National Public School- with TFI

Few interesting and exciting things happened this week.

The week started with TFI (www.teachforindia.org) inviting applicants to visit a school where TFI fellows were teaching a class. I was unable to make it to any of their previous “weekend coffee chats” but decided to go to this one since it seemed like a good opportunity to get acquainted with some ground issues in education. Even after considering that I had to wake up way early than usual and that the school was in Shahdara, it turned out to be a great decision!

The site of crowded naked red-brick houses as the metro crossed the Jamuna was prompt in reminding me of the reality of our cities and societies. The locality of the school- perhaps a worker's class colony on the vicinity of an industrial area made me even more pensive. However, my mood was instantly lifted as I stepped into the school courtyard. The sounds and the feel of a generation being forged! About 7-8 of us were soon welcomed into a class by a young, smiling teacher and the echoes of “Good Morning Didi, Good Morning Bhaiyya” from all over the tiny classroom... The whole place oozed a cheerful positivity... It was after a while that I was returning to a classroom and it was amazing to see how Ghazal (the teacher) introduced India's constitution to kids of 9-10, the way she encouraged kids to think, prodded them with questions, encouraged them to answer, appreciated their efforts... she was so into it! Tottaly made my morning!! All the walls of the class were filled by colourful charts- displaying the "stars" kids had earned, instructing them to speak in English and so on... My favoritest idea was the "curiosity box". Whoever had a question to ask, wrote it on a chit and placed it in the box... what a cool idea! :) Later Ghazal patiently answered our questions about teaching and TFI... After the class visit was done, Mohit- a former fellow, also shared his experiences about working to bring a change in and outside the classroom.

One of the most important take-home message for me was TFI's professional approach to teaching... When I had begun filling their application form, I was frustrated by the same thing- professionality in the information they asked for... But perhaps achieving a real and tangible change on the ground needs much more than the right intent and spirit... We had tried being more systematic when I was involved at Manavya and the Hadapsar project of DreamIndia, but somehow I could never sustain it! But quite motivated by the visit, today I offered Kaushal to help him bring a more professional approach to their efforts in teaching kids in the Timarpur area. The plan is to document and monitor progress- assess and record student levels, keep realistic goals, choose teaching strategies based on an objective analysis, and follow the progress periodically. Have to make it work this time!

I have also filled in the TFI application for 2013... Have to think about where that's going. Probably no where, but still...

Meanwhile, 80% of students enrolled in the Economics class on Coursera are males!! What a shame!

Beautiful Country, Beautiful People and Us

Hi folks,

We all have come together with the dream of a beautiful country.And we agree that a beautiful country will be created by beautiful people.
What do we mean by beautiful people? Let me ask you to do this. Just try to remember the last time you were completely absorbed into something.Anything as mundane as writing a code, making a presentation, or reading an inspirational biography or maybe dreaming of a house you would like to build... Have you ever felt the excitement that comes whenyou are absorbed into something wonderfully creative?
Thats what I mean by beautiful people. Who are constantly doing something creative, something that willmake a difference, to them or to someone else. And they love what they do, they are completely absorbed in the work. No other thoughts, khana-pina sab chod ke just trying to achieve that single thing.

I had the chance to meet two such beautiful persons today.

Suraj is in Class 8 at Manavya. When we reached Manavya today, he and two other kids were sitting on thefloor with thermacol, cardboards, colors, scissors, wooden pieces... When I asked Suraj what was he doing,he told me that they were building the model of an Restaurant. He told me that it would be a garden restaurantwith a stream flowing in the mid. There will be a bridge on the stream. Food will be served in cottages surrounded by trees; there would be benches to sit and an area where you can dance. If you want you can havea candle light dinner or just sit on the grass and enjoy a picnic snack. He was completely absorbed while describing all these things to me and so was I. I immediately asked him whether he could build a college for me.He said yes and then we discussed our plans to do it. Suraj would probably become a wonderful architect.

Tushar is in Calss 10. He writes beautiful poems. Here is the one he wrote yesterday.

अंतराळाची सफ़र ही भारी
ग्रहांची दिशा ही न्यारी

अनेक यंत्रांचा शोध लागला
अनेक तंत्रांचा शोध लागला

अंतराळाची सफ़र....

शोध लागला बुध-नेपच्युनचा
शोध लागला आकाश पाताळाचा

अंतराळाची सफ़र...

You should have seen the glow in his eyes when I was reading the poems to other kids. Tushar would probably become a fabulous writer.

Todays experience made me realise that we have an amazing chance to help build beautiful humans. Humans who would love their work by all their heart. I see this as a challnge in front of us. To help children explore what they like, to help them to nurture their passions and to help them develop into beautiful humans.
(And btw this has nothing to do with their being HIV +ve. We need to build a beautiful human out of every kid.)

