Posts

Learning additional languages

We are privileged to live in a country where we have 11 official verbal languages as well as sign language. We also have schools that cater for foreign languages like Spanish and French in our country. At some point in our school career we all need to learn at least one additional language. Often one might end up getting schooled in a language that is not one’s home language and then, what is supposed to be one’s second language, is technically one’s third or fourth language.  Learning a new language is extremely valuable and can be lots of fun. However, languages, especially those not very close to or similar to one’s home language could be difficult to learn, but it is possible. I would like to share some ideas on how one can make learning a second language easier and more fun.   Listen to songs in the language you want to learn. Start with children’s songs if you want.   Read children’s books in the language you want to learn. Someone once said, think of the ...

How does trauma affect learning

Recently, a headline popped up in my Google news feed. My eyes quickly scanned over it, but I never actually opened it up to read it. It was something to the extent of when one thinks one is bad at math; it might just be that one suffers from trauma.  This is something I have come across many times working with thousands of students during my career, which I thought will be a good topic to write about in the very first blog on the Simplifying School website.  I have had the opportunity to work with thousands of students in my career, on a one-on-one level, by now and I have seen how much trauma and damage can be inflicted on a student’s academic performance through words of classmates, sibling, parents and even teachers.  If I have to write about every single case I came across I will be writing non-stop for weeks, if not months. I have seen cases, where parents introduce their kids to me as follows: “And this is (name), (name) is terrible at (subject). I don’t think t...