for the board exam are going to be the same, the board really is retarded. The whole point of having practicals, is to prove that we know how to do stuff. Why make the students write what they did when they can just show? I mean, we don't have to write the procedure for science practicals either.

And, Google map/translate is not a good topic for practical exams. Seriously. A 5 year old can use that nowadays. Maybe the teacher thinks we're just really REALLY bad at her subject which is really ironic because she doesn't even know what scratch is. (I can't use scratch that well either, but she has no idea what it is)

So, hats off to the school for finding such great teachers. And hats off to the board for making us write the procedure of our practical exam. And hats off to whoever thought Google map and Google translate was a good practical. (Kinda makes it tough for me to believe that Indians are considered to be good at computers)

We've read about this countless times in the newspapers or on the internet. But, I never believe it.

Well, there are times when some Americans really, really mess up their English. Not just the usual your and you're mess up, I'm talking about were and where. And, I've seen this from Americans and the English too. But, their spoken English is fluent.

Indians on the other hand, can't pronounce most words correctly. Our is mostly pronounced as a-v-er and five becomes fa-yu.

And, the newspaper articles clearly say "Indians speak English better than the British", it's not like they were talking about written English either.

Well, I can understand a few pronunciation errors. It's because of the accent, of course. But, a lot of Indians completely screw up their grammar as well.

Still, I can understand, it's not their first language. But, if you expect to work in an English medium school, you should be able to speak English.

The only teachers that can speak English properly are the English teachers. Everyone else is just not good enough. And, their struggle with the language is really obvious.

One time, I remember, the whole class was laughing because of the new computer teacher's English. I don't know if she was just acting like she didn't know why, but she started asking us questions like "Why you're laughing?" well, that made us laugh even more.

Then, we've had math teachers who would screw up their spellings. "Illimination" instead of "Elimination", "traingle" instead of "triangle" and more.

And the worst is when they literally translate from their language to English.

There's a phrase in Marathi, डोक्यावर चढू नकोस, which means, 'Don't irritate me.'

And the teacher literally translates the phrase into English, "Don't climb on my head."

So, the next time you feel good about yourself when you read such articles, forget about it. This statistic report is based on the results of an exam called TOEFL (Test of English as a foreign language) which students have to write if they want to go America for further education. And, these students speak English well, not all Indians.

India is known for it's vast culture. Now, it's a secular country, but most of the natives are Hindu. And the Hindu religion has 33 crore (330 million) Gods. That's 7 0s after 33.

Well, there's actually a reasonable explanation behind that number but, I bet, very few people are actually aware of it. Even the so-called theists don't actually know why there are 33 crore Gods.

I'm leaving aside the fact that I know about a lot of religious stuff even though I'm an atheist. But, if you're interested in knowing the truth about that huge number: http://ilikan.com/blog/ultimate-list-of-33-crore-gods-in-hinduism/ (uhm, don't worry, it's not a real list of 330 Gods)

So, in this hardcore religious country, where almost everyone is a believer, being an atheist is suicide.


So, a lot of atheists don't actually come out of the closet (metaphorically...) I used to be the same, I was scared, somewhat. But, then, I just got tired of it all and decided to start speaking up once and for all.

Well, it didn't make any difference, I'm still dragged to temples and have to take part in rituals.

But, soon, everyone around me knew I was an atheist and when these older people talk about me, all they say is


And then there's family. Not the close family, the distant relatives. They always pick such subjects when they visit and me and my brother just express our discomfort. And then the relatives turn towards my parents

Relative: हा नस्तिक अहे का? (Is he an atheist?)

Mother: हो. (Yes)

(Turning towards me)

Relative: तुला आत्ता ह्यवर विश्वास नाहि होणार पण मोठा झाल्याव्र तुला कळेल. (You won't believe now, but when                  you grow up, you'll understand.)

Well, not that it makes any sense but fine, let's assume, when I grow up, I'll have faith in God. Why waste my childhood in temples and rituals then? Why not just wait till I reach adulthood and develop the faith myself? Forcing it doesn't help.

In most of the other countries, believing is optional. And, they don't bite your head off for not believing. But, in India,

We recently started our terminal examination in school and as always, we started with the practicals. I'll discuss the oral examinations later because...that's something else entirely. But, we had science practicals and computer practicals recently.

