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BLOG NO.122*

FINANCIAL LITERACY *NFT*

Cryptocurrencies can be used to buy things, but they’re purely digital– there’s no coins or cash. The most popular cryptocurrency is called Bitcoin, but there are a number of others. *Some believe that this is the future of money* *so it’s a chance to talk to your kids about it*.

*An NFT is a technology that proves who the owner of a digital object is*. This digital object could be a song, a picture, a video, a tweet – or even a piece of digital land in an online game or virtual world*. Recently, pieces of digital land in a forthcoming virtual world called Otherside sold for nearly US$6,000 (£4,791) each. What’s more, people were so keen to buy them that they also paid thousands of dollars in transaction fees.

*NFT stands for non-fungible token*. If something is non-fungible, this means that it cannot be replaced or exchanged for something of identical value. An example of something fungible is a current coin, such as a one pound coin, because this can be exchanged for another pound coin. It doesn’t matter which of the coins you have – you still have £1.

Something like a painting, though, is non-fungible. That particular painting only exists once. *If you bought a painting, you could take that painting and hang it up in your bedroom. It would be yours – no one else would own that exact painting*.

*NFT is the latest passion in investment, especially amongst the young*.

*You are not cool, if you have not created a NFT, or invested in it*.

 *NFT means non-fungible tokens*.

*We know what cryptocurrency is. It is digital money not backed by any sovereign authority, but which can be bought or sold on cryptocurrency exchanges like shares in the stock market, to make money. Cryptocurrency is fungible. One bitcoin can be exchanged for another*

*NFTs are virtual digital assets from the same virtual world , but being non-fungible implies that each piece is unique with intellectual property rights and cannot be replicated*.

HOW ARE NFTS SIMILAR TO OTHER CRYPTO ASSETS?

• NFTs can be bought and sold on cryptocurrency exchanges.
• You can own a fraction of NFT. Yes, it is possible to own a small part of a digital Picasso painting, and earn profits whenever it is traded.
• *You can receive NFT drops similar to crypto airdrops in your account. Airdrops means free crypto assets given as part of a promotional scheme or when you open a new account on an exchange*.

 *superstar Amitabh Bachchan* created a non-fungible token with a recital of his father’s poem. And the masses got curious about the concept of NFTs*.

*Have you heard of memorabilia from celebrities being auctioned for high prices*? It could be Madhuri Dixit’s outfit donned for the picturisation of Dhak-dhak song, a monogrammed suit owned by the Prime Minister or a cricket bat used by a top player for the first match played by him.

*Why do people shell out astronomical amounts of money to pay for things which they’ll never use*?

*Exclusivity attracts a premium. One takes pride in owning and displaying something no one else has*. One can also make a profit by selling the item at a higher price.

*NFTs are digital versions of exclusive assets*

*One of the earliest successful NFT projects is Cool Cats*. It is a series of cat images, each distinctly different from the other, scanned over half-a-million possible combinations.

Christie’s arthouse sold a digital collage by artist Mike Winkelmann (popularly known as Beeple) for $69.3 million. It is the most expensive piece of digital art ever sold.

HOW DOES ONE START INVESTING IN NFTs?

*Have a crypto-wallet with some cryptocurrency in it. Most of the NFTs trade on Ethereum blockchain*.

In short, you need to be a crypto-investor first with an account on a cryptocurrency exchange.

Buy and sell in NFT marketplaces such as Openspace, Rarible or Mintable, based on NFT market place recommendations. However, do your own research on the subject.

HOW CAN YOU CREATE A NFT?

*Anybody can create and own NFTs, if the piece is rare, unique and you have the intellectual property rights for it*.

*Music, videos, collectibles, moments in cinema or sports, domain names, memes, virtual fashion items, game items nor digital art can all become NFTs*

*NFT minting is the process of uploading your digital file in a market place. Most of the market places do not charge a fee for minting, but will charge a service fee when you list it for sale.*

*BLOG NO.121*

*What is your creative I.Q*

 *Capacity to encounter a novel problem and devise a new and unique solution is creative intelligence*.  Creative intelligence requires very little outside input to function. It develops spontaneously, without instruction or guidance.

*Creativity is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status*. Furthermore, *creativity is basic to making our society viable because without we would lose our competitive edge*.

