Newspaper, suicide, early marriage

Marathi newspaper reading! Kids were asked to write about the news they found most interesting and the reason behind it. They wrote amazing things, as always! :)
11 - Jul - 2009 (Sat)


At BC. General chat about 10th board exams. They all agreed that it'll be better if the “board” nature of the exams was changed to a normal local exam. Why? “Because otherwise students may unnecessarily commit suicide if they fail in such a big exam”, they said. Upon my comment about suicides being foolish, Pooja immediately interrupted- “No Didii, it isn't foolish!” Great. Would you do such a thing if you failed in an exam? Poonam & Pooja- “Yes! Because we'd feel awful!” Priti- “All at home have big hopes for me. I'm the only one who's gone till 8th std. So it'd be great shock to them and me. But I won't commit suicide!” Irfan- “Fail toh fail! Big deal!!” Awesome! :') The discussion ended with the realisation that they're wasting their play time in unnecessary discussions! :-)
Drew a number line on the ground. Asked all of them to stand a little away from the line. Didii was to call out certain numbers and then they were supposed to come running towards the line and stand on the numbers announced. E.g. : Even numbers, odd numbers, prime numbers, all factors of -9 (they were supposed to factorise themselves), etc. During each round, once they took positions on the number line, they were asked to do additions and subtractions. E.g. : Adding -0.5 to the number they are currently standing on and then jumping to the resulting number.
Ranjini had come to this class as well and was very much interested in the entire process of conducting a class.
19 - Jul - 2009 (Sun)


Vacation!
Puzzle solving and discussion and play!
2 groups. Solve one puzzle each before the other group. The winning group gets to solve the third puzzle! Once bored with puzzles, make some toys from the book. Once bored with this too, discuss. About early marriages of girls. Then we ran up and down the subway ramp. Clicked lots of photos, videos. Watchmen were watching! :')
Soon the groups were dissolved and everyone tried all three puzzles. Magnetism puzzle all could solve without realizing the principle behind it! Told them. Only Akshay and Sham were interested in making toys. Some wanted to solve the remaining puzzles. Irfan and Mahesh, as usual, started off with some other 'activities' soon. Pooja, Priti claim that they and their families are against early marriage. Early = before 10th. Sundar from Patil Estate is getting married on 25th May'10. She must be hardly 17. Kids know that it's a crime to marry off girls before 18 and boys before 21. They also know that in case someone complains, with money everything gets resolved. Huh. Priti failed this year. Good. She gets an extra year at home before marriage! :-| Anyway, before going home, we laughed a lot as we ran up and down the two slopes of COEP subway. Kids clicked lots of photos. Recorded videos!
01/05/2010, 3to5pm, at BC.

NCL notebook scanning.