Tuesday, March 24, 2009

High schools - Indian education (my experince)

Hi all...

One of my friends in the US is writing some report on the high schools and education. He was eager to know about the education in India so he sent me a mail and asked some questions. I feel it is good if I share with you all. Please write your comments also. If you can share your experience it is well and good ... you are welcome... 

So let's start:

1. What high school did you attend?

 

In USA I guess you term High school as grades 9 - 12 or 10 - 12, but in India we have some different system. We call 5 - 7 middle school, 8 - 10 high school(Secondary) and 11-12 junior college(Higher Secondary). There are different Boards of Education which usually gives Certificates.

 1)The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) board.

2)The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) board.

3)State boards of Education for different states.

 

Also There are different streams like Science, Commerce and Arts for classes 11 - 12. student can choose 1 of these as per his career goals. In short you have to decide about your major early.

 I attended high school which gives SSC(Secondary School Certificate -after 10) and HSC (Higher secondary School Certificate - after 12) run by private organization but funded by state government.

 

 2. How many students did you graduate with?

 

As per statistics from state education board number of HSC passing students in the state for the year 2008 were around 830,711 (http://mahresult.nic.in/hsc2008/HS-OVALL.htm) This figure is for complete state that is number of students which gave the same exam on the same day...

 Talking about my high school, there were about 100 students in my class. I was student of science stream for 11 - 12. Also there were about same number of students for commerce and arts.

 

 3. How many classes did you have a day?

 

Now we are talking about class 11-12 only. We had subjects like maths, physics, chemistry, biology, Language 1(English) and Language 2(I opted for Sanskrit - options present are: Marathi, Hindi, German, French and many other.)We had classes of every subject each day. So there were around 5 - 6 classes every day.

 

 4. Were you able to leave the school for lunch?

 

In India, in my school the food was not provided by the school. We were allowed to bring lunch boxes to school, go to home if it is nearby or eat outside.

 

 5. Did you have any free hours?(we had those at our high school, it was just a time slot for a class, but you dint have class, so you were able to do whatever within that time slot.)

 

I don't remember having any free slots ... as they were in hurry to complete there all subject matter for Final state exam schedule was pretty tight. In 11 we had some hours but nothing in 12th.

 

 6. What did your high school emphasis on? I know ours was just general education, like basic math, English, history, science etc.

 

I was surprised after coming here to listen that even engineering major in undergrad has to take history and arts classes. I think it is good for the students who are not sure abut their liking and major.  

But we did not have these things. If you are in science stream you will learn history geography till 10th only and after that only subjects that are related  to science that is physics maths and chemistry. In some schools even it is allowed to drop maths if you are concentrating on medical or pharmacy major or to drop biology if you are concentrating on engineering major.


 7. On average, how many students did you have in each class?

 

It is dependent on which institute you choose. But it is normally 50 - 100 if you choose junior college that is run by secondary school. But if you choose 11 - 12 to be done in school that is run by Senior college (undergrad in US) then it may be around 200 students also.

 

 8. Any after school activities? such as sports, clubs, chior, band, those sorts of programs.

 

Not much for us [:(]  we were concentrating on studies ... [:(] sometimes I feel bad that I opted for junior college run by my school. But in senior colleges there are many clubs, sport activities, teams. We had some chances like elocution competition, sports week, cricket tournament, but those are really less.

 

 9. How much studying did you do a night on average?(if you can remember at  all)

 

It was my habit to complete everything in that day... from first I was raised like that so I used to sleep early around 10 pm but sometimes get up early around 5 am. and study then. In 11th it was not so tough but as I remember I studied for 4 - 5 months getting up at 5 - 6 am and studying for 2 - 3 hours.

 

 10. All and all, how was your high school experince?

 

I think it was good but with somewhat less leisure because everybody was concentrating on studies as it was the final and on these scores we were going to get admissions in the Undergrad sources and you need good score if you want to get admission in the good college... I guess competition in India is much intense than here in US [:)] I feel students are more intended towards higher studies in India than here .. thats why I came to US as it is very difficult to get the admission in good school for Graduate studies but it is somewhat easy here (I personally feel).

Actually in high school also we used to play cricket every evening after school and watch some TV and hang out with friends. It was all and all good experience. But I think it should be somewhat general like in US.. they should give some more time to be focused on the majors and all. But still because we were focused we could finish our undergrad pretty early as I can see many juniors and seniors here as of my age while I am doing my graduate studies.


Please do share your thoughts... 

 Till then Good bye, नमस्ते , Shabba Khair, An-nyoung, sayo-nara, 再见, Auf wedersehen … 

Have a nice time and Stay Warm (you have to say it, when you are living in Fargo…)

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The guy who followed me...!

Those were the days when I was a beautiful young lady in the town. It was a dark chilly winter night ... I was walking from the cafe' to my home. I was seating in that cafe' drinking and reading the old spy novel for whole evening. Now the roads were completely deserted. Dogs were crying at the corners of the street and cats were fighting. Owls were hooting ... I was so shocked to hear the sound of owl in this winter ... and unexpectedly every sound just died down... dogs, cats, owls... Oh my god I can hear sound of my heartbeat... and what was it in that dead silence, I could hear one other sound, the sound of footsteps ... somebody was coming from behind me...

I was really afraid and started walking fast. I felt the sound of footsteps increasing ... now I was nearly running ... and the person behind me was also running ... oh my god, again ... I comprehended that there is a shortcut with some fences to go to my home. So I took the turn and jumped over the fence... and was on the run again ... and I heard the person jumping behind me....

In the light of moon I could feel something flashing in his hand ... “is it a knife ...?” I was approaching my home fast and distance between us was getting lessened. Foot by foot he was coming closer to me... and completely sweating in that winter night I was pretty tired, feeling helpless...