One way to assess one’s intelligence is to give an open-ended hypothetical question to an unusual problem that doesn’t really have a right or wrong answer. The intention is to see how the candidate approaches the problem and what type of intelligence do they demonstrate the most.FOR EXAMPLE  question that was asked  in an interview: “*How much would you charge to wash all the windows of our building* ?”

At our Hasti school we design our curriculum right from pre school level such that it gives scope for developing creative intelligence because we know that ; 

The world is *gradually changing and diverting or swinging  towards out-of-the-box thinking* and reasoning skills, in every aspect of life.

*With the breakdown of the traditional system of thinking, learning and knowledge imparting, creative thinking skills are the ‘new kid on the block*.

Schools and higher education systems are stressing on curriculums that *encourage creative intelligence* and thinking.

Understanding Creative Thinking Process, Creative Intelligence & Components of Creativity

*Creativity is the ability to present, think or put forth ideas in an unconventional way which also has a recall value*.

It not only promotes imagination and creative thinking, but also *makes room for sharper focus and helps young students express their feelings*.

*While curriculums and pedagogies are being aligned toward a creative mindset*, it’s important to remember that *young minds need constant stimulation to feed their creative spark* and give *wings to their ideas*.

*The key components of creativity include innovation, flexibility, fluency and the ability to elaborate on an idea or project*.

The intelligence of anyone–an adult or a child—cannot be measured on IQ alone.

Rather *IQ is an assimilation of individual potential, creativity and emotional intelligence*. These are the key hallmarks of creative intelligence. A study published in Educational Researcher and Education Nest found that *exposing children to museums and other cultural institutions can help them develop a high level of cultural tolerance, historical empathy, better memory, and stronger critical thinking skills*

*Creative intelligence supports divergent thinking, problem-solving skills, the ability to experiment, hand-eye coordination, understanding the needs of others, enhancing social skills and learning how to cope with feelings*

In a nutshell, creative intelligence helps hone the emotional and mental well-being of students.

We at our Hasti school we provide a challenging and stimulating curriculum designed to encourage creative thinking among the children and make them future-ready.

Now, let’s talk about some of the ways to encourage the creative thinking process among the young learners:

• Allow the young learner sample time and space to think, feel and express themselves. This will cement a trust factor between the parents/teachers and students and make them more comfortable in sharing their thoughts.
• *Feed their curious spark by asking them questions* and encouraging them to *share observations, opinions, and feedback*. This makes the students feel valued and boosts their confidence.
• Teach them to *multitask and to develop a multi-solutions-oriented mindset*. Simply put, *the young learners develop risk-taking abilities, learn to manage risks, and learn to view failures as learning lessons, and not as a setback*.
• *Children should be encouraged to read, discuss whatever they read and asked how they could do things differently* if they had written something.
• *Encourage activities and projects that encourage collaboration, flexibility, adaptability, and a spirit of innovation*.

To meet the challenges of the 21st century and beyond, it’s important to move beyond the four walls of the class room and tap into not only the external ecosystem but the internal one that has unexplored potential.

*Students are the changemakers of the future and therefore, they should be encouraged to open their minds to limitless possibilities* and ways of doing things. This is  why *creativity, and its related process are the stepping stones to a bright future*, for mankind.

GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK ON THE  ACTIVITIES WE CAN ORGANISE TO DEVELOP CREATIVE INTELLEGENCE

