The day we met an ISRO Scientist

Being just a month old teacher at Lumens, I was really excited about the trip to Dharampur since in recent times – Chandrayaan was all we were talking about at school and otherwise. I was also quite curious to see how Lumens kids react to the talks of an ISRO scientist and how does the scientist react to such a bunch of young (4th and 5th graders), curious, confident and outspoken children. I had always heard and seen the effects of the teaching method, QuadSeek in the ways young kids knew things and spoke of them during the last one month. So even before the management thought about it, I volunteered to go to the Dharampur Science center with the kids to attend the talk by an ISRO scientist.

True to my expectations, the trip was undoubtedly an inspiring and memorable one as interacting with these kids at an informal level was quite fun and impressive.  I can never forget the moments when the kids were moving around the place exploring interactive science exhibits before the talk and teaching me those things. To be honest, apart from learning some of the things I didn’t know, I was quite proud to see the surprised expressions on the face of other people around us. It was quite difficult to show humility when they asked me which school were we from, though other teachers and kids didn’t seem that affected, maybe after a while, I will get used to this too.

I was in complete awe of the questions they asked us (the teachers) and the scientists present there which showed me their level of curiosity, fearlessness in asking questions, confidence in answering and their thirst for knowledge.

One of the questions that blew my mind was when a kid asked, “Each country is investing in its own space research. Its all for all the humans on the earth. Then why don’t we all work together? We may be able to do achieve a lot more at much lesser cost!” This question helped me restore my faith in the kind of education our children are getting.