I always believe that the best places for learning to happen are vibrant classrooms that provide opportunities for the students to discuss, put their points across, experiment, commit mistakes and laugh at and learn from their mistakes.
Yesterday, in one of such classrooms we were discussing the concept of photosynthesis. With reference to one of the interesting activities, a student raised his hand timidly. Maybe he himself was not sure about his question. After getting an encouraging expression from my end he hesitantly asked …If the leaf is detached from the plant, it dies, then how come it can transport materials across different cells?
That was a valid and intelligent question. I explained the existence of life in the cells even after detachment from the plant or death of the organism to which those cells belong to. To clarify further I discussed the concept of organs being alive for some time after the death of the individual and their availability for transplant.
I don’t know when my dextral brain dominated the sinistral and I asked the students about whether they knew about Gora and Badal mentioned in the famous poem ‘Padmavat’ ; who fought even after getting beheaded in the war between RanaRatansingh, the ruler of Mewar and Khilji. OfCourse, I didn’t expect grade 10th students to read the epic poem ‘Padmavat’ out of interest, but I believed that many of them have seen the movie based on the same and they could relate the functioning of the torso without the head placed on it. For some of them it was difficult to imagine a headless body moving swords and killing the opponents in the battlefield. But yes, it did happen and exemplifies bravery, patriotism and OfCourse functioning of parts of our body for some time even after death.
So many times, we teachers Unknowingly or knowingly cross the porous and permeable boundaries of the subjects just to clarify a point. And most of the times students narrate such moments in alumni meets.
We don’t plan all the things all the time, it just happens….. But everything amazing starts with a question. So never stop questioning!!
Deepali Singh Solanki