index

A month has passed by!

Binary

The main topic of this week was: “How do computers represent information?”

We started with light bulbs (on/off), how to count in Unary and Binary, and then learned how it can be used to represent decimal numbers.

I even watched CS50 lecture 0 to see how David covers these and got some good metaphors (and some slides too!) to use. After the lecture I decided to order these bulbs to teach binary:

Worksheets & Practice

Towards the end of last week, I realised the need for practice assignments other than the graded problem sets. Worksheets were the answer. Since then I have been creating practice worksheet PDFs and sharing them on Raven:

One interesting thing I do is to add some older topic questions with newer topics: e.g. logic gates question with Binary numbers. This helps in revision and sometimes even connects topics! You can find all the worksheets here on the Student handbook.

GIMP

GIMP made a wild card entry to the curriculum to make things interesting. I re-iterated pixels and RGB while demoing this.

Parents Meetup Day!

Yesterday (Saturday), we invited all the parents to campus, for a meetup and lunch! I was joined by Rahul, Shivam, and Vishwajeet to the campus.

Rekhaji drove the session and urged students and teachers to share their 1 month experience with everyone. Students spoke in English, which made the parents very proud and happy.

One highlight would be what one of the student’s mother said: ”… we haven’t even talked to them yet, but just by seeing their faces, I could tell they are being treated like home here …”. She went on to say, if we have done this (the progress) in one month, she is hopeful what the 18 month outcome will be. She thanked the faculties for their efforts and said “humne apne baccho ko aapko saupa hai”, which reinforced how big a responsibility this is and how the girls’ future somehow also depends on how well we guide and “mold” them. Later Vishwajeet (Mathematics faculty) mentioned, he got a motivation boost to do even better!

A Sad Case

While we were leaving the mess area after Lunch, we found Renuka ji (warden) standing along with a student and her mother. They were mentioning something to be informed to me, I overheard and stopped by to talk.

The mother and daughter started crying while telling me that someone from a private college had been calling her (the mother) and pressuring her (the student) to join the college. Apparently, she (the student) had cleared an examination for some scholarship and visited their campus too. They had also signed on some document. But now they don’t want to leave CS17.

What triggered me the most was when the mother said they (the college representative) are saying if she does not join they will file a complaint against them and she will also be removed from her current institution too (here, CS17). Renuka ji and I tried to calm them and explain that no one can force them to do anything and they have no control over this institution.

We had to take the case in our hands. I called the person and had a discussion. I won’t be able to go into all the details here, but after I told him who I was and asked his name, he didn’t tell me. He was going into all the history of things like she has signed, the seat will go empty, super 40, blah, blah. I said “I understand the background, but now what? They don’t want to come.”, he still went on: “we had given her time to think, half an hour”, I chuckled. When I handed the phone on speaker to the mother (just to confirm they don’t want to join, on record), his tone was not at all good.

I took back the phone and had to re-enforce that she doesn’t want to join and here is what he says: “the fees will be non-refundable”. Heck, all these happens and he is worried about the fees! Upon enquiry it was ₹4k. I said fine, just tell me the next steps to get her out of the “database”. He asked us to send a letter (by her mother) and they will cancel the seat. I confirmed with the mother about the lapse of the admission fee, she was already fine with it. She mentioned even though they had mentioned scholarship they were asking 1.5L now, which they could not afford and her husband was also ill so can’t earn much. She said only because they found here, they were able to continue her study.

I requested Renuka ji to WhatsApp him the letter.

Even though I left the campus, my mind kept wandering about it. How many innocent and less-aware parents would be targeted by such orgs? What if they had left and not told us the reason? Really sad.