Future of libraries discussed
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 30
One government college and one government school library will be kept open for use of the general public in the neighbourhood as an experiment to encourage city residents to read more books.

This was decided at a panel discussion on ‘what library users want?’ organised by the British Library last week.

Attended by over a hundred librarians from the region, the panel discussion was conducted by a group of five panelists who touched upon various aspects of libraries and their future. The decision was taken by the DPI colleges following a suggestion given by one of the librarians attending the discussion. It was pointed out that librarians should keep up with changing times and evolve themselves from mere book-keepers to enabler of knowledge.

Starting the panel discussion, Mr Vivek Atray, Director Information Technology, Chandigarh, stated that libraries as they had existed over the ages faced a serious challenge from the IT revolution and methods had been undertaken to ensure that libraries retain their utility. The Deputy Commissioner Chandigarh, Mr M Ramshekhar, stated although the internet was as yet not an alternative to libraries, the advent of e-books was bound to change the reading habits of readers and also threw up a large number of questions about intellectual property rights copy rights etc. Ms Poonam Sidhu, Joint Commissioner, Income Tax, Chandigarh, stated that book reading habit was an important part of the complete development of a child’s personality and librarians should focus on the younger generation. Mr Dalip Kumar, the DPI Colleges, informed that a large number of positive changes had been brought about in various central state libraries in the city. Mr H.G.S. Dhaliwal, SP (Operations), stated that librarians should judge themselves not by what they were capable of, but what they had achieved.

HAMARA SCHOOL
Sanjay Public School Chandigarh
Shaping personalities and lives
Chitleen K Sethi

AMONG the prominent educational institutions that Chandigarh can boast of Sanjay Public School occupies a place of pride. The immense service that this school has rendered to the student community in academic, sports and socio-cultural spheres, is hard to access.

Sanjay Public School is an English medium, co-educational school which strives to develop the various facets of a child’s personality through quality education to both boys and girls.

It is run by the Sanjay Gandhi Educational Society (Regd.) Chandigarh which is a Charitable Trust.

It is situated in sector-44 B, Chandigarh and in Sector 70, Mohali also in Sector 12 and Sector 8 Panchkula upcoming Sr. Secondary Schools with its school branches Sector 40-C and Sector 41-A, Chandigarh, in its own CAMPUS which consists of 8000 sq. meters of land, bounded by high walls. The architectural design, octagonal in shape, has been brought from Delhi and is unique in itself. It follows the principle of making maximum utilization of the minimum of land. It consists of three independent circular blocks, apart from an Administrative block, all of which are inter-connected by wide corridors. Each block is capable of accommodating 1000 students. Five hundred seating capacity auditorium in basement for large and indoor games, besides an examination hall.

In addition to magnificent building, the school campus has facilities for various sports like Football, Basketball, Rolling, Hockey, Volleyball, Hand-ball, Kho-kho, Badminton, Tennis, Athletics And Wrestling, Cricket, Taekondo, Skating, Softball Fencing, Table Tennis, Carroms, Chess, etc.

The school is affiliated to the All India Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi under its all streams of 10 + 2 pattern. The educational ladder, consists of two years of pre-primary, 5 years of primary, 3 years of middle and two years of secondary education. This is followed by two years of Senior Secondary education. Public examination conducted by the board is administered at the end of VIII and class X and class XII. (Recognized by Chandigarh Administration)

The school holds classes from Nursery to Senior Secondary stage. The medium of instruction is English, Hindi & Punjabi are taught as compulsory subjects upto matric level alongwith music, Dance, Computer, Internet, Fine Arts & Personality Development.

Children are imparted education with the help of modern audio-visual aids like Laboratory, Multi-media, Internet, Film Projector, Tape-recorder, VCR etc. The curriculum for the junior classes is based on the latest innovations in teaching and the class-rooms are well equipped with educational toys, charts and pictures. To maintain an ideal standard, the ratio between the teacher and taught is kept within reasonable limits. The school provides facilities of teaching of Arts, Commerce, Medical and Non-Medical subjects upto Senior Secondary level. General Knowledge. Moral Education constitute the foundation of the school curriculum with personality development and aptitude test and English speaking course.

Poems by students

Rose

Ananaya, Class IV

Soldier

Left right, left right marches the soldier

left right left right

be it day or night

he is always ready for a fight.

Krisha, Class III

‘Teaching through discovery is essential’

Reforms in teaching:

Teaching - Learning process is dynamic in nature. It is a continuous, ever growing, ever changing process blending with old, methods new. In the past twenty five years I have witnessed a lot of changes some good and some not so good. Now the interaction between parents and educators has taken a very positive and active approach. Teachers have made studies more fun loving. Worksheet system, house project interest the child into learning and knowing more. Cramming is no longer the ruling mantra. With the coming of cable channels like National Geographic and Discovery added a new dimension to the process of teaching. Children are continuously encourage to look for information on the net. The exam system has undergone a tremendous change. The question papers are child friendly and are prepared by the teachers after comprehensive understanding of what the child is capable of learning and understanding at his given age level.

Roll of class room teaching:

There was a time when a chalk duster and black-board were the only teaching aids sufficient for a teacher in the classroom. But now the times have changed. The classrooms are brightly coloured theme paintings are done. Each class has its sufficient tool and aids in terms of charts, books, board games models and kits. The teacher enters the classroom knowing well in advances that the topic she is taking may have any path when group discussion with the students begins. In class rooms teaching also we make extensive use of internet facility, slides are also shown. Children are asked to view certain topic related programmes on the discovery and national geographic channels and discussions are held the next day.

