SKILLS

Early puzzle play can help boost spatial skills.

Washington: Engaging children in puzzle play can help in the development of spatial skills, which has implication for STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers later in their life, say experts. A study of University of Chicago researchers has found that children who play with puzzles between ages 2 and 4 develop better spatial skills.

Puzzle play was found to be a significant predictor of spatial skill after controlling for differences in parents’ income, education and the overall amount of parent language input.

“The children who played with puzzles performed better than those who did not, on tasks that assessed their ability to rotate and translate shapes,” said psychologist Susan Levine, a leading expert on mathematics development in young children.

The ability to mentally transform shapes is an important predictor of STEM. Activities such as early puzzle play may lay the groundwork for the development of this ability, the study found. For the research, 53 child-parent pairs from diverse socio-economic backgrounds participated in a longitudinal study, in which researchers video-recorded parent-child interactions for 90-minute sessions that occurred every four months between 26 and 46 months of age.

The parents were asked to interact with their children as they normally would and about half of the children in the study were observed playing with puzzles at least once.

Higher income parents tended to engage children with puzzles more frequently. Both boys and girls who played with puzzles had better spatial skills, but boys played with more complicated puzzles than girls, and the parents of boys provided more spatial language during puzzle play and were more engaged in play than the parents of girls.

-         ANI

Source: The Tribune, Jalandhar (India), Tuesday February 21, 2012.

LEARNING

NEVER STOP LEARNING


A business man in North Hills had wood trading business. Gopan was working with that business man for the past over 6 years. He was drawing a petty sum of Rs. 1200/- (US$ 24) per month. He had a big family to support. Thorough out the day, he cut the wood in the jungle. Tired in the evening, he brought the wood to his master’s saw-mill. Many times he requested his master to give him raise; but the master did not heed to his request.

One day, the master employed Jaidu. Jaidu had to show his production of wood from the forest for full one month. It was after one month that his salary was to be fixed.

After a month, the salary of Jaidu was fixed at Rs. 1500/- (US$30).

Gopan was annoyed at this. He complained to the master alleging he is biased.

Master said to Gopan, “ Jaidu cuts and brings more wood than you do.” “How is this possible?”, enquired Gopan raising his eyebrows. Gopan was not believing his master. “ I don’t know, ask Jaidu,” master got rid of Gopan.

Gopan felt ashamed to ask Jaidu. But it was a matter of 25% raise in pay.

This all made Gopan go to Jaidu and ask him the secret of his better performance and production.

Jaidu advised Gopan to accompany him to the forest. On that day, both went to the forest.

Gopan climbed up the tree and remained up the tree till lunch time without any break. After lunch, too, Gopan climbed up the tree and climbed down the tree when his day was off.

Jaidu was climbing down the tree after every hour.

Lo! What is this? Gopan enjoyed less time on the ground as he did not climb down and had cut less wood. On the other hand, Jaidu was coming down the tree off and on and had cut more wood. Jaidu’s wood weighed 50 kgs and Gopan’s weighed 30 kgs. Less work more production. It surprised Gopan. He was sad.

Gopan asked Jaidu, “ How this happened? You enjoyed sleep every hour and even your production is more than that of mine.” Jaidu replied, “ No, my friend, you are mistaken. I was not enjoying sleep when I was on the ground. I sharpened my axe. Your blunt axe cut less wood. My sharpened axe cut more wood.” He realized his mistake. He had not sharpened his axe for a long time and was quarrelling with the new recruited Jaidu and his master.

Gopan understood the fact.

In the same way many people and workers do not realize the importance of “continuous learning” and grumble for pay raise or profits from their businesses. Continuous learning involves attending seminars, listening to the experts in their field of work, improving qualification, learning the new ways to move from lower level of thinking to higher level of thinking, switching from hard work to smart work etc. Read articles on the topics of your work, surf internet for updating your knowledge, buy and read books relating to your job, profession, business, hobby or anything else you do. After all;

What a man is? The total sum of what he has learnt.

MORAL:

KEEP ON LEARNING AND UPDATING YOURSELF

OR

STAND OUT OF THE RACE OF COMPETITION.

7 Stages of Life- My View

For easy understanding of life, the 7 stages are in general are experienced by a human being : Spills, Drills, Skills, Thrills, Ills, Bills, Wills

Stage 1:

Spills: Child comes into the world and world is a school of learning. Child learns out of curiosity. As the child grows, the curiosity like child goes on declining. Child learns many tricks and tips of life by spilling e.g. spilling the water, milk or messing up with other things of the existing world. He tries, fails and does the wrongly and elders teach him how to do that thing in a proper way. Everything right from toilet management to eating food and drinking milk is taught by the society.

Stage II: Drills: Next comes the more difficult, regorous and regular drills fit for living a good life. Mentally, child resists but when imposed harshly by parents, family and society he reluctantly goes on doing those drills. Parents, family and society believes in the dictum " Practice makes a man perfect." On the basis of this dictum everychild is sent to the school. School drills and inducts the good qualities like discipline, regularity, social living, team spirit, leading and following etc. This stage is also performed by informal learning if the child fails to attend the school. Informal learning is generally wider and provided by the religious institutions. In India , there are family gods, village gods and then religious places like temples, Gurudwara, Mosques and Churches where children get basic learning of life.