The Hindu : Karnataka News : `NIE has helped students learn more about newspapers'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 04, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

`NIE has helped students learn more about newspapers'

By Our Staff Reporter

A section of the participants at The Hindu NIE programme for teachers in Bangalore on Friday. — Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

BANGALORE, DEC. 3. Resource coordinators of The Hindu Newspaper in Education (NIE), Shoba and Sharan, were successful in turning the participating teachers into "excited children" at the Interaction with Teachers organised by The Hindu here on Friday.

As many as 50 teachers, each a representative of the NIE school, participated in the programme.

The first session was meant to break the ice. The tea making activity with a robot evoked tremendous response. "Teachers need to be children at heart to be good teachers," observed an organiser.

The teachers were involved in various interactive sessions after they were categorised into groups — open, blind, unknown and hidden. There was a buzz of activity all around and the teachers intermingled with each other on various subjects.

Usha Thimmaiyah of Cauvery School is a teacher full of life. The bubbly cheerful teacher is thankful to The Hindu for it had helped her students interact and interview celebrities such as singer Adnan Sami, actor Amir Khan, the Chairman of Wipro, Azim Premji, and Ganesh Krishna of Manipal Heart Foundation. "The Hindu NIE has helped our students become "small journalists" in the literal sense of the word. It is imperative that the children get to know how these celebrities have attained success in life," she said.

"I draft the questions for them and help them in the interviews and when this gets published in the newspaper, I feel proud. The resources persons of Prism Books have also been a source of inspiration for the children. The children are now exposed to theatre, drama and learning various languages. Actually they look forward to the resource persons than their teachers," she said.

Annie Margaret of Bishop Cotton Girls School is glad that the NIE programme has inculcated reading habits in children.

"They are thrilled to see their photographs when it appears in the NIE column. This is more of a motivating factor and it inspires them to take part in such programmes," she said.

The programme has brought children close to the media. There was a time when the media had nothing to do with children and this has changed for good. Newspapers are now not just for the politicians and the bigwigs, children too have a vital role to play. The competitions not only help them in their academic front but also help tap their innate potentials.

"Children are glued to televisions almost all the time and it would be better if NIE could host a short documentary film on what the children can look for in a newspaper, the topics which would interest them and how they can effectively contribute," Annie Margaret suggested.

Shoba and Sharan are from Prism Books Private Limited.

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