Well, our science is divided into 2 parts:

1. Science A: Physics + Chemistry and one lesson on EVS (Environmental Science)
2. Science B: Chemistry + Biology and one lesson on EVS

Well, it is a known fact that Indians are good with computers. In fact, it's more of a racial stereotype. But, that really isn't true. Out of maybe 1.2 billion Indians, a few million are good with computers. And they're good, because they genuinely care about computers and have learned what they know online/from books/external classes.

What I hear from most of my foreign friends is that Indians are taught everything in school. But, again, that really isn't true. It's like our Bollywood movies. What foreigners think about us, is never really true.

Well, we are taught about computers in school, but that is nothing compared to what they should be teaching. Now, I'm not saying they should teach us C++, Java or any programming language to be honest. Not even talking about teaching Macromedia Flash, Photoshop or Scratch.

But, schools should teach us how to survive in today's digital world. As in, teach us how to

1. Upload videos/images/audios to specific sites like YouTube, Photobucket, Mediafire etc.
2. Back up our files using online cloud storage.
3. Creating and effectively using Blogs, Forums etc.
4. Making basic websites using pre-coded templates through sites like Network Solutions etc.

Few days ago, this incident took place in the capital of India.


And then, now, they're probably going to kill the tiger.

I don't get it, what did the tiger do? He just defended himself from what he thought was a potential threat.

Think about it, he spends all his time in that exhibit. No real visitors inside. Well, aside from zoo staff, but they're trained and they don't do stupid stuff like that boy.

Now, seeing someone new, not an actual zookeeper, must have provoked the poor fellow. And when that person started playing around, he must have seen him as a threat.

Well, what do humans do when they sense a threat? Easy.

1. Kill it
2. Shoot it
3. Blast it
4. Nuke it
5. Cut it
6. Slice it
7. Destroy it
8. Make a post on facebook that says "If this gets 1000000 likes, I will kill the threat"

Well, the tiger didn't have any other way to deal with a threat. So, he merely killed the human. Now, I don't know why he ate it, but, uh, that's not what I want to talk about it.

And now, people are trying to put the tiger down. All he did was act exactly like us. And, it's not like it's the first human eating tiger either. I remember when I visited Bandhavgarh, a national park in India. We did see a human-eating tiger, of course, we were far away but, the tiger was the largest of that park, and was known to be human-eating.

Is this tiger being put down just because he's in a zoo and he killed someone? Because, that's messed up. Those people took him out of his natural habitat and put him in a small exhibit. So, he really shouldn't be punished for this. It's not even as if he got out of his exhibit and started mass killing like Hitler.

Anyway, I just feel like everyone's over-reacting over this.

And, if you think so too, sign this petition to save the tiger.

I'm not sure if any absurd traditions exist in western cultures but we have too many. Maybe God accidentally gave traditions that were reserved for the westerners, to us Indians. And we over do these traditions, every time.

I'm not going to mention all the traditions because, every state has different traditions. Hell, every village has different traditions. And I don't even know all the traditions of my village.

But, let's discuss some of the well known traditions.

1. Birth. I don't know why this happens but, Indian fathers are not allowed to be in the room when their baby is born. It's not like they want to see...uh, the miracle of child birth, it's just that it's a little weird. I mean, why not? Does the mother not want anyone to see the child's gateway into the world? That's kinda redundant, in my opinion. The father's already seen it, that's how the baby got there. But, it is traditional for the father to wait outside. Then, the nurse or whoever is helping the mother with the delivery, brings the baby out of the room, and passes it on to it's father. Same scene in most movies and sitcoms.

2. I really would have liked to talk about Indian baby christening but, the westerners don't have it any less crazier than us so, I'll leave that out.

3. Eating curd before leaving the house for an important job is another tradition that bugs me. It is said that if we eat curd before leaving, success is ensured. And there is the 'converse' of this tradition, black cat crossing your path guarantees failure. But, just how is eating a dairy product going to ensure success?

Well, I'll talk about more traditions later.

4. 

In India, Feng Shui is known as Vastushastra. 'Vastu' means thing and 'shastra' means science. That drives me crazy. There is nothing scientific about Feng shui or Vastushastra. It's all superstitious.

When me and my family moved to this house, my brother was 14 and it was his time to face the board exam. And it is customary to have a few rituals when the house is new, as in, no previous owner. So, we had the rituals and after that, some person was called to give advice about the placement of furniture, a.k.a Vastushastra.

