Sorry about the long absense

The thing is, I had lost the login and url to my blog when I lost my laptop…. Found it by coincidence and now I am back. I love this space and am celebrating the opportunity to begin using it again.

Much has happened in the time since I last posted here, and I don’t know how much of it I can cover here. Honestly, with this blog so new, I doubt anyone cares. If you really do, follow links to my other sites and blogs in the sidebar, and you will come to know.

Vidyut

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The power of individuals in social reform

I have made a post on my main blog about how we as people can initiate social reform, without waiting for someone else to come and make our reality better. I am a person of action. If I see something that I can do, I do it.

I am already into doing extensive programmes for schools, rather than whining about the state of todays schools. I am committed toward expanding this as far as my resources allow. Yet, I think there is far more that can be done.

We, the people far outnumber the authorities and decision makers. We have the freedom of immediate action, without waiting to come to an agreement or “official decision”. We can, if we choose, support the initiatives we think we can, and take them an inch ahead in our own way. Considering how many we are, even if a few of us are interested in making a positive change as and when we are able, we are likely to make a huge change and lighten the government burden.

After all, this is our country. Who can change it for the better, if not us? Stuff happening on policy levels is not half as real as the stuff happening out here, on the streets.

Let us all do our bit, when we find an opportunity.

Strange maps

I came across this interesting blog, while surfing around. I found it to be one of the most creative blogs I ever came across. What a fantastic idea. A collection of bizarre maps from all over.

Endless entertainment. I’m hooked.

Promoting Outbound Education In India

Planning to use this place as a diary of sorts. recording thoughts, emotions, experiences and news of interest to me. I plan to keep this as a record of my personal journey in my work and my mission to spread the use of experiential learning to promote personal and interpersonal skill development among the schools and other organisations of India.

At the moment, it is a daunting task. My business is new, and I’m too much of a Robin Hood to breathe easy about the money part. Schools and educational institutions are not very supportive of outdoor education as a tool for empowerment among students and teachers. The concept is relatively unfamiliar, and the current trend of picnics to parks or other such locations seems to be enjoyed by the students. This makes them see a change in their routine as a risk. Plus, the costs of experiential education programmes are higher than those for picnics. I already work on minimal margins, but the actual costs themselves include instructors and equipment, which would be added to the costs of the casual outings they already have. A few schools are taking tentative steps in this direction, but the wide-spread acceptance that outdoor activities and adventures promote wholesome growth, which is well accepted by the west seems to be missing out here. I think this would be a worthwhile change to see in the Indian Education system.

I see a definite need for such programmes among students as well as teachers to promote close bonds and constructive relationships. Too many teachers I come across are “just doing their jobs”. There are some who stand out with their committment to make education a wholesome experience, but it is far more common to find teachers applying their “standard template” of teaching without deviations, and worse, discouraging deviations arising from curiosity among students.

I believe that education can transfer data. For that data to change into knowledge, it needs to trigger thoughts in the mind. Not encouraging that process may work in terms of keeping students managable and getting them to toe the line far more easily. It may even bring good results in terms of exams. But in terms of creating a thirst of knowledge itself, I’m not so sure. I often find students who would rather not study at all, if their futures didn’t depend on it.

Teachers on the other hand cannot be blamed for this. Their methods of instruction are geared to students from a different generation, and they find themselves unable to hold their sides if a debate sparks up with a well-informed child of this age of information. Children today are far more confident, well-informed and intellectually independent than that they were 20 years ago. They are sharper and less inhibited. Teachers, on the other hand, are from that generation. It becomes difficult for them to accept this “boldness” and even more difficult to control the children without rules and threats.

As one teacher put it in today’s lunch break on the programme, “We shout at them and they will listen for a little while. But how much can we shout? They are children. We are not even allowed to beat them, or their parents complain to the principal”

To me, this expresses her feeling that she should be doing more and her helpless at not knowing what it is that she can do. “I don’t know how they listen to you so easily” They listen to me, because, I communicate with them. I explain my reasons for enforcing any rules I make, allow them the opportunity to debate them before they come in force, and once we are in action, I simply remind them of what they had agreed to. No yelling needed. They have their own sense of responsibility. I only allow them to be responsible for themselves.

I think, this could be a very empowering realisation for many teachers today. My programmes for both students and teachers also focus on the need, and methods of communication. Of giving the other the personal space to be responsible for their own behaviour. Of presenting their needs from a situation rationally and as a confidence, rather than an imposition.

The more programmes I conduct, the more I see their impact on the participants and my journey toward this worthwhile goal gains momentum.

Phew. Good thing I made this blog. It feels good to state this out loud.