Answer this: In the US, an Anti Gravity Illusion was patented by someone in 1993. It's an illusion we have all seen. Any guesses who that someone is? One of the co-founders of Q Collective, Nithish T Jacob tells me, "It was patented by Michael Jackson. Remember the Smooth Criminal video where he does a 45 degree lean? The interesting thing is that the move was actually an illusion. There's a contraption between Jackson's shoes and the stage. He is able to lean like that because the centre of gravity is changed."
If the revelation hasn't ruined your pop music-riddled childhood, like it did for me, I'm sure it has at least awoken your curiosity. Much like the example above, Q Collective helps integrate quizzes into the conventional education system to teach children by capturing their interest. A homeopathic physician and psychological counsellor, Nithish got into education as a consultant out of sheer passion. Along with Akhil Ghosh, Sooraj Vijayan, Feny Joy and Bichu C Abraham, they set up a fraternity of quiz enthusiasts in 2018 to spread this love. They began by conducting workshops and session in schools for teachers and students.
"Now, if I'm taking a class on gravity and start with this particular question, wouldn't the children be in a very curious state?" asks Nithish. "This is how we design our classes. Research has shown that when you're curious, you take up more information and you retain more of it. This happens automatically. When we're in a curious state of mind, there are chemical changes that happen in the brain where you retain and absorb more information. That is how learning should happen. But our school system has not caught on to this in a long time."
Having done a number of quiz programmes, shows and organised leagues in schools, the collective started to dream bigger. Late last year, they began working on an idea to create an app that would allow schools, students and parents to access the educational tool from wherever they chose to. In the last week of May, they released the latest version of Q Series, an app that offers curated quizzes to children on a variety of topics. In this academic year, a number of schools are planning to integrate it into their curriculum.
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The app offers three categories based on the age of the students' grades: 1-4, 5-8 and 9-12. Each week, the students are offered a quiz set on various topics. On the week during which this interview was done, the topic was rivers and students were given 20 questions based on it that are exclusively set by the Q Collective team. With the help of the visuals, you can write the correct answer in a box offered on the page. When you review the answer, you get an explanation and get the chance to read more about it. They also provide links to where the questions have been sourced from. Each question is also tagged at the back end, so parents can dive deeper into the subjects their children show more aptitude in.
Nithish says, "Since we introduced it during the lockdown, we offered the platform for a rupee a day so that it would help keep children occupied. Otherwise, you can opt for a monthly or yearly subscription plan." With a rise in subscriptions and increasing positive reviews on their very first month, the team hopes to extend their quizzing-skilled hands to schools across the country and even farther.