So, the guy told us all about 'The Science' behind Vastushastra and all that crap. And when he was told about my brother's studying years, he told my brother to hang three flutes on the southern wall of the room. And that would help him with his studies etc.

My parents, being believers of Vastushastra did as he said. They even hung three flutes in the third room of the house which was going to be mine when I grew up.

I don't see how 3 tubes of wood, with holes at regular intervals, and one flat end, taped on the southern wall of the room, is going to help anyone study. Well, even for superstitions, this one crazy.

Well, the flute was the instrument of Krishna, one of the major Hindu deities. I don't now about his academic performance but he was more known for his mischief, strength and uhm, many many wives (he had the ultimate swag apparently) And what about the southern part? I don't know of any connection between Krishna and the south. I know a south Indian who is a huge follower of Krishna, so maybe that's that.

But, I still don't get how having the instrument of the God who has nothing to do with studies, per se, is going t help someone study. Maybe if it was something like "Hang three live mice on the wall and feed them modaks (Indian sweet) everyday." because that's more Ganesh, and he is the God of Wisdom.

So, what led people to come up with this kind of stuff? Is it Feng Shui or drug enhanced imagination?

Right now, me and a few students from my school are writing various articles for the NIE newspaper, more on that later. But, me and my friend were asked to write an article about the CREO and Robotics programme of our school.

We were a part of the CREO programme so, we could write about it. But, the Robotics programme was a new addition and it wasn't for 10th graders, so we had to attend one session and we did.

Well, the students that were a part of this programme were 8 - 12 years old. And yet, they were being taught about electricity, the same thing we are being taught about in 10th grade.

But, their teacher was not using any kind of text-book. We were taught about electricity through a few practicals (because it was a part of our practical examination, not because the teacher wanted to teach us using a different method) and mostly, from our text-book. And it's easier to teach 15 year olds about electricity, especially since we had introductory lessons in 8th and 9th grade.

But, teaching 3rd graders about resistances, voltage etc. is pretty difficult. They don't even know what those terms mean. But, the teacher was doing a good job, he was using examples that they could relate to, to explain these terms. He would frequently ask the kids if they had any questions, or ask them questions to make sure they were understanding.

He taught them about the 3 main components of electricity, current, voltage (potential difference) and resistance.

After this, he even explained Ohm's law of resistance ie

Current flowing through a circuit is directly proportional to the potential difference, if the resistance remains constant.

and

Current flowing through a circuit is inversely proportional to the resistance, if the potential difference remains constant.

 He just blurted the laws for the sake of it. He explained it in his own words later. The struggle was visible since the kids didn't even know what proportionality meant. But, he taught them using various examples etc. He even showed them an easy trick to remember the relationship between current, potential difference and resistance.

A pyramid, divided into three parts, where V is the potential difference in volts (V), I is the current in amperes (A) and R is the resistance in ohms (Ω) 

Relationship of R with V and I: V is above R in the pyramid, and I is beside it, therefore, R = V/I.

Relationship of I with V and R: V is above I in the pyramid and R is beside it, therefore I = V/R.

Relationship of V with R and I: I and R are below V in the pyramid, therefore V = I x R.

All of which are formulae that we were taught in 10th grade. How were we taught about this relationship?

The electric current flowing in a metallic conductor is directly proportional to the potential difference across its terminals, provided physical conditions of the conductor such as length, area of cross section, temperature and material remain constant.

And then,

"These formulae are extremely important, you should know them by-heart." and done.

So, why can't our teachers teach us like that one did? Is it because they don't have enough time? Because, I'd rather spend time learning science like this, than learning geography through text book. Or is it because a teacher like that is rarer than an Indian without a thick accent?

To all the foreigners that follow my rants, 10th grade is one of the most important years in a student's life in India. All year round, we have exams which count to the final exam, the board exam. We have the entire syllabus, all that is taught all through the year. As if that isn't tough enough, there are a LOT of rules to be followed during this exam. Basically, almost everything about this exam is different.

It's a nationwide exam. The same question paper goes to every school, different question papers for different boards, of course. And once the exams are done, the government pays qualified teachers to check these answer sheets at three different levels.

