CBSE Class 6 Answered

• What your teacher might have told you is the law of attraction of poles in magnets.
• When two or more magnets are brought together, it is observed that only the, unlike (opposite) poles, attract to each other whereas, the like (similar) poles tend to repel (go away ) from each other.

• The second phenomenon which you are referring to is a simple way to determine the poles of an unknown magnet.
• When the poles of a magnet are not known then by simply suspending the magnet to a string and observing the direction of the movement of that pole we can determine which pole of a magnet is a north pole and which one is a south pole.
• The pole (side of a magnet) moving towards the north is the north pole and the pole (side) which moves towards the south is the south pole of that magnet.

• The movement of the magnet when put under the influence of one or more magnets is due to the law of magnetic attraction or repulsion but the movement of the freely suspended magnet towards the poles of the Earth is due to the direction of the Earth's magnetic field line.

Hope this helped to resolve your curiosity :)