BLOG NUMBER 415 * There was a time when being able to explain a difficult concept beautifully could make you one of the strongest teachers in the building.
That advantage is shrinking.
A student can now get an explanation of photosynthesis, quadratic equations, colonialism or Shakespeare in seconds. They can ask for another example, request simpler language, generate a diagram, translate it, hear an analogy and ask the system to explain it again without becoming impatient.
The teacher therefore needs something beyond explanation.
UNESCO now describes education as operating within a teacher, AI and student relationship, rather than the traditional teacher and student relationship alone. The OECD similarly warns that access to generative AI does not automatically produce stronger thinking. Overdependence can reduce independent problem solving when learners accept generated answers without interrogating them (UNESCO, 2024; OECD, 2025).
The next generation will need teachers who can do these six things. 1.Learn Error Archaeology: Find the Thinking Beneath the Wrong Answer.
A weak instructional response to a wrong answer is another explanation.
A stronger response is diagnosis.
Imagine a Primary 5 pupil writes:
3/4 + 2/5 = 5/9
You could immediately explain how to find a common denominator. But first ask:
“Show me what you did.”
Then:
“Why did you add the 4 and 5?”
The pupil may reveal something important: When adding numbers, I add the top numbers and the bottom numbers.
Now you know the problem is not carelessness. The pupil has constructed a rule.
This is what I call Error Archaeology. You excavate the reasoning that produced the visible mistake.
The skill becomes even more important in an AI classroom because students can obtain correct answers without exposing incorrect mental models. A student may submit an excellent paragraph and still be unable to explain the argument inside it.
Create an Error Log during lessons. Do not only record who got an answer wrong. Categorise the error.
Was it a vocabulary problem?
A missing prerequisite?
A false rule?
A procedure applied in the wrong context?
A question interpretation problem?
A correct idea executed badly?
Then adapt teaching accordingly.
For example,* after a science question, instead of saying, “No, that is incorrect,” ask three students who selected different answers to defend their reasoning. Your next teaching move should be determined by what their reasoning reveals.
EEF describes adaptive teaching as uncovering learning rather than merely covering content. Teachers need evidence from learners before deciding whether to reteach, remove support, extend the task or address a misconception.The future teacher will not ask only:
“Did they get it?”
The better question is:
“What kind of thinking produced what I am seeing?”
That is a much more valuable professional skill than repeating yesterday’s explanation louder 2 Learn Thinking Exposure: Stop Showing Only the Finished Answer.
Many teachers model products.
Very few model cognition.
You solve the equation correctly on the board. You write the beautiful introduction. You pronounce the word accurately. You produce the perfect diagram.
Students see the result.
They rarely see the decisions.
That distinction matters.
Suppose you are teaching essay writing to Year 9 students. Instead of presenting a polished introduction, place an unfamiliar question on the board and say:
“I am not writing yet.”
Then expose your thinking.
“What exactly is this question asking me to judge?”
“Which word changes the direction of the essay?”
“I have three possible arguments. I am rejecting this one because I cannot support it with enough evidence.”
“I am choosing this example, but notice why I am not using it first.”
Now the lesson has moved from watch my answer to watch my judgement.
stress teaching pupils to plan, monitor and evaluate learning, while research on dialogic teaching shows the value of classrooms where pupils reason, argue, discuss and explain rather than merely produce short responses .
Try a Decision Commentary once every lesson.
Take one task and verbalise five decisions an expert makes while completing it.
Then give students another task and ask them to annotate their decisions:
I noticed…
I considered…
I rejected… because…
I changed… because…
I checked… by…
This works in mathematics, writing, science experiments, comprehension, art, coding and even early primary classrooms with simpler language.
The next generation does not desperately need another person who can produce an answer.
Machines can increasingly do that.
They need adults who can reveal how knowledgeable humans decide what to do when the answer is not obvious.
That is a different profession. * 3.Learn Friction Design: Know When Not to Explain Yet.
One of the strangest skills future teachers will need is the discipline to delay help.
Good teachers naturally want to rescue learners.
A student hesitates.
We explain.
A group gets stuck.
We give a clue.
Someone asks, “Sir, what should I write?”
We tell them.
Eventually the classroom becomes efficient, but the teacher is doing much of the difficult thinking.
This is where Friction Design matters.
Friction is the carefully controlled difficulty that forces the learner to retrieve, compare, predict, test or reconsider before receiving help.
Consider a Secondary 2 science lesson on floating and sinking.
Do not begin with ten minutes explaining density.
Place four objects where everyone can see them. Ask pupils to rank them from most likely to least likely to float.
Make every learner commit to a prediction.
Then test the objects.
Now ask:
“Which result damaged your original rule?”
Suddenly the explanation has somewhere to land.
Use a simple sequence:
Predict. Commit. Test. Explain. Revise.
You can use the same architecture elsewhere.
In literature: predict a character’s next decision before reading.
In mathematics: estimate the answer before calculation.