1. Examiner: They are the ones that do most of the correction and they get around 300 papers. I think they are paid 5 bucks for each paper, depends on quality of work though.
2. Moderator: They make sure that the examiner hasn't made any mistake in marking, and check the total. If a student is getting 100% marks, they try to reduce marks by closely checking the answer sheet, and they simply sign average papers. They get around 5 bundles of 300 papers each, from 5 different examiners. If an examiner has made any mistake, it's the duty of the moderator to report it to the Chief Moderator.
3. Chief Moderator: Pretty much the least-effort job. Well, I wouldn't know, since I have never met one. But, I hear, it's their job to double check the work of the examiner and moderator. Also, they have to consider a moderator's reports. It's also their job to cut marks when a moderator is not able to. I'm guessing they get a lot of papers.

Last night, when my mother wanted to see if I was actually studying, she decided to ask me questions. I had nothing to fear, since I had actually studied (well, I had to, computer wasn't working) She started with definitions.

Now, I try to avoid memorizing and try and actually understand the concepts, so I knew the definitions pretty well. But, when I gave the answer, my mom corrected me.


I see no difference in the meaning of both answers. It's not as if I dumbed down the language either, I used all the important words. But my mother still told me not to write that in the exam and told me to memorize what was in the book.

Now, that's just absurd. Why waste time memorizing an one-line answer which you can write yourself since you actually know what it is? I would understand if I had said something like "An element is a thing that has only one type of atom and cannot be broken into any smaller pieces." but, that's not the case. The answer isn't wrong, I just changed the sequence.

But then, she told me that sometimes, the board examiners let others check the answer sheets. The examiners receive a model answer sheet, so that they know what the right answers are. And apparently, these helpers of the examiners, aren't really teachers, and just cross check the answers in the answer sheet with the model answer sheet.

So, I lose 1 mark, just because I changed the order of the sentence, which is perfectly fine by the way, and it still means the same thing?

Also, why are these people allowed to help the examiners? What qualifications do they have? In my opinion, they're dumber than a piece of wood if they don't know the difference between

"A substance which is made of only one kind of atom and which cannot be divided into any simpler substances is called an element." and

"An element is a substance which is made up of one kind of atom and which cannot be divided into anything simpler." You know what the difference is?

NOTHING!

And if my mother, who isn't a teacher or anywhere in the education system, knows about this external help that examiners get, the moderators and chief moderators definitely know about it. And if that's the case, shouldn't these examiners be removed from the list? And if they don't have enough examiners for an exam of this magnitude, why try to do it? Why jeopardize the future of students (not parrots that get every answer right because it's just copy paste from the book) because of one oddly framed sentence?

Oh and if the moderators think 300 exam sheets is too much for one examiner, WHAT ABOUT THE 300+ PAGES WE HAVE TO STUDY? If the examiner is allowed external help, why aren't we? And uhm, aren't the examiners teachers? Why do they even need a model answer sheet? Shouldn't they know all the answers as well?

Or is it that they just teach us from the books and dictate the answers while not knowing the answers themselves? Now, teachers will say that they know what they teach and they can explain any answer to us. But hey, so can I, only reason I can't do that is because the board expects EVERY SINGLE WORD RIGHT FROM THE BOOK, JUST THE WAY IT IS!

PS: I'm not trying to offend any teachers, I like some of my teachers because they actually teach us well. But some are just there for nothing. They make the students read the lessons, find the answers, and write them down. All those teachers do is, check our books (don't get me started on that, they don't even read, just put a tick mark) and mark our answer sheets. Is that the only reason we have teachers like this? Why bother, why waste the school's money, just replace them with online examinations.

Every year, a school in the city hosts a series of computer related competitions. Students from the 3rd grade to the 10th grade can participate and the topic ranges from MS Paint to HTML. Of course, students from that school participate as well.

I myself have participated in that competition every single year since 3rd grade and have won a few times too. But, most of the times, the winner is from their school.

They also host a quiz, computer based of course, where teams of 3 can participate. There is an elimination round and after that, 4 teams are selected for the finals. Well, I only participated in it once and sadly, my team wasn't selected.

However, my friend's team was selected and so, I decided to stay and watch the final round of the quiz. And what I saw pretty much made me lose faith in the school.

It started with introductions and it was all fine till then. But, when the questions were asked, all we got to see was the host doing




Of course, they gave the right answer, unlike drunken replies by Charlie Sheen. But, this was happening, which made all of us think...why had all these students come to this school, on a sunday, to watch the host school win their quiz, because they already knew the questions?

The only other explaination is, the students are psychics.


But, of course, why would they cheat?

For a while now, I've seen certain teachers pick on certain students. As in, they blame them for things they don't even do. Of course, the students do something to piss her off. But, when one student pisses off a certain teacher, he's the one she picks on when something else goes wrong.

