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Study and Magic

  The general attitude among students towards learning is an attitude of dread. Lectures are usually boring and so are many of the textbooks. Very few students actively want to learn. Given the choice, most of them will prefer spending all their time playing games or watching TV instead of doing their homeworks. It’s not completely their fault though. Most lectures, textbooks and homeworks are, in fact, just too boring! On the other hand, Hogwarts---the magic school from the Harry Potter novels---seems to excite the kids a lot. If asked to redesign their school so that it becomes more enjoyable, they might just make it more like Hogwarts. This is also quite understandable. Hogwarts is a  magic  school, for god’s sake! They teach you to do  magic  in there! If you learn a course properly, you can show off your skills by turning your friend into a rat! The skills you learn at a magic school are immediately applicable to your daily life---the things you really care about. Stuck in traffic
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Quantify and Gamify -- Life Lessons from Parents Applied in School Education

If someone has to play a game like cricket in which bowlers ball, batsman bats and fielders field, but there is no score, no record and no competition, this would become a boring activity for players and there would probably be nobody interested in such activities. Activities are same as game of cricket but the thrill and excitement are brought in through numbers by quantification and competition.     Same holds good in study. A bit of quantification and gamification can do wonders. For example, while solving mathematics questions from books, consider one run for successfully solving a question and a wicket in failing to solve a question. Solve the questions one after other. So, if you solve 25 questions successfully and then fail to solve one, the score becomes 25 for 1. You can have test match kind of scoring with two teams in which you are solving numerical questions and maintaining score based on questions solved or unsolved. It becomes fun and great way of learning when you try ha
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Be Connected with Your Roots (Back to Basics) - Life Lessons from My Parents Applied in School Mathematics

  Be Connected with Your Roots -- Back to Basics My parents used to take us to our village (ancestors house) and nearby quite often. The lesson was to be connected with the roots. Being with our own people there, listening to them, understanding their way of living, embracing their way of caring etc. used to create so many valuable memories that I still consider those experiences on the top of the list of valuable experiences. These memories provide new energy, new way of looking at various situations and help in understanding the nuances of various challenges in life better. This doesn't mean that one should leave his present projects of life and go back to the roots. But, going back to the roots (physically or mentally) provides such understandings that helps in handling present challenges better. We take few examples from Cricket and Mathematics to substantiate it. Here, being connected with roots translates to going back to the basics.     The same applies everywhere. I remembe
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Be in Good Company - Life Lessons from My Parents Applied in School Mathematics

  Be in Good Company This article is based on some of the advises given by my father during my school days. The motivation to write this came while seeing a 50 years old photo captured in his camera. Due to privacy reason, I have modified that photo using AI and shared it here. Happy faces in that photo seem to be in good company and enjoying their moments. It can be felt that the kind of positive energy it generates can make challenging tasks look easy.     When it comes to study, being in good company doesn't mean about school, teachers and friends only, but it also includes books, other learning resources and the questions that one practices. You may not have much choices while selecting school, teachers or friends but selection of books, other learning resources and questions for practice are completely in your control. A good company makes study enjoying, helps in setting and achieving right goals, facilitates deep and long lasting learning and leads to a satisfying life.    A
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