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Education Has a Silver Bullet Problem

Professional development is frequently discussed as though attending the right workshop, participating in the right collaborative activity or adopting the right framework should produce better teaching in roughly predictable ways. The language changes, but the underlying assumption remains remarkably linear. Continue reading
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The Classroom Myths We Still Haven’t Let Go Of

Engagement is not learning, and no amount of watching a room from the outside will tell you the difference. The evidence for this isn’t new, isn’t contested, and isn’t waiting on more research to confirm it. It’s been sitting in the data since at least the 1970s. What’s missing isn’t proof. It’s the will to… Continue reading
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Compare and Contrast: Why do we even have to learn this!?
I was watching an interview with Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, when interviewer Wilfred Frost asked him a question that every MYP English student would immediately recognise. “Compare and contrast…” Continue reading
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IB (International Baccalaureate) in the time of war
Coincidentally, this title of mine has the same ring to it as ‘Love in the time of cholera’… (the one and only Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the writing always too morbid for my taste). Aware of being in the formative phase of being an IB educator, I am also deeply cognisant of my responsibilities as such.… Continue reading
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Purpose and goals: Know which rabbit you want to catch
Part-2: Lessons from Jack Ma’s success and Vadilal’s not-so-successful ice-cream run Prakash Iyer, in his book ‘The Habit of Winning’ uses Jack Ma’s Alibaba.com and Vadilal’s ice-cream business to talk about the power of focus. He reports on an event he attended in 2000, where he witnessed Jack Ma, in flesh and blood, talk about… Continue reading
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What trips us up on our way through life: Purpose-less goals
Part 1: In other words, management leaders love to talk about goal-setting but they ignore crucial steps that must come before There’s a whole science dedicated to goal-setting – there are goals and there are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound) goals. Someone the pointed out that your definition of ‘achievable’ may just be what’s… Continue reading
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Instead of telling our kids stories, let’s teach them how to tell stories
The story of Pepsi and Coca-Cola fought the Cola wars continue to inspire many a case study at Indian business schools for everything around market capture, customer research, genius of ad campaigns, and what not. Prakash Iyer in his book ‘The Habit of Winning’ highlights a former Pepsi CEO’s smart use of storytelling to inspire… Continue reading
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I, Robot. You, robot.
Reading my first ever Isaac Asimov, a choice inspired by working at a school that takes technological skills very seriously. The book begins with Asimov’s 3 laws, later known as the Three Laws of Robotics. These laws framed by a sci-fi writer inspired the ethics of robotics and artificial intelligence, therein comes the realisation that… Continue reading
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Understanding advertising
As a school student, you may wonder about the place for advertising in your English class. Why do we need to study advertising at all and what has it got to do with the study of language? Advertising is among the most common (I want to use the word pervasive – if only there was… Continue reading