Like today, the teacher was giving us an example to solve when she noticed noise coming from a part of the class. She then asked a kid to stand up and told him to get out of the class.

But, she refused to believe him. And it really wasn't him this time. And then, we saw the "Classic" move.


So, because of some girls that were talking, a guy that was wrongly accused, and a typical attitude of teachers, the rest of us had to suffer.

It's not as if I was too disappointed because she walked out, but, I just knew we were all going to get scolded for it. And we were.

There are also kids that are never scolded no matter what they do. So, why is there this favouritism/hate for specific students? Aren't teachers, or any authority figure, supposed to be completely non-biased? 

I think what a lot of teachers don't understand is that, we have other subjects. Because, we're given homework for all subjects and we have to study all the subjects as well. But then, if we complete homework of 4 subjects, and miss out on the 5th one,


screams the teacher of that subject. And when you try to explain why you didn't do the homework,


she again rages,


even if it's the first time.

And, they don't even know how much homework we have in other subjects.


And of course, they feel like their subject is the most important one.

So, most students end up choosing which subject to do well in and which subjects to leave out of the picture. Why can't we just have a choice of subjects in school itself? I don't see how subjects like Geography and History are going to be relevant if a student wants to become an engineer. (Not that 10th grade Geography is of any use anyway. What good does knowing about the physiography of the Ganga Plains do to a student who doesn't even live there? Seriously, the syllabus has to be changed.)

School is like a candy shop. There's a LOT to choose from, but you can only pick a few. You usually end up buying the cheap and tasty ones ie easy subjects that aren't time consuming. But, if you choose all subjects, you end up doing badly in all subjects, just like you end up with diabetes if you choose all the candy.

So, most of the students get bored during classes like Geography, History, Marathi etc where there is no real "audience" participation. Every student has different ways of over-coming this boredom. Let's look at some methods.

1. Solving sudoku from the daily "student newspaper", it's fun and you can do it nice and slow.


2. Racing your partner for the word search. Nothing spices up a boring class more than kicking some ass in a fun game. (I'm really quick.....and untidy)


3. Filling in the holes of your text-book with ink...sounds dirty but it is a good way to pass time when both sudoku and word search is done.


4. After a while, filling holes gets boring. So, we move on to become artists on the last page of the book.


5. And when being an artist just doesn't work for a non-artistic fella, go berserk and paint a better picture than The Mona Lisa. (That took 2 pens and a lot of time. So worth it though.)


I'll add more when I can click pictures.

For years I've been hearing adults sigh and say "Today's youth is like the western children. Even our country has become like western countries." as if that's a bad thing. But, when I watched a few American sitcoms and talked to students from various countries, I realized we're nowhere near their system.

This post would be really long if I pointed out all the differences, so, we'll stick to schools.

1. Schools:

In India, most schools have classes from Kindergarten to 12th grade. However, in most western countries, there are separate schools like Elementary School (Kindergarten - 4th grade), Middle School (5th - 8th Grade) and High School (9th - 12th grade) Of course, India does have a few schools that only provide Elementary education but, most schools take in students of all ages.

It's about time we realize



2. Classes:

In India, students have to stay in one class, while the teacher moves from one class to the other. In the West, the students have to move from class to class for their respective periods.

3. Studies and exams:

We all know how Indian exams are. You learn the answers like a parrot and write it all down on a paper to score marks. No one cares if you actually understood the concept, as long as you get good grades a.k.a you spend time learning answers. That's what studying is in India, it's not spending time to understand a concept through diagrams and videos etc, it's simply spending time to memorize it's definition and uses and stuff like that.

And then, we have this huge syllabus of 10 lessons that is, around 100 pages worth of answers to learn. And in the exam, we only have to write 6 - 7 pages. We spend hours, not studying/learning anything, to write an exam which doesn't even ask half of what we know. And of course, we have to write pages for an exam.

But, in western countries, they only have objectives. I'm not saying it's a good thing that they just have to select one of the choices given, but it is time efficient. They can actually learn something since they don't have to spend hours memorizing.

Now, let's take the example of a popular topic like the first world war. It's not as if people are actually going to ask you about this but, it's an important historical event that people should know about.





Thought we're done? Haha.


Not even close yet, buddy.


Okay, we're done.

Are you bored yet?


Seriously though, we're almost done.