1.     Give Positive Feedback

Praise your students – Nothing beats it when it comes to encouraging students. Praise them verbally and in written modes. Praise them whenever appropriate – Do not shy away or let your ego come in the way of praising kids. Send notes to their parents through the students giving them an avenue to celebrate their success at home. Arrange for a mini awards ceremony within the class when you feel peer recognition will make a difference

2.     Set Realistic Expectations and Celebrate when they are met

Set long term goals for the students and short term goals towards achieving the long term goals. Reveal only the short term goals to the students till they are able to grasp the concept of long term goals. Work towards helping them achieve the short term goals and celebrate when they meet these milestones.

3.     Let  the students feel your passion and excitement

Excitement is contagious and it needs to stem from the teacher. A teacher brimming with excitement has won half the battle in ensuring that the content he/she teaches is absorbed by the students.

4.     Vary your teaching methods

Monotonous teachers are boring and can even become the butt of jokes. Vary your style.  Start your class with a small game at times. End your class with a surprise quiz. Vary your styles of teaching and it is sure to reap you rewards.

5.     Facilitate, Don't dominate

Today’s students get a lot of exposure via media, internet and other avenues that were not existent a decade or two back. Most of the times students need to connect the dots and they grasp the message. A teacher’s role in facilitating and ensuring that this happens is a lot more appreciated by students and parents alike rather than a dominating teacher who feels that she or he is right always.

6.     Make Topics Practical

Topics taught need to resonate with the students inherent curiosity of why something is worth learning. Even a drab subject needs to be spiced up and portrayed in the context of everyday things to ensure the practicality aspect is well understood.

7.     Point Success milestones to your students

Students often tend to miss their personal milestones while trying to catch up with the rest of the students in the class. A teach has to keep tabs on individual milestones and ensure the students realize that they have reached specific milestones and that development is a continuous journey.

8.     Get out of the Textbook

Textbook teaching is pretty boring. A good teacher needs to grasp the essence of the lesson and distil it for her / his students. They have to get down to real life examples that allow the students to gasp “Aahaa…We never thought of this!!!”. 

Parents often provide a lot of stuff for their kids wishing they would learn new skills and get inspired by thoughts. However, what gets forgotten is that just providing stuff is not sufficient for kids; we also need to provide them ample time to explore things at their own leisure and at times even without imposing our pre-conceived notions of what needs to be done with the stuff. 

Ex: We given them a toy train and then teach them to go around the house screeching "Kooo...chuk chuk chuk..." We are imposing our pre-conceived notion that a train can only make this kind of sound. Why not , for a change, try giving the kid a toy train and let him or her explore the train at their leisure. Guide them only when they come seeking your guidance...else just observe them from a distance. You will be marveled at their creativity and ingeniousness. 

Here's a video to inspire parents and teachers....Creativity is not inspired by the pressure of time but by the freedom of playfulness and  fun

As parents, try to find adequate time for your kids and provide them with first hand experiences. Certain experiences can be taken for granted depending on the community where you live. For example, children with a rural background will have a fairly good knowledge of seeds being planted and fertilizers spread. Never assume that your kids will get access to all sorts of life experiences in school. Even if the school is a good one and provides vicarious experiences, your approach will certainly will still stand out unique.

Look at the following few experiences:

1. Visit to a farm house.
2. Visit to a nursery.
3. Observing sparrows building nests, laying eggs and rearing their young ones.
4. Visit to a printing press or a garage.
5. Visit to a health clinic or a hospital.
6. Visit to a plastic industry.
7. Visit to an old age home or an orphanage.
8. Visit to a recycling unit.
9. Visit to a sericulture or a pisciculture plant.
10. Visit to a museum or a zoo.
11. Visit to a doll house or a studio.
12. Visit to a building construction site.

Never play down the importance of such visits while conversing with kids. Even if you are well versed, show a lot of interest in the activities there. Unless you show interest, how can the kids get enthused? Kids will definitely shoot dozens of questions, once he gets engrossed with the subject. Once you are in a site, discuss the situation, raise doubts, answer questions, compare things, appreciate good work done there and yes, at the end of it you will have contributed a lot to kid development.

I have seen some parents who think that their kids are too young to catch up. But, that is not a fact. Kids too can understand and appreciate. They are curious enough to know new things. Even your daily visits to your friend's place or market or doctor will have new experiences in store for your kids to see and understand.

For Gandhiji, a great philosopher and freedom fighter who led Indian freedom struggle, education meant, "The drawing out of the best in child and man - body, mind and spirit." For him literacy was no education. He wanted the child to be treated as a whole and imparted knowledge to. He emphasized the development of head, heart and hands. For him, education had its essence in practical work. He thought that the end of all education must be the building of character. Education should bring about the purity of heart.

He hated the kind of education wherein the child's mind is stuffed with all kinds of information without even stimulating or developing him. Thus education is that which draws out and stimulates the spiritual, intellectual and physical faculties of the children.

Gandhiji was a great teacher himself. He wanted teachers to be well trained, proficient men and women of knowledge, faith and enthusiasm. They must be people of character.

Gandhiji wanted to establish a classless, casteless society based on the principles of truth and non-violence. He advocated the introduction of craft in schools for creative self expression, practical work and learning by doing. He wanted children to develop a scientific look. He believed that every child is good by nature. Hence he insisted that the education provided needs to be psychologically sound.

Gandhiji interpreted education as the development of human personality. This outlook goes well with any modern concept of education.