page 2 ( 42 ) Our Science Teacher in Std VII

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     Our Science Teacher Paulose sir lived near  the English Medium School.  After the gate to the  school, there were three houses, then we could see a small brook. Behind it, stood his house.  Unfortunately, he couldn't finish all the chapters in time.  Therefore, one day, he came to the class and said that the following Saturday, there would be a special class.  When I examined the textbook, the next chapter was "Light Energy".  As he was teaching Science in two divisions, the screen between two classes were removed and we were seated in the same class.  I was sad because I was a little far away from the Teacher.  But I could hear everything as he uttered each word in his maximum volume.

     A prism was there in his hand.  When it was placed between sunlight and the wall of the classroom, seven colours were seen on the wall.   The sunlight was split into seven colours.  There was the "Newton's ring" with him.  Seven colours were there  in the "Newton's ring".  He asked a student to rotate it fastly.  Then we were surprised to see the white colour of the ring.  Our Teacher concluded that light rays contained  seven colours - Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange & Red - VIBGYOR.  An example was rainbow.  Many activities were described in the text.  One of them was standing against the sun in the morning or evening and spitting  water.  Then we can see seven colours in the water.  How many times I did it, I don't know.

     When we were in the class, our Teacher spoke to us about different types of lenses :- convex & concave.  He explained to us what are converging and diverging lenses, focal length, real and virtual images.  When he taught us refraction, I entered in another world.  Then came diffraction & dispersion.  When the Teacher explained everything with the help of pictures I understood everything.  But I was worried "how would I study all these things?"  He explained how the image of an object really  focusses on  the retina of the eye.

     We went out of the classroom and did many experiments.  What were those experiments ?  A paper was placed on the floor so that the focal length comes correctly at one point of the paper.  We wondrously looked at the paper when that particular point began to burn.  We did many experiments as a result the light rays divided into seven colours could be seen.

     Paulose Sir explained  that we could make an album of different types of butterflies and paste them on a book.  That idea was new to me.  In front of my house, near the flowers, there were many butterflies .  From the next day onwards, I and my brother started to catch the butterflies and our bag  was full with dead butterflies.  I didn't know what was the next step.  I didn't have the courage to ask the Teacher.  He was also busy with covering the whole syllabus.

     One thing was  clear.  I would't forget that day's special class and experiments outside the classroom.  Sometimes I had thought that if the classes were like that, I would have become a more knowledgeable person.