“Sodium is a loser” says the Chemistry teacher. Why? I wonder from the kitchen. I am making breakfast and the kid’s first online class is underway.

“Chlorine snatches away the electrons” the teacher says next.

“Sodium is electropositive, has the tendency to loose electrons; while chlorine is electronegative, has the tendency to gain electrons.” I remember all this clearly from my school days. These concepts from the chapter Periodic classification of elements have been drummed into my head.

Opposites attract seems to be the theme for these non-living things. Here Sodium and Chlorine combine to form Sodium Chloride (NaCl) or common salt. Breakfast is Dosa and Egg curry, tasty combo. I check the seasoning and add some NaCl.

Likewise for magnetic poles, like poles repel while unlike poles attract. So we extrapolated the characteristics of non-living to humans and concluded that among us also opposite attracts? Maybe it’s true, but am not going to dig deeper; it’s a debatable topic.

Weekdays being with online classes on speaker. So I get to hear interesting bits and pieces of info. Maths teacher asks “What is the meaning of trigonometry?” The class falls silent. The kids know about the trigonometric ratios, identities and graphs, but why is it so called? The teacher explains “Trigonometry originated from the Greek word trigōnon, meaning “triangle” and metron meaning “measure”. It studies relationships between the sides and angles of triangles.” I don’t think I was explained this during my schooldays, we jumped right into solving the problems.

It’s just trivia for me, while for the kid it translates to marks. The COVID 19 cases are spiking in Bangalore as per the news reports, so online classes are here to stay for sometime. Let’s see what more I glean by eavesdropping into the kids lessons.

Till next post, take care !!