I was able see the door of my house now... I looked for my purse to take out my keys and realized I don’t have purse in my hands... oh my god ... now what I was going to do ... suddenly a sound knocked my dead ears "oh I am sorry Ms. but you forgot your purse in the cafe' and I just came here to return it to you." He left, giving my purse in my hands and I was startled about “The guy who followed me ...!”

Hope you would have enjoyed it, the story I heard or read somewhere ..... :)

Till then Good bye, नमस्ते , Shabba Khair, An-nyoung, sayo-nara, 再见, Auf wedersehen …

Have a nice time and Stay Warm (you have to say it, when you are living in Fargo…)


Sunday, March 8, 2009

Story of Kwaku Ananse...

Hi All...

Moving away from the serious thinking and entering in the world of fantasies I am going to tell you today the story of Kwaku Ananse. This is the story told to me by my friend from Ghana, Iddrisu. Thanks to him...

Once upon a time (every fantasy should start with this line...) there was a wise (wicked) spider named Kwaku Ananse.It was the time when all spiders used to live in houses. Kwaku was full of tricks. He wanted to be the richest in the jungle. One day the prince of the jungle got sick. This king announced "There is one beautiful song in this world and listening to that song would heal my son". Everybody went in the search of the song. Kwaku went to the small bird Bobo. He knew only Bobo could sing that song. But Bobo was unaware of this announcement. Kwaku asked him that if could borrow Bobo's voice for a singing competition. Bobo readily accepted but he wanted the half of the prize to be shared. Kwaku answered that he would give half of the prize to Bobo. So bird gave his voice to Kwaku for one day.

Kwaku went to the king's palace and asked him about the prince. The price was very sick. Kwaku started singing and hearing the Bobo's voice king's son was healed. King was very happy and he gave Kwaku an urn full of jems and jewels. Seeing all those jems, Kwaku's dream of being the richest in the jungle appeared in his mind again. And he left the jungle without giving half prize to Bobo.

Bobo waited for several days but he didn't here anything from Kwaku so he decided to find him out.Bobo started his search from one jungle to another, from one river to another, after many months one rabbit told him that he had seen one spider in nearby jungle. Bobo went to that jungle hurriedly and there he saw kwaku ... Bobo was very angry over Kwaku, he held the Kwaku in his beak and flew high in the sky. At the great height he dropped the Kwaku down. Kwaku fail down but he landed in the Web. And from that day spiders started living in the Spider-web.

I hope you would like this story. Please post comments as those will help me to improve.

Till then Good bye, नमस्ते , Shabba Khair, An-nyoung, sayo-nara, 再见, Auf wedersehen …

Have a nice time and Stay Warm (you have to say it, when you are living in Fargo…)

Movie Confusion...

Hi All...

Sorry, because I am in the confused mood again and still writing this. I think: you should be clear whenever you are making any statement or putting forward your opinion. But still today, I am in confused mood writing this... see the confusion -I am repeating...

The culprits behind this confusion are three movies which I saw in these three days... Earlier I watched The Reader (Academy award winner: Kate Winslet), The Secret Life of Bees(2008 USA) and just finished 아내가 결혼했다 : Anaega Gyeolhonhaetda : My Wife Got Married (2008 Korean movie).

My Wife Got Married is a story of man, he likes a girl, starts sleeping with her, breaks up, asks for marriage, gets married and suddenly his wife tells him: she wants to get married with the other man and she wants to live with him and the other man too... Here comes the thing ... Now onwards everything is what I feel and its my personal opinion and I don't have much knowledge about films but still I want to write why I am confused... OK let's get back to it...) It's like director has wasted half of the film in the showing romance between the girl and first guy... ( it might be necessary for the professional success on box office ...) but I did not find The Thing (The Love) between the couple or in their romance. It doesn't show that he is mentally involved in her. He goes on acting like " she is mine and she should be mine only ... " and in this pursuit he asks her to get married, to show that she is now his property. But she is not the bird in the cage - she moves ahead and likes another man and says that she liked him before meeting our hero. OK I understood this. Now she gets married with the other man too... and lives with him for weekdays and with hero for weekends ...

OK I will not reveal all the plot and again I am not advertising the movie but I want you to go, see the movie and tell me answers of my questions.

Why they didn't show the thoughts of the heroine? It's like till the end I didn't understand the reason behind her second marriage. I think there exists some reason behind it but it should be uncovered Just saying sentences like " He is just like me or our thoughts are same " do not help to clarify her feelings. I can understand this is the movie from the perspective of Hero but it's injustice with the Heroine that showing her like the selfish one and just seeing for herself.

In today's society, you have rights to live your life on your terms but still I don't feel that you should live your life hurting others' feelings all the time and not thinking about them. Because it's not the case that you can live without other people. So you have to give, not much but little respect to society.

(Oh is it heavy ? should I write like this or not ... I am confused again ... )

I am not going to talk much about the reader but I would suggest you to watch this movie, too. It is a good drama. But I personally feels the same about it. Director failed to show the real bonding between the two leads. He failed to display why the boy loves the lady so much. Is it because she is his first love ... but that's the thing ... I am not getting The Love in it ...

( May be I am searching just too hard but ...)

But I could find the Love in The Secret Life of Bees. The love between boy and girl, between sisters, and between friends... I guess I think a lot ... Again as mentioned in the earlier post I should not think ... But these movies made me confused and so ...

I will write again soon ... and I promise: that will not be such a heavy thing ...

Till then Good bye, नमस्ते , Shabba Khair, An-nyoung, sayo-nara, 再见, Auf widersehen …


Have a nice time and Stay Warm (you have to say it, when you are living in Fargo…)