Teacher's Alley

INTRODUCTION Kothari Education Commission, 1964-66,  was the sixth commission in the history of commission in India. The Five Years Plan, started after independence helped the growth of the country in many areas. However, the execution of these plans expresses the inherent weakness due to which the expected success was not being achieved. Education appeared to be one of areas which indicated many problems that needed our efforts for immediate solutions. The government was fully aware of the situation. To improve the educational set up the government constituted two commissions after independence. Radhakrishnan Commission , which dealt with university education and Secondary Education Commission, confined to secondary education only. The recommendations of these two commissions could not be succeeded in its full implementations. Consequently, the defects in the area of education persisted. In order to remove theses defects, the government had to appoint a new education commiss...

The Deficit Theory attempts to explain why certain disadvantaged students show a high failure rate in school. These students coming from socio-economically disadvantaged homes, show a lack of verbal stimulation and entered school without the necessary linguistic resources for success. These children, labelled verbally deficient may actually be highly competent language user, however they do not find themselves in situations where they are able to demonstrate their specific language competence. When a child is in the presence of an authority figure of a different social class, he or she tends to be more introverted. An important consideration for those working with high school students is to realize that one vernacular (language) is not inherently superior to another. Such understanding will enhance a students' desire to develop during there years of critical language growth. In an attempt to explain deficiencies in lower socioeconomic students’ success rate, some researc...

  Gardner's Definition of Intelligence   The human ability to solve problems or to make something that is valued in one or more cultures. The theory of multiple intelligence is Howard Gardner’s theory that proposes: That people are not born with all of the intelligence they will ever have. It says that intelligence can be learned throughout life. Claims that everyone is intelligent in at least nine different ways and can develop each aspect of intelligence to an average level of competency. Intelligence, as defined by Gardner, is the ability to solve problems or fashion products that are valuable in one or more cultural settings. The 9 intelligences included in Gardner’s theory are: Verbal/ Linguistic Visual/ Spatial Interpersonal Musical/ Rhythmic Logical/ Mathematical Intrapersonal Bodily/ Kinesthetic Naturalist Existentialist Principles of Multiple Intelligence Theory: Intelligence is not singular: intelligences are multiple. Ever...

Joy Paul Guilford was a US psychologist, best remembered for his psychometric study of human intelligence, including the important distinction between convergent and divergent production. His "Structure of Intellect" model organized these various abilities along three dimensions: content, product, and process. He sought to develop tests for each combination of the possibilities on these three dimensions, expecting that a person could be high on some of these abilities while being low on others. According to him, Intelligence depends on: Mental operations (process of thinking) Content (what we think about) Product (result of our thinking) By Content he meant that different people seemed to pay more attention to and think more effectively about different kinds of information. There are 5 kinds of Contents Visual - Information perceived through seeing Auditory - Information perceived through hearing. Symbolic content  - arbitrary signs such as numbers or co...

Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development is one of the best-known theories of personality. Similar to Freud, Erikson believed that personality develops in a series of stages. Unlike Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages, Erikson’s theory describes the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan. Each stage in Erikson’s theory is concerned with becoming competent in an area of life. If the stage is handled well, the person will feel a sense of mastery. If the stage is managed poorly, the person will emerge with a sense of inadequacy. In each stage, Erikson believed people experience a conflict that serves as a turning point in development. In Erikson’s view, these conflicts are centered on either developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. During these times, the potential for personal growth is high, but so is the potential for failure. Psychosocial Stage 1 - Trust vs. Mistrust  The first stage of Erikson’s theory of ps...

Concept and Nature Psychology is that branch of philosophy which studies human mind or soul. By the mind or soul is meant the thinking principle, that by which we feel, know and by which our body is animated. The term ego, self, spirit are used as synonymous with mind and soul. he word 'Psychology' is derived from two Greek words 'Psyche' and 'logos'. Psyche means soul and logos means science. Thus psychology was first defined as 'science of soul'. According to earlier psychologists, the function of psychology was to study the nature , origin and destiny of human soul. But soul is something metaphysical. It can not be seen, observed and touched and we can not make scientific experiments on soul. In 18th century psychology was understood as the 'Science of Mind'. William James(1892) defined psychology as the science of mental processes. But the word 'mind' is quite ambiguous as there was confusion regarding the nature and functio...