Yesterday I got a call from someone who wanted my advice. It was regarding his son who is in the 7th grade. The school required the parents to fill in a multi-page form with detailed information about the background of the student. The conjecture was that this information was going to become part of the permanent record of the boy. The form, I was told, required the parent to indicate – among other details — if the family belonged to scheduled caste, or scheduled tribes, or other backward classes.
Continue reading “Education Matters — Part 1”
Category: Education
Our Moribund Educational System
The Indian education system is in distress. It is critically in need of reform since it is inefficient and ineffective. What exists today is something that was designed to serve the needs of a different era with different objectives and compulsions. For sustainable development of India, the country needs a new system which is economically efficient, socially equitable, functionally effective, and consonant with the altered needs of the present.
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Random Education Thoughts
I would describe the Mercedes Benz International School in Pune to be the Rolls-Royce of schools in India.
They follow the International Baccalaureate Organization’s curricula. About half their students are Indians and the others are the children of expatriates working in multinational firms in Pune.
It is the kind of school that if you have to ask what the tuition fees are, you probably cannot afford it. With only 167 students, it is as exclusive as it is expensive. The annual fee is mind-boggling—to me at least—over half a million rupees a year. The top fees is Rs 5.7 lakhs ( approximately, US$ 13,000) and the one-time fixed cost is Rs 3 lakhs.
Continue reading “Random Education Thoughts”
Science and Famous Scientists
As part of my interest in high school education, I have been checking out prescribed textbooks in Indian schools. Take for instance the Science and Technology textbook for the 10th grade. The book that I am examining is published by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
Continue reading “Science and Famous Scientists”
Searching and Finding
Books influence us profoundly, of course. But for a book to work its magic on you, you have to be ready. The Buddhist have a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Actually, what that means is that when the student is ready, the presence of the teacher becomes known to the student. The teacher has been around all along but the student did not have the faculty to recognize the teacher. The prepared mind is a necessary condition for books to have any impact.
In a sense you cannot learn something that you don’t really already know implicitly, or something that you are not yourself on the verge of discovering. What you read is just the last hint that solves a problem that you have almost solved, or the little nudge that takes you over the edge. You have to be very close to the solution yourself for the hint to work; you have to be at the edge for the nudge to work. If you are too far away, hints or nudges are pointless. Continue reading “Searching and Finding”
A Set of Useful Tools
Bertrand Russell considered the basic purpose of education to be the “formation, by means of instruction, of certain mental habits and a certain outlook on life and the world.”
I believe there is a small set of very powerful tools, or mental models, that can help us comprehend the dynamic world we live in. It is surprising that such a complex and complicated world is amenable to comprehension using only a small set of tools. But it is indeed true. The tools that I refer to are immensely powerful and flexible. That these tools exist is a powerful testimony to the ingenuity of humans. Seemingly innocuous and simple ideas have profound implications. Continue reading “A Set of Useful Tools”
IGT Education: Reader comment
A reader, “P”, wrote in response to my “intergenerational transfer model for education” and said:
I came across your blog and the intergenerational model. I thought it was brilliant. My only concern was to do with making graduates realize that they owe something back to the institution. I went to a REC, received a highly subsidized education but do not have immense feelings of loyalty toward it, at least not enough to give back to it. Continue reading “IGT Education: Reader comment”
It is a connected world
The magical thing about the world is that it is connected. Not just at the physical level, it is connected in the abstract level at which we comprehend the world. Physical connectivity of course is clearly evident. Above our heads, the weather system is global as is the hydrosphere which then connects all the continents. That is geograhical connectivity. Then there is biological connectivity. Every one of us shares common ancestors. We are all cousins, a few dozen times removed at most since we share common ancestors. It is sobering to realize that Sorenson of Norway is a cousin to Mugusha of Zaire although their family resemblence is not immediately apparent. But that relatedness between all humans is just the tip of the iceberg. Continue reading “It is a connected world”
Intergenerational Transfer — An Example
A few days ago I wrote about an educational model involving intergenerational transfers. Now I came across this BBC story which is an example. Quote:
. . . CIDA City Campus – has become a remarkable success story, gaining blue-chip sponsors, a campus and a reputation for innovation. Five years later, it has taught 1,600 students.
Apart from only being available to poor students, who get a virtually free education, it is unique in what it expects from its intake.
Students have to help run and maintain the university buildings, and in their holidays they have to teach young people in their home villages – reaching hundreds of thousands.
When they graduate, they have to pay for the university costs of another student who will follow in their footsteps.
Teaching Adults to Think
Adults can be taught to think pretty much like a dog can be taught to walk upright on its hind legs. It is a nice amusing trick but does not get the dog very far. DeBono’s books are the equivalent of a dog-trainer’s handbook.
[Source: How to Think, to Fast, and to Wait.]
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 