Author: Shveta Uppal
Foreword/Introduction: Director,National Council of Educational Research
Publisher: NCERT
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 201
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788174508287
Description
From Foreword:
The National Curriculum Framework, 2005, recommends that children’s life at school must be linked to their life outside the school. This principle marks a departure from the legacy of bookish learning which continues to shape our system and causes a gap between the school, home and community.
The syllabi and textbooks developed on the basis of NCF signify an attempt to implement this basic idea. They also attempt to discourage rote learning and the maintenance of sharp boundaries between different subject areas. We hope these measures will take us significantly further in the direction of a child-centered system of education outlined in the National Policy on Education (1986).
The success of this effort depends on the steps that school principals and teachers will take to encourage children to reflect on their own learning and to pursue imaginative activities and questions. We must recognize that, given space, time and freedom, children generate new knowledge by engaging with the information passes on to them by adults.
Treating the prescribed textbook as the sole basis of examination is one of the key reasons why other resources and sites of learning are ignored. Inculcating creativity and initiative is possible if we perceive and treat children as participants in learning, not as receivers of a fixed body of knowledge.
These aims imply considerable change in school routines and mode functioning. Flexibility in the daily time-table is as necessary as rigor in implementing the annual calendar so that the required number of teaching days is actually devoted to teaching. The methods used for teaching and evaluation will also determine how effective this textbook proves for making children’s life at school a happy experience, rather than a source of stress or boredom.
Syllabus designers have tried to address the problem of curricular burden by restructuring and reorienting knowledge at different stages with greater consideration for child psychology and the time available for teaching. The textbook attempts to enhance this endeavor by giving higher priority and space to opportunities for contemplation and wondering, discussion in small groups, and activities requiring hands-on experience.
Contents
1. The Fish Tale
2. Shapes and Angles
3. How Many Squares?
4. Parts and Wholes
5. Does it look the same?
6. Be My Multiple, I’II be Your Factor
7. Can you see the Pattern?
8. Mapping your Way
9. Boxes and Sketches
10. Tenths and Hundredths
11. Area and its Boundary
12.Smart Charts
13. Ways to Multiply and Divide
14. How Big? How Heavy?