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24 Dec 2010 · comment
I wish I had taken advance math in school/college. Can’t say what would have happened to my math skills, but I am sure my doodling would have improved. See what Vi Hart, a self-claimed recreational mathemusician is up to – doodling in the math class. Visit her site
Continue reading →06 Apr 2009 · comment
Can anything possibily change in the Indian education system. A comparison between a survey done in 1996 and another done in 2006 seems to suggest that nothing much has changed in our education system. Read this brilliant report from Frontline here.
Continue reading →06 Feb 2009 · media
Like the open source movement in software, an open source movements in the textbooks may be afoot. If this movement takes hold it will surely impact the textbook business, which is perhaps the only safe island in a sea of troubled publishing business. The other question is what motivates people like Professor R. Preston McAfee to make their books available for free, when they could have earned a fair bit from it – $100,000 advance and more, according to a New York Times article (Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free)
Continue reading →19 Nov 2008 · community-radio
An excellent idea has just come downstream from Sajan Venniyoor. He suggests that we utilise the radio for making print available to the visually disabled. This would include everything from school textbooks to novels, short stories, plays and poems, to articles and features in newspapers and magazines. I like it. It’s simple, do-able, and has the potential to extend in other ways. Since recordings will anyway be done, visually disabled students could be offered these “textbooks” as CDs or audio cassettes. Magazine articles and newspaper features could lead to on-air discussions and round-tables.
Continue reading →14 Nov 2008 · community-radio
I’m thinking of that child left behind. The one who cannot follow a lesson because she cannot read what the teacher has written on the blackboard, even though she has faithfully and correctly copied it all down in her notebook. The child who cannot ask a question in class, because she cannot read her notebook, hence can’t put a finger on what exactly it is that she does not understand. This is the child who does not know how to read.
Continue reading →04 Sep 2008 · community-radio
We’ve been seriously considering Teaching of English as a significant element in the CR station’s content offering. Centre for Learning Resources’ Dr Kurrien has mentioned that he would be happy to share the content that they have developed for the teaching of English over radio. I just read a wonderful story about how it is being done in Bihar, through the radio (AIR), for primary school children throughout the state. Read the full story here.
Continue reading →21 Aug 2007 · comment
The class seven students of The Shri Ram School, DLF Phase 3, made a trip to the Yamuna to experience first hand the state of the river just before it enters Delhi from neighbouring state of Haryana, and the quantum of untreated sewage and waste matter that is released into the river once it enters Delhi. From a frolicsome dip in the monsoon-fed Yamuna to the sombre sight of the black stink coming out of the Najafgarh Drain that enters the river, the children had a lot to process on the trip. View album
Continue reading →08 Aug 2005 · comment
Who will teach the teachers to see the hunger for learning in these bright sparks? “I am not sure, what is it that I want to do when I grow up… I don’t know… maybe I’ll get a job of some sort… or may be I will drive the camel cart, like my father… I am not sure at all, but I am not thinking about it…” As his voice died out, 10-year-old Ratan turned his spectacularly bright eyes to the ground. It hurt to hear the despair in his voice. I guess I’d be equally worried if he had said that he wanted to grow up and be an astronaut. But that would have been a worry mixed with hope rather than despair. Ratan lives in a small village called Sankhda, about 80 kilometers from the small touristy town of Jaisalmer, in Rajasthan. Here, people have lived for generations with very little water, surrounded as they are with sand dunes, and miles of barren land punctuated by occasional patches of fields irrigated by ground water.
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