Category: Perspective

Read though the letter written by a 6 year old and Randomly selected 2-marks answer regarding “The Cell” in a Biology Answer Paper in the language of the future

Letter written by Amit (6yrs) after spending his summer holidays with his grandparents in the suburbs

hi grdma & grdpa my rspts 2 u n g’pa.i hd gr8 tme durg da hldys at d vlge vit al of u.i’m watng 2 tel my frds at schl al abt d fun & xprce i had thr. i lvd d grdn & lcal tmple.u r a gr8 kuk g’ma. d snks dat u hve pckd 4r us wll lst 4r abt 6 mnths.my othr frds nr d huse r alrdy fan of urs. dey wnt me 2 ask u , if u wud let dem kum der drng nxt hol-sesn.i wnt dem 2 c da lcl-fair. dey will luv it i’m sur. ma & pa brgt me new bag 4r schl.2dy v r go’ng 2 by lnch-bx n wtr-bttle.i’ll rite mor aftr i tel my frds abt u & g’pa.ILU bth vmch..amt

A Short answer regarding THE CELL for 2 marks from a biology answer paper

Da cels da cel is da strl & fnl unt of lfe.al actv dat v asocte vit lvng (eatng , elmtng vste, brthng,rprdcng ) r prfrmd bi indiv cels. da vay diff cels undrtke dees actvty may vari cnsdrbly, but da end res is da sme. da stdy of da bod at da celulr lvl is kald cytlgy.an undrstdng of cytlgy is imp coz da disse procss orignts at da cellr lvl

Baffled at the two snippets of text presented above.. Well gear up and get used to the language of the future. THE SMS. Read further, I have also given the understandable version of the above text for the less SMS-lingo friendly souls. This is how you will see a 6 year old’s letter or a randomly chosen answer paper
Amit’s Letter

Hi Grandma and Grandpa My Respects to you and Grandpa. I had a great time during the holidays at the village with all of you. I am waiting to tell my friends at school about the fun and experience i had there. I loved the garden and the local temple. You are a great cook grandma. The snacks that you have packed for us will last for about 6 months. My other friends near the house are already fanof yours. They want me to ask you, if you would let them come there during the next holiday season. I want them to see the local fair. They will love it i am sure. Mom and Dad brought me new bag for school. Today we are going to buy lunchbox and water bottle. I will write more after i tell my friends about you and Grandpa. I love you both very much… Amit

THE CELL

The cell is the structural and functional unit of life. All activities that we associate with living (eating, eliminating waste,breathing, reproducing) are performed by individual cells. The way different cells undertake these activities may vary considerably, but the end result is the same. The study of the body at the cellular level is called cytology. An understanding of cytology is important because the disease process originates at the cellular level.

The Primary complaint that a student (from Std-I to PhD) has is the lack of time during the examination. With the new lingo coming handy at these times of crisis.. They say that they shall be able to perform better during the examination. With the
SMS-lingo catching up even the regular spellings have gone for a toss.

I recollect during my college years, (definitely not school) I would take my lecture notes in a manner something similar to the prevailing SMS lingo, because I didn’t want to miss anything that my lecturer says (speed & accuracy of content) and at the same time I had to protect my hard-work (of taking down notes & i also color code it) from the eyes of notes-grabbers. You know.. Notes-Grabbers are those who rarely
attend classes…but get very comfy with the regulars just months before the exams so that they can take the notes and Xerox them and walk away with “Wow.. Without attending classes how did u manage to score so well” kind of applause from all the
faculty members. So, armed with my cryptic notes… I was well safeguarded against Notes-Grabbers. It’s true I compile my cryptic notes and safely lock it away at home. So i was never their favorite. Many note-grabbers have indeed confessed that its far more rewarding to sit though the lecture, rather than trying to decipher the contents of my notes. At least they would be rewarded with attendance in the former case.

