Planet Moon and other misconceptions at Indian schools

A commentary piece written by our founder, Vyjayanthi Sankar for Reuters

As a young girl growing up in Chennai by the beach, I saw the Sun rise from the sea every day and go across the sky to set on the other side of the city. It appeared to me that the Sun was disappearing below ground to reappear from under the sea the next morning.

When I learnt later in school that the Earth goes around the Sun, I was faced with the difficult task of deleting a mental image that made sense to me, and replacing it with a model that was not intuitively understandable.

Misconceptions have been a bane for educators since time immemorial. Even the best students at the best universities have been known to harbour misconceptions about simple things.

Research says that students do not come to the classroom as “blank slates”, rather they come with notions constructed from everyday experiences. Teachers and schools further help build this understanding. During this process, the mind forms ideas and attempts to connect the new with information stored in memory. Some of these ideas may be erroneous and may result in faulty concepts or misconceptions.

Click here to read the full commentary on in.reuters.com.