How sound your food is?

How sound your food is?

We are always behind the taste. Do we care about our health? Why elderly individuals are healthier than us? It is a matter of discussion.

When and how you eat matters a lot!

Breakfast is considered as brain food and do not try to miss it. A good supper keeps your energy up throughout the day. We should not have breakfast and supper daily.

I like the foods because they are tasty. Try not to eat for taste. Eat for your health which is your real wealth. What do you love more, your health or the taste?

What is Healthy Food?

Notorious and verity in food is significant to maintain good health. Quality foods include varieties of foods. It is essential to keep up your health, energy and mindset. We should include foods containing Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fat, Nutrients, Minerals and Water.

1. Proteins

Proteins help your body construct new cells, fix old cells. Great wellsprings of protein are meat, fish, poultry, dairy items, nuts, dried beans, peas and so on.

2. Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates give you quick energy. It acts like our body’s fuel. Fruits, vegetables, bread, pasta, grains, cereal products, crackers, dried beans, peas, and lentils are all good sources of carbohydrates. Whole grains and fruits and vegetables are healthier sources of carbohydrates than refined grains and sugars.

3. Fats

Fats help to create new cells and chemicals. Fat also helps nutrients to travel through your body. Nutrients A, D, E, and K are fat-dissolvable nutrients. Fats give you more focused calories than sugars or proteins. Major sources of Fats are meat and milk products, coconut oil, vegetable oils, nuts, and grains.

4. Vitamins and Minerals 

Nutrients keep your bones solid, your vision clear and sharp, and your skin, nails, and hair sound and shining. Vitamins also help your body use energy from the food you eat.

Minerals are chemical elements that help regulate your body's processes Potassium helps in the proper working of your nerves and muscles. Calcium helps your teeth and bones strong. Iron act as a carrier of oxygen to your cells.

5. Water 

Water is necessary for life, which makes it vital for good health.  Water makes more than half of your complete bodyweight. It controls your temperature, helps in the movement of nutrients through your body, and disposes of waste. It is advised to drink 6 -8 glasses of water a day.

What is a good eating pattern?

Eating a healthy diet is not about strict limitations. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Eating a healthier diet doesn’t have to be complicated. Instead of being overly concerned with counting calories. Focus on avoiding packaged and processed foods and opting for more fresh ingredients whenever possible.

Healthier diet tips

•  Prepare more of your own meals.
• Make the right choice of food verities
•  Read the labels of your purchase.
•  Focus on how you feel after eating.
•  Drink plenty of water.
• Try not the brand of certain foods as “off-limits.”
• Think smaller portions.
• Take your time and Enjoying Your Food
• Eat with others whenever possible.
• Limit snack foods in the home.
• Control emotional eating.

We should have a healthier diet having a variety of food items. Don’t waste your wealth for health and vice versa.

Be happy, be loveable and be healthy …

 

 

 

Elayada - A taste of Kerala

Elayada - A taste of Kerala

Take a bowl and mix coconut, a pinch of cumin seeds and jaggery and keep it for filling.

Take another bowl and mix rice flour with water by adding a pinch of salt as we can make balls.

Take a piece of plantain leaf and keep the flour ball on it and spread as bigger as possible.

Apply the filling over it and fold.

Take an idly cooker and Cook it for 15 minutes under steam on a low flame. 

Serve it to me if possible, it’s really yummy. 

Two heads are better than one

 Two heads are better than one

Two heads will give us four hands to work, four hands come up with 20 fingers. In the universe, all are in harmony even our human body.  Why can't we? This shows the need for working together for success.

A helping hand is always valuable in every activity. It would help us to have different perspectives. As each one is unique, their viewpoints are also unique. Individual success is always well appreciated but behind him/her there would be one who guided, corrected or even scolded. Better results always come from mutually helping colleagues. Discussion or asking for suggestions is always time-consuming which would really produce a good result. 

But too many cooks spoil the broth. Always be in a company of a few who will contribute to our success, at the same time be generous to others. As we used to say a friend in need is a friend indeed, a creative suggestion or constructive criticism would help us to come with a good result.

Coming to my life experiences, my father is my best creative critic and my mother is the best supporter. Presently my wife took this place. I used to be a little stubborn about my views unless I was convinced.

