Ruth's Reflective Routes

In today’s diverse classrooms, differentiation has become a key element for ensuring that every learner’s unique needs are met. The concept is well understood and supported by teachers, who recognize that personalizing instruction is crucial for maximizing student engagement and success. However, the reality is that differentiation requires significant time and effort, and many teachers face overwhelming time constraints. Time: The Scarce Commodity With a set number of holidays in a year and the preparation required for school celebrations and events, teachers often find their available working hours shrinking. These events are essential for creating a vibrant, well-rounded learning environment, but they also take away from the time that could be spent on planning differentiated lessons. Despite these challenges, teachers continue to rise to the occasion. I’ve encountered many dedicated educators who go the extra mile to collaborate with their peers. They understand that differentiatio...

Growing up, wrestling wasn’t just entertainment—it was a family tradition. My brothers, sister and I would gather around the TV to watch WWF superstars in action, and at home, we had our own championship matches. My brothers proudly claimed the title of household WWF champions, and we would dive off couches, imagining ourselves as the wrestling icons we idolised. Wrestling taught us a lot about energy, timing, and control—but it also delivered lessons that extend far beyond the ring. One of these lessons came from Dave Bautista, famously known as Batista, who shared invaluable advice he received from The Undertaker, one of wrestling's greatest legends. While The Undertaker guided him on being mindful in the ring, it was his financial advice that left a lasting impact on Batista. As Batista recalls, The Undertaker said, “Always live beneath your means.” It’s a lesson Batista admits he learned the hard way—through personal mistakes—and now shares with athletes from humble beginnings,...

Parent - Equipped Career Guide! Most of the time we parents want to be the best career guide for our children. While we are well aware of the ever-evolving world, how much information do we really have to guide our children? As a grade 12 parent, I’m unearthing so many things as I explore college options for my daughter. I realized that college search and shortlisting should start as early as grade 9. While reflecting on how laid back I’ve been, a big reason being that my daughter entered high school during the pandemic. Tiding through online schooling as a teacher and planning innovative online lessons kept me so busy that I constantly moved the college search to the least important things on my list as according to me it was almost 3 years away. My bad! Through this experience, I’ve created a timeline  Step 1: When your child chooses subjects in grade 9 and starts listing possible subjects they’ll choose in grades 11 and 12, start looking for colleges. Talk to the admissions offi...

Good parenting?   Parenting is the biggest and toughest challenge one will ever face in life. There cannot be any guide that will answer all the questions and challenges that one encounters in the journey of parenting.  From feeding your infant and ensuring they sleep and allow you to sleep to teenage tantrums to help them handle the stress of boards and college admissions, the list is endless. There is not one strategy that works every time. Each time a new strategy needs to be adopted. Through this journey, we discover how understanding or not-understanding we are, we discover the patient listener in us, and we discover the compassionate soul we are. In fact, through my journey as a parent, I have discovered so many facets of myself that I never knew existed. So what constitutes a good parent? Is there a checklist? As a teacher of adolescent kids and a mother of a teenager at the cusp of becoming an adult, I have learned a few things and would like to share them with you:...