Indian Institute of Teacher Education - General Studies

General Studies

Health and Physical Education 1

Credits 2

Course Objective: A health and strong body should be regarded as pre-requisite for any candidate to be a good teacher. Only then the teacher will be able to inspire the child to become a good gymnast, athlete or swimmer, body builder or a good yogi having the right type of the body for spiritual accomplishments.

Perspective: Basic Concepts about Health, Human Being and Integral perspective of Physical Education

1. The Concept of Health

2. Planes and parts of human being: What is the Body?, What is Mind?, What is Soul?, What is Spirit?, What is Self ?

3. Exploration of the terms ’ Swasthya’ and ’Arogya’.

4. The concept of Integral health : An evolving state of progressive harmonization and growth of the human being around psychic consciousness;

5. Integral health and physical education: Extended [outer and inner) benefits of physical education in helping one to develop integrally.

(l.e.jnfluence of proper physical education over mental, vital and psychic growth): such as - Team spirit, discipline, acceptance of the decision of the referee, equanimity in success or failure, - Spiritual and psychic harmony, Dominating over thoughts, desires and impulses in such a way that following are developed simultaneously: Healthy and Strong Body, Increasing Enthusiasm for endurance and heroism, Clarity of thoughts, Quietude of the Mind under the authority of Psychic and Spiritual Consciousness - Physical Consciousness - a means of expression of Divinity through beauty.

1. Subtle aspects of health: Strength, Agility, Proportions of the Body, Duty of the Body, What is Vitality? What is Rationality?

Practical work:

Running: sprint running (100 mts, 200 mts, 400 mts) skills

Rules for sprint running, 400 mts standard track equipment.

Volley ball: skills, rules of the game, play field, equipments.

Pranayam: Meaning of Pranayam, rules of pranayam, Kapalbhati Pranayam.

Asana: Meaning of Asana, Rules of asana, Padmasana, Baddha padmasana, Lolasana Shavasana.

Dumbbells: stroking series.

Fields and Equipments:

Field : 400 mts standard track, playfield for volleyball, assembly hall.

Equipments: Starting blocks, spikes clappers, whistles, flags, tape (steel) stopwatches.

Volleyballs, equipments for volleyball game, stand for umpire, carpets, and dumbbells.

Development of Integral Personality (DIP1) with focus on Music & Dance

Credits 2

Course Objective:

Philosophical Aspect

If one of the acknowledged aims of education is the development of the multisided integral personality, the teachers of today and tomorrow should be empowered to develop their own integral personality and they should have a good philosophical and psychological grounding in the concept of personality and in the processes of development and integration of personality.

Self-Study Aspect

If the teacher is conceived as a gardener and a child as the bud that contains within itself the potentialities of full-blown flower, we may be able to get the insights as to what has to be the role of the teacher while tending the bud so that it receives necessary environment, atmosphere, influence and some kind of intervention of intelligent and deliberate but extremely careful and restrained care of the teacher. The teacher is not merely an instructor, but she provides atmosphere and environment through her own internalized values, capacities and also her knowledge and wisdom. Only thinkers can produce thinkers, and only the courageous can impart inspiration towards heroism; only light can kindle lamps, and only the kind and the compassionate can provide to the students the required warmth and uplifting influence. How to implement this oft repeated precept into actual practice of teaching and learning in a class situation has to be worked out carefully. A tentative curriculum ‘To know oneself and to control oneself has been appended, topics from which can be selected by students for self-study.

Aim of Philosophical Study: To study concepts of person and personality. Both western and Indian views should be included. These would include distinction between introvert and extrovert; concepts of ego, superego, personality and individuality. Person as a soul, psychic being, Soul and the Divine Reality.

Recommended Texts:

1. Education for Personality Development by Kireet Joshi in book titled ’Education for Tomorrow’

2. Contemporary Schools of Psychology by Woodworth

Self Study Component

To Know Oneself and to Control Oneself-1

I. Stories and plays to illustrate the following themes:

1. The ideal of truth:
   To speak the truth, whatever the consequences.

2. Aspiration for perfection:
   Whatever you do, do it as perfectly as you can.

3. Dreams of the new world:
   Where truth alone prevails, where beauty and goodness pervade.

II. Special exhibitions on the above themes.

III. Teachers may recommend the following exercises and help each child to practise them:

1. Exercises in remembering and repeating noble aspirations and thoughts.

2. Exercises in observations and accurate description (leaves, plants, flowers, minerals, scenes, animals, figures, human body, artistic pictures, musical pieces, building, objects, and events).

3. Art of bathing, art of cleaning the teeth, art of dreaming, art of sitting and standing in right postures.

4. Exercises in control of the senses:

5. Control in regulating calls of nature, thirst and appetite;

6. Control in speech;

7. Control in behaviour;

8. Control in movement and action.

IV Development of the sense of wonders:

1. Examples from astronomy: distance, vastness, galaxies, expanding universe.

2. Examples from physics: what is matter behind what we see and touch?

3. Examples from chemistry: what is water? Is it mere oxygen and hydrogen or something more?

4. Examples from other sciences: caterpillar and butterfly, language and understanding, outer man and inner man.

V. Training of the senses and their powers:

1. Knowledge of the senses: five senses of knowledge, five senses of action.

2. Exercises of vision and hearing: art and music as instruments.

3. Exercises of concentration in sense activities.

4. Inner senses: capacities to see the invisible and to hear the inaudible.

VI. Awareness of the body:

1. Elementary knowledge relating to health, strength and beauty of the body.

2. Art of relaxation and art of sleeping.

3. The body as the temple of the spirit.

VII. Teachers may recommend, according to circumstances, the following attitudes and exercises:

1. One should study, not to pass examinations, but to discover the secrets of the world.

2. Work with the body is indispensable for true knowledge and experiences.

3. Practise of concentration in every activity: concentration is the key to all progress.

4. Practise of quietude and silence in "Rooms of Silence".

5. Impromptu periods or moments when children are asked to be as quiet as possible.