Lets not stray away form the topic of discussion… coming to which, The principle behind SMS-lingo is to condense the spelling but conveying the content to save money and time. Everything in this society goes through a transition phase. This is how I see it,

We remember our grandparents telling that they studied in Regional-language medium schools and have fared well. They did not miss going to a English medium school. They fared well in life…the reason I would say is they had to prove themselves to a
limited population.. may be their Village-Taluk-District or even state. The completion was limited.

Next, Our parents… they might have spend their educational years in the regional language medium schools and some extra time to master the understanding & usage of the most prevailing language “English”. They forced themselves towards familiarizing with English so that they would not be lagging behind in their career and social circles. This made them see beyond the local Village-Taluk-District. The competition just got a little wide.

Now, ourselves…Our parents made it their life’s mission to send us to schools that taught English. Knowledge of one more language increased our chances of survival in the National and international arena. We, Indians had to equip ourselves with
few more popular languages other than English… like Hindi (if you are facing competition from the north) or any or all of the South Indian languages (why… well… u all know why). That’s not all.. There are many who take the pains to study other foreign languages as well like German, Spanish, French, Italian…even Swahili..Etc..depending on their job description. So on the competition scale, its the widest as the world just became a global village.

So.. What does this have to do with “Allowing SMS lingo at school” and other areas of correspondence? We all are today’s participants in the competition of successful existence…bound to retire some time in the future. After which…the next generation will take the reigns of development (self –national-international) in their hands. So it’s our duty to equip them well.

The Outage to accept SMS-lingo at school comes after the news of this lingo being accepted at Britain-NewZeland.etc…the Transition has begun…lets not bury our heads like an ostrich and try to wade it out. Certainly, it will not be practically possible to allow the students to answer all the exams in this manner. We can hit the right ground only after trying various permutations and combinations. Lets accept that its just one more language and start treating it like one.

We have seen fights and fistfights (and bullfights – occasionally on TV). Definitely not interested in the regular ones that we watch in the movies. There is a special kind of fight sequence we all are well aware of. This happens everyday at every house irrespective of the social status.

It is not uncommon to see a teenager and parents arguing with one another. Both seem to be correct in their own perspective. The problem seems to be in convincing the other person to see the respective point of view. The bottom-line is “WHY DONOT YOU LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY”.

Both imagine that LISTENING = ACCEPTING, which is where the battle starts and ends in a war of words followed by stomping of the foot or closing the door with a loud thud. By the end of the day it’s the hormones that take all the blame.

How many of us had seriously given a thought about “Hearing & Listening”.We HEAR a song to relax our nerves, but we LISTEN to the same song trying to memorize its lyrics and identify the nuances of the music involved.

Any teenager will declare that the parents never take effort to understand their feelings or thoughts, and vice versa. Both are individuals with intelligence and intellect with the ability to reason things out.

The only reason that I personally feel that they are not able to convey one-another’s thought process is due to the difference in the activity level. On one hand the teenagers are hyperactive, thinking in the speed of light, whereas their parents have mellowed down a bit and desperately need the intermittent much-needed-slow-down-phase.

Teenagers don’t need advice; they will learn it as they grow. But as parents you can suggest solution to their problem instead of yelling “If you had did ( or did not do) what I said, this problem would not have arisen in the first place”.

Parents see themselves in their children. Hence its only natural &instinctive for them to correct you even before you think of something that might go wrong. This is defentely far fetched, but atlest do make an attempt towards trying to understand.

Finally-“You are a teenager with raging hormones and they are parents with raging temper”.

If you LISTEN, then they will ACCEPT, is something that both should try to remember

Please read further after reading about GENERATION GAP..OK…Now that all of you had read me go rant-rant about how i feel about a typical Indian -household feels about the gadgets that are so popular today.. let me also speak about the brighter side of it.
The GENERATION GAP that you had read earlier represented the scenario typical in the late 80’s an 90’s. Its not the same anymore.

Every family has at least 2-3 members who are settled (or on short-term education-work related stays) abroad. With the regular “post-office-based” correspondence (fondly called as Snail-Mail by the netizens) dwindling and the safety of the wards posing a major concern.. parents are not able to keep in contact with the children (&family) with just the phone calls (and the bills for those calls run astronomically high).Few tit-bits of information taking as long as only 5-9 min does not satisfy the paternal emotions, leaving them teary eyed for weeks together.

