Some Thoughts on Education

Read the quotations below and think how you would answer the questions.


EDUCATION

“Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive: easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.” [Lord Brougham: in a speech to the House of Commons, 1828]

• Does the sentence suggest that it’s easier to control uneducated masses?

• Is it in the interest of those who wield power to keep people ignorant?

• Do you think that it’s still possible in the 21st century to doubt the benefits of education?

LEARNING

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.” [Alexander Pope]

• How would the meaning of the sentence change if it started with ‘little learning’ instead of ‘a little learning’?

• What can be dangerous about ‘a little learning’?

• Is ‘a little learning’ better than ignorance?

TEACHING

“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” [Oscar Wilde]

• Which things are worth knowing that cannot be taught?

• If you were to choose things that you want to know, would they exclude things that you are currently learning?

• If certain things cannot be taught, does it mean that they cannot be learned?

INSTRUCTION

“The things which hurt, instruct.” [Benjamin Franklin]

• Do we learn better through pain?

• If children learn through fun and play, isn’t it proper education?

• Is an idea of punishment necessarily connected with instruction?

TEACHERS

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” [Henry Adams]

• Doesn’t teachers’ influence stop the moment you leave the classroom?

• Have you ever been taught by a teacher whose lessons you will still remember after 10 or even 20 years?

• Is the teaching profession considered a ‘vocation’ or a ‘job’?

WISDOM

“The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.” [T.H. Huxley]

• How different is ‘wisdom’ from ‘education’?

• Is wisdom connected with technological and scientific progress or compassion and understanding?

• Who can be called a wise man?

Vedic Maths Tricks

Multiplying a number by 11:

To multiply any 2-digit number by 11 we just put the sum of the two digits between the 2 digits.
26 x 11 = 286
Notice that the outer digits in 286 are the 26 being multiplied.
And the middle digit is just 2 and 6 added up.
So 72 x 11 = 792

77 x 11 = 847
This involves a carry figure because 7 + 7 = 14
We get 77 x 11 = 7₁47 = 847

Similarly, 234 x 11 = 2574
We put the 2 and the 4 at the ends. We add the first pair 2 + 3 = 5 and we add the last pair: 3 + 4 = 7.

---

A quick way to square numbers that end in 5 using the formula BY ONE MORE THAN THE ONE BEFORE

75² = 5625
75² means 75 x 75.The answer is in two parts: 56 and 25.The last part is always 25. The first part is the first number, 7, multiplied by the number "one more", which is 8:so 7 x 8 = 56

Similarly, 85² = 7225 because 8 x 9 = 72.

---

Method for dividing by 9:

23 / 9 = 2 remainder 5
The first figure of 23 is 2, and this is the answer.The remainder is just 2 and 3 added up!
43 / 9 = 4 remainder 7
The first figure 4 is the answerand 4 + 3 = 7 is the remainder - could it be easier?

134 / 9 = 14 remainder 8
The answer consists of 1, 4 and 8.
1 is just the first figure of 134.
4 is the total of the first two figures 1+ 3 = 4
and 8 is the total of all three figures 1+ 3 + 4 = 8.

842 / 9 = 8₁2 remainder 14 = 92 remainder 14
Actually a remainder of 9 or more is not usually permitted because we are trying to find how many 9's there are in 842.
Since the remainder, 14 has one more 9 with 5 left over
the final answer will be 93 remainder 5

---

Father of All Bombs

• "Father of All Bombs" is the nickname of a Russian-made air-delivered thermobaric weapon that is claimed to be four times more powerful than the U.S. military's GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB or the "mother of all bombs"), making it the most powerful publicly-known conventional (non-nuclear) weapon in the world.
• It was successfully field-tested in the late evening of September 11, 2007, when it was apparently dropped from a Tupolev Tu-160 heavy bomber with a parachute and exploded.
• Russia says the weapon yields the equivalent of 44 tons of TNT using 7.8 tons of a new type of high explosive, claimed to be created applying "nanotechnology".
• In comparison, the MOAB produces the equivalent of 11 tons of TNT from 8 tons of high explosive.
• The blast radius of 300 m is twice as large as the MOAB.
• Although its effect has been compared to that of a nuclear weapon, it is comparable only to the lowest yield settings of the lowest yield nuclear weapons.
• The FOAB only has around 0.3 percent of the power of the atomic bomb used against Hiroshima (a yield of 13 kilotons of TNT), which itself is considerably smaller than most modern nuclear weapons (which are usually measured in the hundreds of kilotons range, upwards into the megaton range).

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs

Our true task in religion

Our true task in religion

Today, the definition of religion has changed.

It seems that in many cases,

a Hindu
is not a Hindu
anymore,
he is anti-Muslim

and
likewise,

a Muslim
is not a Muslim but
an anti-Hindu.

This explains why a follower
of one
religion thinks of himself as not akin
to those of another,
On
the contrary,
he treats him as his enemy.
The teachings of religion have
vanished
from his vision and the feelings of love,
brotherhood and
sacrifice,
which are the essence of true religion,
are overtaken by
hatred,
enmity and selfishness.

Man has forgotten that God
is one and His only expectation from
creation is love and
sacrifice
for one's fellow creatures.
Those who love their fellow beings
love Him best.
He does not wish us to worship Him as an idol.
He expects
us to be rational and rationality
de mands goodwill to all fellow
beings,
irrespective of caste colour or creed.

Obviously in the early days,
men of different regions were different in language,
features and food
habits due to geographical factors.
But basically all human beings are
alike.
The entire universe and all mankind living
in it are God's
creation.
So
why do
we kill, burn and rape? Is it not shameful?

The very purpose of religion
as envisaged in the preaching of
prophets is love and dedication to
humanity.
How sad it is that the very purpose of religion
has been
defeated!
Do we pause even
for a moment to consider that
as
enlightened members of society in the 21st century,
we should take it
to heart that we owe
it to God to fight against this
current frenzy of
religious fundamentalism
tooth and nail?
We owe it to the Almighty to
make people
realise that they have been totally
misguided by the
preachers and perpetrators
of this fundamentalism in God's name.

It is better to be
non-Hindu and non-Muslim
than to be
anti-Muslim or anti-Hindu.
How we pray
is private business.
But living together peacefully is
God's enjoined
duty on us
as members of the human family.