Froebel - The concept of kindergarten

Froebel was a German pedagogue, a student of Pestalozzi who laid the foundation for modern education based on the recognition that children have unique needs and capabilities. He developed the concept of the “kindergarten”, and also coined the word now used in German and English.

Read more about them (pretty interesting):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Fröbel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_Pestalozzi

but unfortunately, the concept of kindergarten was modified by most people (Dewey etc.) and the current form is a distorted version. Read more in this book (Chapter 3):-

Tinkering towards utopia - A century of public school reform

or a review of the book here:-

http://www.hepg.org/her/abstract/263

Taming the free spirit

When a child is born, parents wait for the day when he will run around the house and make noise. They encourage playful acts and help the child to walk on his own feet. The child grows up innocent and playful believing that everyone will appreciate the playfulness. But with the first step inside the school, a different world greets the child. He is confronted with a strange concept called discipline. This concept is hard to understand because it prohibits running around in this strange place called "classroom". In spite of the fact that so many other chubby little friends are also in that strange place, one cannot talk to them unless permitted to do so. "Permitted" what does that mean? The buck quickly passes to the parents who are summoned by the school only to be told how indisciplined their child is. The reason - he talks in class and does not sit still. Excuse me! Isn't a child supposed to "play"? How can you expect the child to sit still? But the school doesn't care. This is what has been the norm for god knows how many years (maybe lots of decades). If the warning doesn't bring any changes, the child is promptly labelled as hyper-active child or a child having come kind of attention-deficit disorder.

Poor kids... what dreams they had, what fantasies they cherished, nothing mattered anymore. All that mattered was what the grown-ups thought was best for them. Maybe what's best for them is to just let them be kids and not force discipline upon them. Won't they then grow up to be rowdy, good for nothing, cave-men like people? Maybe they will, maybe they won't; I don't have an answer... but why not try to think of an education system that doesn't try to "convert" every child into a fact remembering, number crunching, good-boy; like everybody else. When the child was born, he was yours special, an unique gift. Why try to mold that unique gift into something common? If only they could speak up, we could have known how much they really hated the "grown-up world" that they were being trained to face.

(PS: Replace he -> she, boy -> girl, etc. at will. )

eSingularity

http://mjtrout.blogspot.com/

"Imagine... A world where every kid participates on a level education system, challenging themselves and others, and achieving rewards and prizes for applying themselves, no matter what their social, economic, or geographic disposition. We can... and we will build it. "

Education 2.0, Media 3.0, blah.. blah.. blah.. sounds very nice and dreamy. Now imagine you haven't had food all day and you are hungry Mr. Trout, would you spend on /care about technology to access E 2.0 or M 3.0? And do you think teachers will welcome the idea of letting go their position of authority and becoming mere facilitators in classrooms who cannot exercise power over the students (that is what is the current state of Indian schools)?

The "American" way is not always the "right" way. Every nation has its own culture, its own tradition and a set of values that consciously/unconsciously drive the people. Before prescribing "solutions" these things need to be understood. Then only can the real problem be understood and characterized. Education is not a commodity and should not be treated as one.

What I won't use, I will donate...

We generally have a mindset that we donate what we don't need. One might say - "At least I am donating!". That's good and absolutely right but think about the person whom you are donating your "waste" stuff. Think about how he'll feel if you give him a torn shirt instead of a new one. Donating new stuff is not always possible but we should always strive to do that for that will make the person receiving the donation very happy and make him/her feel that he/she is a worthy person... Think about what wonders it might do to that person's self-esteem...

I want to...

I want to break free..
free from the shackles of this self...
I want to rise higher and higher...
go faster and faster...
delve deeper and deeper into the realms of the unknown.
Explore the unexplored and attain the unattained.
Quench this thirst for knowledge
Realize the absolute truth
Become one with it
Be a part of the bigger energy... unlimited... pure... calm... divine

Pick me - Click me - Educate me!

http://pickme-clickme-educateme.org

With an estimated 10 million children not going to school, the effort required to decrease that number is huge. Here is our small effort. One school at a time.

Pick Me, Click Me, Educate Me! is an endeavor to use digital photography as a social reform tool to create awareness of the existing educational situations in rural Bihar. This project also aims to spread the joy of education and building communities for collaborative learning in rural Bihar. The value of education resulting in giving them the power to dream is an outcome of the project that the project seeks to achieve over the time.

This project serves to provide a platform to people from different backgrounds (photographers, writers, educationists, social workers, donors etc) to collaborate. It allows to utilize the work done by one group (like photographers who go to these locations and shoot), for discussion with the others who are not able to.It therefore allows aims for promoting , discussing, writing about, and finally donating (again not the prime focus) for , the issue of child education.

Pick Me, Click Me, Educate me is to provide with stories from the location, and through photographs to help spread a) value of education b) the existing avenues and facilities and c) a possible word for donation.

The project was initiated in the summer of 2007, by Documentary photographer Kshitiz Anand. This website went live on the 1st of May 2009.

Jodo Gyan - a unique initiative

(source of this article- http://www.minds-india.org/images/Educationworldonline_net.htm)

A small, enterprising Delhi-based group of people banded under the banner of Jodo Gyan is engaged in the task of banishing fear of mathematics from the minds of children by devising, producing and marketing enjoyable, activity-based maths teaching-learning materials. Usha Menon, a scientist with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s Delhi-based National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies is the tech brain behind this independent NGO, dedicated to finding workable solutions to common problems in school classrooms.

"Education is a sector where technological innovation can make a huge difference, something all of us want to see," says Menon who together with E.K. Shaji, a social activist and former employee of Scholastic (a global children’s publishing company) floated Jodo Gyan — a charitable trust — in 1999.

In 1995-96 following a World Bank initiated literacy campaign, Menon became directly involved with education. "Literacy per se is not enough to help people who face social deprivation, so we brainstormed about teaching basic hygiene skills and basic maths. Shaji, a man of letters and strong activism thought we should provide children high- quality reading material rooted in local folklore and culture. After he resigned from Scholastic, we registered Jodo Gyan as a trust," she recalls.

A graduate of IIT-Madras who read for a doctorate in technology transfer policy without completing it, Menon is a development researcher helping Jodo Gyan in conducting cutting-edge research. "Our ultimate objective is to make scientific innovations useful at ground level. At Jodo Gyan, we address two main objectives: to develop methods and materials to enhance maths teaching/learning processes and develop appropriate context-specific strategies for education," says Menon.

Activity-based mathematics (addition and subtraction, multiplication, fractions, decimals and geometry) is taught through games, puzzles and educational toys (in the price range Rs.10-500), which are either the NGO’s own creation and adaption or sourced from similar organisations like Navnirmati and Eklavya. Moreover, Menon and her team have moved beyond mathematics and incorporated science teaching as their next objective.

Jodo Gyan volunteers showcase their technological prowess, methods and products at teacher workshops, education fairs and parent-teacher meetings and schools ranging from slum schools to top-end institutions like Doon School, Dehradun; Woodstock; Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, and Delhi Public School which use their material. Currently an estimated 1,000 children are benefiting from Jodo Gyan’s programmes. "We have to establish a linkage between old and new knowledge to make practical and conceptual knowledge valuable to young minds," says Menon.