Not very soon they realized that its possible to have the cake and eat it too.
All it takes is to have the mindset and persistence to bake the cake..er..err… i mean..
GENERATION – T
The seniors have learnt and accepted few vital things about Personal Computers with basic operational skills…

1. They can send “letters” to the wards which will reach them in moments…than posting an aerogramme.
2. The reply “letters” sent by wards are also received much sooner……..than waiting for the post man to deliver them.
3. Using a MIKE.. its possible to talk to each other for any length of time (or perhaps even daily)Without worrying about the telephone bills if only both the parties are agreeing on a common time for the chit-chat. This is almost like a family conversation over the dinner table except that it now takes place in front of a screen.
4. Using a special camera (I think they call it a computer-camera..and not web-cam) its possible to see while talking

So technology has filled the void that parents used to have when their child (&family) left homeland in search of newer pastures. Its indeed a breakthrough in their psyche that they have expressed their willingness to be more techno-friendly on a NEED-TO-KNOW basis.

Long classroom lectures will do them no good. They donot aspire for some degree course, instead they would be grateful and feel “jolly-good” if only some one could help them use the gadgets to fulfill the emotional void and
bridge the geographical gap with few set of wires.

GENERATION – CC (Compassionate & Caring ….no longer “Cautions & Caught”)
Once “cost conscious”.. this generation is only too willing to invest once their parents have expressed the willingness to update themselves to be techno friendly. They also realize that its going to be an uphill task in getting them understand the “how-to-use” ,”when-to-use” and many of similar “lessons” in the process of making them self reliant with the Personal Computer.

Many of you might have noticed that how important it is to make the senior citizens understand NOT -TO-PANIC when the computer does not behave the way we want it. One such experience (say system hangs).. is enough to hold them back and they wow never to touch the computer again. Whoever is tutoring the senior citizens , must have loads and loads of patience and the willingness to be accessible to them at any time.

GENERATION – X
They are the happiest when they realize their grandparents are going to be techno-friendly. They can now say that they have the coolest grandparents in the whole-wide-world and are very proud to introduce them to their peer-group. More mature members of this generation are only too willing to impart the all important computer-knowledge without embarrassing the elders. They are enthusiastic for two reasons

1. Their grandparents are the coolest.
2. They don’t get a time-out for not doing their HW / chores… they were too busy imparting knowledge … now that they also have the back up of grandparents.

There is a role-reversal seen in the family on such occassions.The child becomes the teacher and the (grand) parents have to stick by the rules which they made for their (Grand)children during their schooling years.Just like any feild of education.. Theory-Practical lessons & HomeWork are important to gain the knowledge (even for a NEED-TO-KNOW basis kind of learning..)Those senoir citizens who had religiously spend their time learing these basic skills are only canvassing to their frinds to learn computers and enjoy the joys it has to offer.

You have your own doughts about my thoughts…do a little bit of HomeWork youself and talk to techno-frindly senoirs who are chatting away with sons /daughters – grandchildren in some cybercafe or even at home.Dont forget to tell me your experince with techno-frindly seniors…
Look around—LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

Finally you have gained some grip over typing in tamil using english alphabets.
All that remains is to post your Tamil-notes in the bolg.
Open the respective tamil -baraha document.
Edit–Select All
In the window where the characters appear as you type—Right clik
Copy special–Text UNICODE
Paste — in your Post page
Voila

Now you can see the Tamil charcters pasted on to the post window
Go ahead..Publish your first tamil post
Finally.. dont forget to include a link to this place in your blog.
It will make me little more happy when some one acknowledges my effort

I have started a My Tamil blog exclusively for Tamil posts
so the existing tamil posts will be reposted in the new My Tamil Blog along with the comments
Hope all of you will like it

The Existing tamil posts are reposted along with the comments