Let me share a small life incident. While I was studying for my bachelors in education as everyone we are short of pocket money. We came across a video making competition worth Rs.3000 against drug use. There is a string attached to it, we are not allowed to recode or shoot anything but we can use videos from films. I shared my idea with my friend Nix Jose who is good at editing and had post-graduation in Journalism. The deadline was the next day at 5.00 pm. As we used to watch films and are nightmares. We decided to take this task. We framed a concept and collected related videos. We worked smoothly the whole night and finalised the video at 7.00 am. We put the Video rendering and slept. It took around 2 hours to complete while we woke up it was ready. We checked the video and copied it to a DVD and submitted it on time titled “PUTHIYAMUGAM” 

Every edit was backed with a creative suggestion. When the result was out we secured the first position for the video and best editor award too. I Still remember it because the best editor was an addon worth Rs.1000 and we were well appreciated by the judges. From there onwards we started working together and earned around 8000 in that year.

Entertainment Industry - Past Present and Future

 Entertainment Industry - Past Present and Future

Our choices of entertainment determine who we are to an extent. It is more of how we act on the influences we see in entertainment. We all love juicy drama and scandals because it adds suspense in our lives. We like seeing who wore it best when you open up a magazine just because it gives us something to do in our spare time. There are powerful emotional benefits too, to tuning into radio. It keeps listeners company. It also gets listeners into a better mood.

Entertainment is an inherent element of human life that has evolved over time, particularly as society's perception of what gives them pleasure or delight has changed. It is remarkable how the entertainment industry has evolved over the years as time has passed from decade to decade. So let's have a look at the past, present and future of the Entertainment industry. 

Entertainment has evolved as nothing like anything

The history of entertainment is started in ancient times. They are communicated by using words, images, sounds and gestures… ancient peoples are communicating stories and drawing on cave walls. Storytelling is not only a form of entertainment it also passes their cultural values and traditions. The earliest forms of entertainment are storytelling, music, drama and different kinds of performance that exist in all cultures.

 The roman colosseum is considered as a first stage where different art forms are conducted in there and also cruel entertainments like hunting and rustling with humans with animals are conducted. MusicMusic and dance were highly valued in ancient Egypt; they celebrated with banquets, acrobats. Animal hunting is also considered as entertainment in a different culture. The royal courts have provided training and support for entertainers, they present traditional dances, music’s and music instruments, speeches.   

Games are also considered as entertainment, they play games alone or as a group, there are different types of games. Chess is considered an intellectual game. Animal hunting, us selling, and boxing is considered physical games.

Wow! Present trends are awesome

This pandemic has increased the demand for online entertainment.  At present, our house became a theatre. Online Streaming applications like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, SonyLIV, JioTV, Zee5 and many others Over-The-Top (OTT)  came to the industry and established themselves. They came with a wide variety of programmes in an affordable package.

In the case of news channels and entertainment channels, they are trying to incorporate new inventions in their channels. Teleportation was even used by Indian news channels. Augmented virtual reality was another update. They have gone live on youtube too. 

Most of the radio channels came up with online streaming. The number of YouTuber’s had increased tremendously. Common people became familiar with almost all online live streaming platforms. The presents of Jio in the telecom industry boosted these tendus but now they are in a way looting us.

The film industry was taking advantage of it. The physical theatre was changed to a virtual platform. Now we can watch a film or program according to our free time. Physical teachers were badly beaten up.

Almost all the newspaper manufactures came up with their own news application and e-newspapers. A large variety of physical magazines came up with their own e-version with a subscription charge.  Amazon Kindle, Nagzer, Open Library, Google eBookstore, ManyBooks, Open Library, Kobo, National Digital Library of India etc came up with e-book versions and e-book readers. 

Virtual tours are made available by zoos and historical monument centres all over the world came up with a 360-degree view. Virtual reality played a vital role in the transform. Artificial intelligence-enabled tour guides are available on many platforms.

Mobile-friendly website and apps are made available by the entertainment industry to gain from the pandemic as well a large number of mobile subscribers. Personalised ads and ads-free content with a charge are another Trent.

Eagerly waiting, a lot to come in Future

The future of media and entertainment will offer a world of opportunities. The entertainment industry will shift from a hierarchical system to a democratised model in which everyone can be a producer and consumer.   In future, technology will become personalised. Artificial intelligence will become the new content entertainment producer. Within five or ten years everything becomes virtual,  our leaders, movie stars,  singers will be digital and we may listen to their music,  watch the movies and attend their programs virtually. The world becomes paperless, everything become digitalised.

 Engaging all human senses, making the experience feel as real as possible is the future of entertainment. Future seems to be extreme fun, playing virtual reality and changing communicable habits.