On tuitions:

I feel at times certain children need extra help or you can say additional time to understand certain concepts. But to cash upon it-is something I am not in favour of. With both the parents being working they do need some help with their kids. We do not advocate coaching/tuitions by their respective class teachers or any school teacher for that matter. It is upto parents to take a decision.

SCHOOL WORLD
Tunnel vision

ANY path is only a path and there is no affront to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you. One should look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as one thinks necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone, one question… Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good: if it does not, it is of no use.

There is a general progression in human race – both in terms of materialistic growth as much as in spiritual growth process, which decisively, is perceptible. This phenomenal transformation is amply reflected in our inter-personal relationship. Not only the intellectual but also the emotional world of humankind has undergone a sea change.

A hundred years ago — to be precise in 1899, the physicists and scientists of the world met and declared that they have discovered everything that was there to be known but within a hundred years, a lot has been discovered- culminating into discovery of quantum mechanics by which a solid object – including human beings could be transported without their physical movements thousand miles away within seconds. Just a century ago such a phenomenon would have been considered the wishful thinking of a blinking idiot.

Strange though it may seem, human behaviour that we find repugnant and outrageous today was accepted as a matter of practice in yesteryear. For instance, Roman law gave the father absolute right and control over his children, whom he could sell or condemn to death with impunity. This concept of absolute right carried over into English Law, where it prevailed until a couple of centuries ago. In the middle ages, childhood was not seen as unique phase of life, as we now consider it to be. The child and a slave appear to have been indistinguishable in terms of how they were treated.

As of now, a major focus has been on the responsibilities of parenthood for the proper nurture of children. It may be a matter of debate only that the average quality of present parenting is still appallingly poor. I have every reason to believe it to be far superior to that of just a few centuries back. Now children begin to be looked upon as being of particular interest, having important and specific developmental task to perform and being worthy of affection. The first of the four great truths which Buddha taught was ‘life is a suffering and, thus is difficult’. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. In my professional career for years, I had occasionally encountered parents with a strange disturbance of vision; these parents were able to see only a very narrow area directly in front of them. They could not see anything to the left or to the right, above or below, their narrow vision. They had all the symptoms of looking down a tunnel, being able to see only a small circle of light and clarity at the end of the tunnel. To explain to them the aspirations and perspective of their wards /sons would really be a tough job. It used to be as if for some reason they did not want to see more then what they chose to focus their attention upon. Blissfully unaware and totally insensitive to their young sons/wards aspirations. They would invariably create conflict areas which were sometimes difficult to manage. On my part, I would consider such parenting similar to throwing the baby out with dirty bath water as if they didn’t see the baby.

In conclusion, we must realize that life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?

Do we want to teach our children to solve them? Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve some problems. But with total discipline we can solve all the problems.

*O. N. Dikshit, Chairman-Dikshant Education Society and former Principal, The Scindia School, Gwalior.

Daily News Quiz
How well do you read The Tribune?
Answers to the following questions are hidden in the last one weeks’
Tribune. Happy Hunting!!!!

1. Which Punjab politician was chosen as the Vidhan Sabha Deputy Speaker?

2. Which health Institute in Chandigarh held its convocation this week?

3. What is the full form of VAT?

4. Where in Kashmir were 24 kashmiri pandits massacred last week?

5. Which musical won the best film award at the Oscars last week?

The first ten correct entries received will be published in this space next week. Your entries should reach us by email at

contest@tribuneindia.com by April 4, 2003

Answers to last week’s quiz:1 Indore 2.Kofi Anan 3. S.P.S. Rathore 4. White House 5.Tang Jiaxuen Correct entries sent by : Jasmeet Sahni, Parminder Pannu, Nitin Garg, Ankush Garg, Naaz Rani Garg

Hi Kids!check out your vocabulary with this
Tricky CROSSWORD
by M.Rajivlochan 

Across

1 The eggs of a fish (3) 4 The genus name for aphids (5) 9 To forgive is divine as it is human to what? (3) 10 A long pointed device for poking, also for stitching (6) 12 One who eats vegetables alone and does not eat cadavers (10) 14 Its complete after 6 balls (4) 15 Many eggs, merely the female gamete (3) 16 In olden days it used to melt to protect electric lines from overload (4) 18 Its the title of a work by Aristotle, also means, subject of a discourse (5) 20 Another word for cave (5) 22 An agreement, with a 'p' (4) 23 A definite article in English grammar (3) 24 It refers to digging with the snout as also a disastrous defeat (4) 26 The office of a warden along with its powers (10) 30 Immediately (2,4) - 31 Just sick (3) 32 A thin strip of wood or metal, also means 'throw' (5) 33 Shrinking from contact (3).

Down 1 A word for engine revolutions as also an honorific for a padre (3) 2 A mineral yielding metal (3) 3 An anagram of "regret solo", also a crystalline steroid alcohol that is converted into vitamin D-2 by ultraviolet light (10) 4 A poker stake (4) 5 Being in good spirits, lively (5) 6 What relates to a woman (3) 7 Arising spontaneously or from unknown cause (10) 8 Of the Slavs (6) 11 To act out (5) 13 Always, at any time (4) 16 Supposed to be religious injunction from a Muslim divine (5) 17 Haunts anagrammatically (6) 19 A musical composition (4) 21 To stand straight (5) 25 It completes the saying which contains "and twos" (4) 27 The discovery by Watson and Crick (3) - 28 An UN organization pertaining to labour (3) 29 To wield diligently or supply regularly (3).