As the countdown for the summer vacations begin, your excitement and joy can be marred by the panic surrounding packing up the classroom. In this article, Shahrezad Samiuddin outlines tips for organising and packing up the classroom that will make the task easier now, and make settling in a breeze when it is time to come back to school.

Take pride in how far you’ve come. Have faith in how far you can go. But don’t forget to enjoy the journey. – Michael Josephson
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As environmental destruction and drastic climatic changes reach crisis levels, it is evident that human beings cannot continue taking from the Earth without giving back to her. Now is the time to educate future generations to respect the Earth and the classroom is the obvious place to start raising their consciousness. In this article, Yasmeen Shahzad explores the extent of the problems facing our planet and the methods we can easily adopt in the classroom to support it.
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Commonly treated as an add-on, art has seldom been considered a serious part of an education. In this article Shahrezad Samiuddin explores the prevailing attitudes towards a subject that is vital to students’ success and a well-rounded education.
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Results from TRC’s opinion poll last month show that most of you believe that the most effective ways of disciplining a child do not involve punishment. In this article, veteran teacher Fauzia Azami Zubair looks at common problems that arise when we punish students and explores more humane and effective ways of dealing with the issue of discipline.
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New Year Wishes

We wish all our members and readers a harmonious, untroubled, fulfilling 2013, in which we face different challenges which help us stretch and evolve/grow/develop, in which we make new mistakes from which we learn to act with more wisdom. These quotes will surely resonate with many of your feelings:

• Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. Kurt Vonnegut

• Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. Maya Angelou

With the pressure to get good grades being so high and examples of cheaters ‘getting away with it,’ is it any surprise that cheating is so rampant in schools around Pakistan? In this article, Shahrezad Samiuddin explores what you can do to curb this menace and more importantly how you can encourage a more ethical environment.
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Should we or shouldn’t we talk to our children about sex? In the first part of this article, Umul Binin and Shahrezad Samiuddin look at the issues and viewpoints surrounding the controversial topic of sex education in a conservative environment.
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Distractions are part and parcel of modern living, and so it is no surprise that our classrooms are also increasingly susceptible to sudden interruptions. How do you deal with the unpredictable? And how do you do it without losing your cool? Yasmeen Shahzad explores.
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To go tech or not to go tech? In a world being taken over by technology that morphs by the minute, the question many modern classrooms face is not if, but how to use technology in the classroom. In this article Shahrezad Samiuddin explores the benefits and challenges of adding technology to the educational mix.
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Modern communication technologies are revolutionising the way we communicate. Emails and Short Message Service (SMS) are quick and convenient, but a new language is evolving around them which is changing the way we express ourselves and communicate. For this month’s article, Shahrezad Samiuddin compiled various opinions on what has come to be known as ‘textese’.
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Our August issue of Ilm o Amal is packed with ideas and tips on how to make the most of the first few days of the new school year. We are uploading the article a little earlier than usual to help you plan the beginning of the school year, incorporate some of the suggested activities in your class routine and ease your students into the new academic year.

The transition from summer vacations to the new academic year can be challenging even for the most experienced of teachers. Children can be nervous about being in a new class or simply sad that the holidays have come to an end. In this article, Maria Haque shares both new and tried-and-tested activities that will help you ground students into a new routine and kick off the academic year in a pain-free way.
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