Problems in Teaching EVS Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The concern is that the teaching-learning approach is not inclusive.

Children in a class come from many kinds of families: single-parent families, families headed by grandparents, children living with relatives or in hostels, and so on. Defining a family only as nuclear or extended suggests that other families are not proper families and can make some children feel excluded.

The definitions themselves are not wrong, and the teacher is not shown to be deliberately insensitive. The point, which the NCERT EVS textbooks make through their theme on family and friends, is that families should be presented in all their variety.

Answer: C

The chapter aims to sensitise children that snake charmers may not harm snakes and they need to be provided with alternatives before depriving them of their livelihoods.

The NCERT Class V chapter on snake charmers (in Looking Around) tells the story of a community whose traditional livelihood was made illegal by wildlife protection laws. It asks children to consider both sides: the protection of animals and the people who have depended on them for generations and now need other means of earning a living.

Reducing the chapter to 'it is illegal' misses its concern for the people. It is not about nostalgia for rare sights, and it does not promote keeping animals as a livelihood.

Answer: B

Alternative frameworks are ideas that differ from the formally accepted explanations of the concepts.

Children come to class with their own ideas about the world, formed from everyday experience, such as 'heavier things fall faster' or 'plants get their food from the soil'. Researchers call these alternative frameworks or alternative conceptions. Teachers need to find out about them and help children reconstruct their ideas through experience and discussion.

They are not textbook explanations or the ideas held by scientists, and not every firmly held idea of children is an alternative framework; only those that differ from accepted explanations are.

Answer: A

The desirable practice is addressing multicultural dimensions of diverse classrooms.

Children in a classroom come from different languages, cultures, food habits and family backgrounds. EVS deals with family, food, shelter and festivals, so a good EVS teacher draws on this diversity and helps children respect and learn from one another's ways of life.

A linear arrangement of the six themes and reliance only on textbooks go against the flexible, experience-based approach of EVS. Option B is weaker because the teacher's role is to help children construct ideas, not merely to have them supply information.

Answer: A

The pedagogy is (i), (ii) and (iv).

Social issues such as who cleans the toilets or with whom children share water touch on caste, gender and discrimination. The teacher should not impose her views about right and wrong (i), but let children share their experiences and ideas freely (ii), so that the discussion grows from their own lives. When others share similar experiences, children realise such things have not happened only to them (iv), which builds empathy and confidence.

Statement (iii), that such issues should be discussed but not too much, limits the very discussion the textbooks were designed to start, so the options containing it are wrong.

Answer: B

The most important knowledge is how children learn EVS.

A teacher who understands how children observe, ask questions, form ideas, hold misconceptions and build concepts from experience can choose and adapt every activity accordingly. Knowledge of the learner is the base on which content and method rest.

Facts and laws, methods of teaching, and curriculum concepts all matter, but each is used well only when it is matched to the way children actually learn.

Answer: B

The teacher should do B and D: ask Poonam why she drew parts of different animals and what the animal is called.

Asking these questions respects her imagination, encourages her to explain her thinking and lets the teacher see what she knows about different animals. Imaginative drawing is a healthy part of children's creative expression.

Scolding her (A) or telling her no such animal exists (C) discourages creativity and expression, so every option containing A or C is wrong.

Answer: A

Both A and B are true.

EVS classrooms bring together children of many languages, cultures, food habits and ways of living, and the subject draws directly on this. Respecting those differences is a challenge the teacher must meet (A).

EVS also aims to make every child feel that their community, culture and way of life matter and have a place in the classroom (B). The two statements express the same inclusive aim, so neither is false.

Answer: B

The selection should be pedagogically imaginative and ethically correct.

Bringing in the local context helps children connect EVS with their lives, but the teacher must choose it thoughtfully: it should open up good learning opportunities and must respect children's backgrounds, avoiding anything that embarrasses, stereotypes or excludes any child.

Tying the choice to school discipline or to the teacher's convenience ignores the children's needs. Taking the local context only from the textbook defeats the purpose, because a national textbook cannot contain each child's own surroundings.

Answer: C

The inappropriate pedagogy is motivating the children to draw a labelled diagram of the digestive system.

At the primary level the theme 'Food' is approached through children's own experiences and imagination. A labelled diagram of the digestive system is technical, abstract content that belongs to higher classes and invites copying from a book rather than thinking.

The other three suit primary EVS: children expressing their own views, stimulating their imagination so they construct knowledge, and asking them to picture and draw where food goes after it leaves the mouth, which draws out their own ideas before any formal teaching.