What will not change is that people will spend time and money on the industry.  ' Over the top' video content is becoming the most important that people watch movies nowadays. OTT video revenue for media and entertainment (think: HBO Go, Hulu, Netflix) in the U.S. reached $20.1 billion in 2017, up 15.2 per cent over the preceding year. PWC predicts that growth rates will begin to slow as the market matures, but revenue in this area is expected to reach $30.6 billion in 2022. According to the media and entertainment Outlook 2020, India is likely to emerge as the world's sixth-largest OTT streaming market by 2024.

Virtually all fields of entertainment have witnessed a technological evolution that has contributed to making amusement more affordable, accessible, or comfortable.  

Critical thinking and individual phased learning is the need of time!

 Critical thinking and individual phased learning is the need of time!

The significance of the teacher is not reduced but the role was changed from a source of knowledge to a facilitator. The success of the modern teacher is to guide properly to summarise and develop critical thinking in the process of knowledge acquisition.

The main advantage of the modern teaching scenario is individualistic; student-centric, technological enhanced, individual phased learning strategies, helps students to be more involved and enthusiastic in the teaching-learning process. 

The main disadvantage of our present teaching strategy is information overload. students fail to find out the best among a large source of information. If one opts only for a source of information it can be lopsided. It is not the information but how to synthesise and process information into knowledge that causes difficulty in the modern teaching-learning process. 

I prefer to have a blended model of the teaching-learning process. As in the traditional method, teachers should have wide knowledge on the topic and guide the students to find out the best source of information from a wide variety. Teaching should be more of an individualistic process but the facilitator role of the teacher should not be forgotten. Teachers should be able to find out students' interests and give a focus to that path of learning. 

To sum up, a teacher should be a critical observer and guide to the teaching-learning process but teachers should have an open heart to accept individualistic interest and taste. Teachers should incorporate a wide variety of teaching methodology in the transformation of knowledge to cater to individual differences. The element of self-study and critical thinking among students is to be cultivated in the process of teaching and learning. 

Teacher vs Tech - Teacher

 Teacher vs Tech - Teacher

Teachers are always the ones with knowledge and wisdom.  There are different teaching strategies. In my view, the only difference between traditional and modern teachers is the availability and intensive use of technological know-how.

In the traditional method, the teacher was the centre of knowledge. Traditional methods centred around a teacher, blackboard and pen, books and library, limited implication of theories and so on. lecture method, storytelling, question-answer method, debate etc. were the main methods used in knowledge transactions. 

In modern times the traditional teacher is equipped with modern technological tools. All the traditional methods were modified in accordance with modern technology. The lecture method was transformed with PPT, video and audio utilities. Storytelling transformed in an interactive way by using videos and audios. Different varieties of tech tools were used in the modern classroom; like an interactive whiteboard, smart classroom with internet connectivity, digitalised textbooks, individualistic attention, digital portfolios and so on. Virtual reality, interactive application, and a student monitoring system came to exist in the place of traditional teaching scenarios.

At present, a transitional shift of focus from the teacher to students can be seen. Limited resources of knowledge were widened like a world and it was accessible with a lower cost or of no cost. Technological and individualistic incorporation made students more involved in the teaching-learning process. 

Story: The Feather Touch

The Feather Touch 

Rahul was alone at home. Suddenly the phone rang. It was his parents and they informed him that they will be late. So they asked him to be safe at home. By hearing this, he began to think that it is so boring to sit here alone till they come, so why can't I go out?...... Thinking this, he decided to meet Arun, his best friend, so they could catch fish from the nearby stream. He took a bottle to collect the fish and went out of his home. 

He started walking through the way aside from the stream to his friends home. On his way, he saw different creatures and he noticed a colourful bird sitting in a paddy field. He moved towards the bird and tried to catch it. But the bird flew away, leaving a feather down. He eagerly took the feather and watched it curiously. It was a beautiful one with different colours on it. He became very happy because even though he was not able to catch the bird, he got a colourful feather. 

Turning back with a smiling face, he saw an old man lying on the paddy field with a plough in his hand. Rahul looked around but he was not able to find anyone else there. So he ran towards the man and found him unconscious. He collected water from the stream in his bottle and sprayed it on the face of that old man. The man became conscious and asked for some water to drink. He gave him the remaining water in the bottle to drink. After a casual talk the old man 

thanked him for his help and advised him to go back to his home safely.  

  

When he reached home, his parents had not arrived….

He spent his whole night thinking of his journey and the things he experienced. 

The next day, he wakes up by hearing the sound of the farmer whom he met yesterday. He was very surprised to see the old man in his house with a basket of fruits.