In history: choose the most likely cause before examining evidence.
In phonics: attempt the unfamiliar word before receiving the correction.
This is not an argument against explicit teaching. Students still require expert instruction and appropriate scaffolding. The question is when explanation enters the learning sequence.
Research on generative AI makes this issue even more urgent.*reviews warn that instant AI assistance can improve task performance while creating risks for independent thinking and long term skill development when users become dependent on generated solutions (OECD, 2025).
Before explaining, therefore, ask:
“What intellectual work can students safely do first?”
Do not remove every obstacle.
Some obstacles are where the learning is hiding * 4.Learn Question Architecture: Ask Questions That Are Expensive to Outsource.
Teachers were trained to ask questions that test whether students know the answer.
The next challenge is designing questions for which possessing an answer is not enough.
Ask:
“What is photosynthesis?”
A search engine can answer it.
Ask:
“Write five characteristics of democracy.”
AI can produce them immediately.
Ask:
“Explain the causes of World War One.”
A student may submit a sophisticated response without owning a single sentence of the reasoning.
The answer is not to ban every tool.
Upgrade the question.
I call this Question Architecture.
Take an ordinary question and add one or more intellectual constraints.
Local constraint:
“Use two examples from our community.”
Evidence constraint:
“Which piece of evidence most strongly supports your conclusion?”
Trade off constraint:
“What would we gain and lose if we chose this solution?”
Counterexample constraint:
“Give one situation where your rule would fail.”
Decision constraint:
“You may choose only one option. Defend it.”
Revision constraint:
“Here is new evidence. What part of your original answer must now change?”
Imagine a business studies class.
Instead of:
The future belongs to teachers who can create questions more intellectually valuable than the answers machines can generate.. * 5. Learn Proof of Thinking: Stop Confusing Beautiful Work With Learning.
A polished assignment is becoming weaker evidence of learning.
That sentence will become increasingly important.
Imagine two students submit excellent essays.
Both are grammatically strong.
Both contain evidence.
Both have impressive vocabulary.
One student understands every decision inside the essay.
The other generated most of it and cannot reconstruct the argument.
If your assessment sees only the final product, both students may receive similar marks.
The teacher now needs Proof of Thinking.
After important tasks, introduce a short verification layer.
Ask the student:
“Which part of your answer was hardest to decide?”
“Show me one thing you changed.”
“Which evidence would you remove if I cut the word count by 30 per cent?”
“I disagree with your conclusion. Defend it.”
“Apply your method to this new example.”
This can take sixty seconds.
For larger assignments, collect three pieces of evidence:
The product: What did you finally create?
The process: What drafts, decisions, calculations or revisions produced it?
The defence: Can you explain, adapt or justify the work live?
A mathematics teacher might change one number after the student submits a solution.
A geography teacher might introduce new data.
An English teacher might ask for an alternative ending.
A science teacher might ask which variable would invalidate the experiment.
assessment highlights practical activities, oral examinations, portfolios and student defences as ways of capturing competencies that conventional written products may not fully reveal.
Do not become obsessed with catching AI use.
Design assessments that make thinking visible.
A student who genuinely owns the learning should be able to explain it, alter it, defend it or use it somewhere else.
That is stronger evidence than a beautiful submission. * 6.Learn Cognitive Handover: Your Students Must Eventually Need Less of You.
Here is an uncomfortable test of teaching quality:
What happens when you stop helping?
Some classrooms look excellent while the teacher is present because the teacher is carrying almost every cognitive responsibility.
The teacher identifies the problem.
The teacher chooses the strategy.
The teacher reminds students what comes next.
The teacher notices errors.
The teacher decides whether the work is good enough.
The teacher tells everyone how to improve.
Remove the teacher and performance collapses.
That is not yet independence.
The next generation needs teachers who understand Cognitive Handover.
Think of responsibility as something you deliberately transfer.
At the beginning of a new skill, you may model heavily.
Later, remove one support.
Instead of giving students the steps, ask them to reconstruct them.
Instead of identifying the mistake, say:
“One part of this solution conflicts with something we learned yesterday. Find it.”
Instead of telling them which strategy to use, ask:
“You have three strategies available. Which fits this problem best, and why?”
Eventually, students should be able to plan, monitor and evaluate their own work help pupils develop those processes and gradually become more independent users of learning strategies.
Use a weekly Support Audit.
Choose one repeated classroom task and ask:
“What am I still doing here that students could now do?”
Maybe students can set the success criteria.
Maybe they can select a method.
Maybe they can check their own first draft against an exemplar.
Maybe groups can decide when they need teacher intervention.
Explanation creates access.
But the final purpose of good teaching is not permanent dependence on the explainer.
Your classroom should gradually produce learners who can think when you are no longer standing beside them.
That may become one of the clearest distinctions between teachers who survive the next educational shift and teachers who lead it.