Tell me your ideas about how can we help Suraj and Tushar achieve their dreams. Lets share this challenge!

Exams!!

Saurabh Mahajan, reporting live from Semester Exams, Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology- an institute whose mandate is creating Biotechnologist for the 21st century India.

One more semester of bullshit exams, tensed bullshit faces, bullshit teachers, bullshit questions, bullshit answers, bullshit happiness because you could answer every bullshit question the Teacher tried to scare you with.

We have a plant taxonomy exam. “THE VIVA”!! What are the economically important alga? The Gymnosperms? The Angiosperms? What is heterospory? Identify the same bullshit specimen they showed you during the laboratory course. Nothing on what recent article you have read, nothing about a new company you found which produces antibodies from moss cells, nothing even about the forest you have visited, the plants you saw... Who cares? They just want to do their duties and feel happy that they are creating Biotechnologists for the new century India. उपकारच वाटतात साल्यांना.

चिडचिड होते. कितीही ठरवलं की, यासगळ्याकडे लक्ष नाही द्यायचं. Look at the positive side. Whatever little they are trying to do. पण नाही सहन होत कधी-कधी… Why? Why cant they be humans trying to excel for their own sake? If not, then for the sake of their children, their society, their nation…Bullshit!!

Education System

Now I am trying to identify how close we are to such an education system.

I am reading the National Policy on Education (1986, revised in 1992). According to the NPE the essence and role of education (among others) is to-

1. Create individuals with scientific temper and an independent mind and spirit.
2. Create manpower for all levels of economy and Research and Development.

“Education is an investment for the present and future. This cardinal principle is the key to the National Policy on Education”

2 points are very notable-
1. Absence of focus on creating able individuals to achieve the above goals. There is no discussion on what qualities must such an individual have and how education can help achieve them. The education policy seems to focus on the social and developmental goals that education has to meet in general.
2. And if education is seen as an investment, what are the criteria to judge the returns and does the education policy ensure the returns.
The specific aims of higher education have been identified as-

1. Dissemination of specialised knowledge and skills.
2. Producing teachers for the system.

I can identify 3 components (in hierarchy) for achieving these goals-

1. A proper organization of higher education institutes and coordination amongst
them.
2. Infrastructural facilities in these institutes.
3. Efficiency of the grass root teaching and learning process.

Obviously, problems persist in all the 3 components and absence of any one component can lead to severe impediment of the output.

Being a student the teaching and learning process is the closest to me. I will try to identify the problems with this component.

Changing the system

’जाग्रुती यात्रे’ बद्दल वाचत होतो.

“You could be one of the 450 people selected to join the yatra which kicks off on 1st May 2008. We are seeking participants between the age of 18-25 to apply, especially those who have an interest in learning how to scale up grass roots social and business initiatives. If your application is succesful, you will have the opportunity to meet and learn from the real heroes and change makers of India and pick up on invaluable, life changing experience.”

As a part of their application they have asked us to fill up a questionnaire.

One of the questions was- “What is the single biggest challenge that India faces in the next decade? What will be your contribution towards addressing the challenge you mentioned above?”

I think that the biggest challenge before us as a country is to increase the efficiency in grass root processes in every sector including education, governance, bureaucracy, industry and commerce. For achieving optimal efficiency in any process apart from the suitable infrastructure it is necessary that the human resource involved is competent and willing to achieve the optimal efficiency. This will happen only when every individual realises his full potential and expresses it for achieving efficiency. So, the challenge is to create a society which will produce such individuals.

There are many factors that should form the part of such a society. The foremost being an education system conducive to our aim. (So the reforms have to inevitably begin with the educational system) What are the elements of such an educational system?

primary education-beginning of a eternal journey of learning

A few days back I visited an exhibition on primary education and some innovative and play-way methods of learning for kids in kg through say 3 std.

It raised some questions in my mind regarding learning specially in kids. I am putting some of the basic ideas in the exhibition along with the qustions it raised.

1. Large part of learning in kids is based on imitation of people in their surroundings.
Are we providing kids individuals worth imitating?

A very interesting example is-(even from my own experience)- parents ask their kids to exercise regularly, when they themselves do not...this is very funny; when you want your kid to exercise he should see you exercising daily...otherwise why will he listen to you?

2. Students (now here i mean students from primary to even university level) start liking imitation, rather it becomes a habit with them, than creativity at some stage...are we as a society really creating an environment which fosters creativity?

3. After the primary stage onwards children start spending more time in school or rather the school starts becoming a more influential factor in learning and overall mental and emotional growth... so emphasis should be on creating an appropriate environment in school... it should not remain just a source of curricular knowledge...

4. And a comment on role of play in learning. I will quote J D Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA.

[b]" All we had to do was to construct a set of molecular models and begin to play-with luck it would be a helix"[/b]