The old man gifted him the fruit basket and went off with a smile…….

His parent's heart filled with pride...

The golden rays of the morning sun touched his face, and he felt it as a warm kiss from his parents.

Role of Parents and Teachers in the Upbringing of Children

Role of Parents and Teachers in the Upbringing of Children

Both teachers and parents have a vital role to play in the growth and development of children. Parents are the first teacher of every child. Teachers are the second parent and school is the second home. Teachers help the children to improve all aspects like behaviour, emotions, academic and social development. Parents are more concerned about physical and educational aspects. 

They also ensure an environment to develop the learning function. Teachers can inspire children by telling many types of stories and life experience. They can also inspire the child to accomplish their dreams. Teachers are nation builders. Teachers should be able to shape students to be good citizens. A good teacher is more concerned about the overall development of a child.

Parents consider their child as something special and wish to be special in everyone's view. Over pampering actually spoils most of the children but parents do not agree with the statement. To make shoes off parents force the children to do something even if they don't like it. A good teacher can correct and guide the parents.

Parents are mainly multi-taskers they have to take care of the economic, physical, spiritual aspects of the whole family. Parents try to arrange everything well for their family. Presently parents are more concerned about education and the child's future. 

Stress and emotions are not properly discussed with the parents. Parents are too busy and have no sufficient time to spare with them. Parents try to guide the child in his way and do the necessary parents try to guide the child in his way and do the necessary. Here the teacher gets the role of parent of both student and parents.

Teachers and parents play an important role in the holistic development of the child. Parents are the first mentor of the child and the teacher is the second. Both have an immense contribution and responsibility in shaping a child's personality.

My dream destination is Andaman and Nicobar Islands!

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Seahorses are always my dream destinations. If my extended family also joins with me then the happiness will be doubled. As dreams have no limits my dream destinations also have no limits. To incorporate some elements of reality I limit my dream destination to Andaman and Nicobar islands. 

Why did I choose this place?  

There are only a few barriers to reach there. I like to walk along with my family on the seashore and spending a few days with them near a beach resort is always a dream to be satisfied with. We should go to this destination on the air and the experience of view from the sky has to be explored. If we could chart a flight for the same it would be our pleasure. 

Our main objectives of the travel are 

1. Have a Relaxing Day at Beach

2. Go on Adventurous Water Sports

3. Enjoy Eating Tasty Sea Food

  

Our children have to get a chance in their early childhood to see and explore these things because in my childhood I wished to go there with my family but it was not possible due to financial liabilities. But my father always permitted me to go for school and college tours but we were not able to plan such a tour.

  

Go to school is not something matters!

 Go to school is not something matters!

Santhosh George Kulangara Speech About Education System In Kerala

We have been teaching a man twenty years since man was a child. A man learns about twenty years if there is a post-graduation.  Released after 20 years of education If you can not tell them about the pros and cons of consuming toddy, then what is our education?

What is our education, In twenty years, if you are not able to teach; how to drive from one place to another without dying? What is an education if you taught everything else and not taught the etiquette to be observed on the road?

I brought you a child in your arms at the age of three to teach and after 20 years of training, when you gave it back at the age of 20 - 22,  one came out without learning how to live or to be a good citizen what was our education?  What a miserable failure of our education system itself!

Many things you and I learned have never been used. Think about the percentage of the time you spent learning. Does your learning benefit your career? Just think and make a list. If you utilized this time for character formation or trained to think differently or trained to develop a leadership quality or even train them to face a community with confidence, it would have been better. 

We had beaten up and taught that sin(θ) and cos(θ)  had no use in our life. This time can be utilized to inculcate something good for your personality development. Then we should not waste a large percentage of our lives for the sake of studying. I am saying that our education system should be demolished if it fails to provide something for life. Go to school is not something matters!

Future of teaching-learning process

 Future of  teaching-learning process

Our Education system needs a refined teaching methodology due to the rapid changes and increased complexity of today’s world. There was a growing necessity to change and improve the preparation of students for productive functioning in the continually changing and highly demanding environment. Indeed, change must contend with the diverse factors affecting the education system.

As we consider these problems, we understand the various possibilities of using concepts and methods of the study of complex systems for providing direction and strategies to facilitate the introduction of viable and successful changes. We suggest a few visions would be focused on while designing future teaching-learning process.

Identification of talents at childhood

A child can be made anything if we train in early childhood. If one can identify talents and capability in the early days would help one to achieve success early as a normal person does. NEP 2020 gives importance to early childhood education is appreciatable. Present education should be reformed with this view.

Individualised educational platform

Each one is unique. Teachers should accept the individual difference in the teaching-learning process. A parallel individualised educational platform along with the normal educational system would help to bring out the best from the student. It can be an individualised online platform like a website, educational app, tool kits, or even a mechanised learning system. Adaptation to the ability levels, patterns of different abilities, learning styles, personality characteristics, and cultural backgrounds has to be taken care of.

The interdisciplinary approach needs a focus

Integrating the curriculum by developing interdisciplinary curriculum units that enable students to acquire knowledge from different disciplines through a unifying theme. As life is interdisciplinary our education system also should cater to the interdisciplinary nature of education. Prepare a teaching-learning process accordingly which would have the opportunity to contribute in different and special ways to the objectives of the integrated units. 

Augmented virtual reality in dealing with  science subjects

What we learned through sense organs had a greater personalization than a sense organ or two does. The modernization of educational technology has to go beyond what it has now. Augmented virtual reality would be a great help in dealing with abstract ideas in the language and more specifically in dealing with science subjects. 

Prepare the child for life, not for a degree 

For a modern society, education is of utmost importance. There are so many influences coming from all directions, and education helps us decipher what we should take as true, and what we should take with a grain of salt, Education can mould people into functional members of society with the right kinds of values.

Make a generation caring for nature

Protecting the earth is also has to be given due importance. I suggest back to traditions in the case of protecting nature. Prepare a lifestyle with nature and around nature is essential to make one cosmopolitan. In future our world would not just limit to earth alone we will travel to other planets and even settle down.   

NEP 2020 had a vision

If NEP 2020  actualize its vision,  it would bring wonders to the Indian education system. Early education identifies the talents and fosters them in the desired path. In the secondary, it is more of an interdisciplinary nature. In Higher education at any point, one can take a turn if necessary and awarded with a certificate compilation. In general no one is dropped out without skill. 

Education should make a person more human to face future challenges in life. In addition to listening, Modern Education includes writing, visualizing, imagining and thinking skills. An all-around life skills formation should be the aim of future education.

Education and creativity have the same status!

 Education and creativity have the same status! 

Education is curriculum oriented and thinking out of the box is considered a crime by many teachers. Children are creative and innovative in nature. Our education broke the wings of our children’s imagination and creativity to a certain extent. As a teacher, I couldn't encourage my students to think out of syllabuses in my early times of my teaching career. But later I came to know that education is just a framework and one has to build on it by himself. Life orientation should be given more importance than just delivering the curriculum objectives. 

Arts and science are not considered interdisciplinary in the olden days. When I learned it was similar, but the present curriculum in Kerala Syllabus even teaches maths teachers to dance and teach especially in the case of primary school students. It has an extension in the upper primary too. It was difficult for many teachers to accept the change. As wild comments, teachers are eloquent to change; they are stubborn to adopt changes.

Creativity is as important as literacy. Creativity can fetch success even if he/she is not literate. A literate can not achieve more than a degree if he fails to think out of the box. Make your cup of tea not consume what you have offered freely. If you suppress the creativity in childhood we really broke the child or created a rebel. Don't make a mass to agree, make a mass to think logical and if needs to disagree. 

Build on the foundation is essential for anything to last long. A sort of foundation should be given to the children and make them fry to fly in their imagination, creativity and innovation. A really intelligent person would find difficulty with the curriculum which is not at all flexible. An extraordinary student is actually a headache for a normal teacher unless she has the orientation to guide the child properly. 

I like to be in the shoes of Sir Ken Robinson in connection with academic inflation. All are graduates and they do not find a job; they masters and even not. As older times if one possesses a degree he/she is armed with a job. A master or even a PhD holder working as an accountant just thinks of such a pathetic situation. On the other hand, a dropout with celebrity status. our education has broken wings of imagination and creativity, if one can not accept it he comes out of it and touches the peak of his/her excellence and fame.  

Our education made Commons and not excellence.NEP 2020 has a vision of bringing out excellence and thinking out of the box all this comes in front of the stabon teachers,  so I doubt the success of the NEP 2020.   A shoe fit for you looks great and don't ask me to be in that shoe. This is the actual problem with the education system. 

A teacher can make or break a child. The education system in general should undergo changes every day as new information occurs. Teachers should prompt out of box thinking and the teacher himself/ herself too. Don't form commons; bring out the excellence from oneself. An interdisciplinary approach and life orientation into the curriculum would make miracles in this realm. Sir Ken Robinson frankly told this many of us to have similar feelings but not expressed yet.