Bits and Pieces

Pedagogy of the Oppressed- Insights for reflection Written by educator Paulo Freire  Published in the Year -1968 I had a wonderful experience reading the book ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ by Paulo Freire. The book tries to bring a model for liberation to the oppressed through dialogue and action. I would like to list some thoughts struck my mind while reading the book. People think that if and only if they suppress someone they can live as a ‘man’- to suppress becomes the way to live and the way of living. This suppression need not only be landlord-peasant type of suppression. But suppression of any form. A person does not realize that he is knowledgeable and he knows something. The awareness of self is very much lacking. This need not only be bookish knowledge or from any formal education but rather a knowledge about the self. Large number (or may be less number) of participants are seen in the discussions on decision making. However, we see people staying quiet a...

MY REFLECTIONS ON THE READING OF TOTTO-CHAN! Written by: Tetsuko Kuroyanagi Year of publication : 1981 Introduction to the book. The book was really a very great reading experience for me. It gave me a small idea of the kind of thoughts and feelings children have in their tender minds. This book helps us give a wonderful picture of a kind of progressive education through unconventional teaching. It talks about different skill and needs of a child that should be attended with great importance. This is a real time experience of a world famous lady who was once expelled of a school while studying for primary due to her hyper activeness, joined a school named Tomeo which was founded by Mr. Sosaku Kobayashi. The new school where the child went had class rooms made of unused rail road cars (train compartment). The teachers in that school had immense understanding about the importance of freedom. The children were given freedom to choose what should be done. The book makes the r...

I attended the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation Training (CCE) for the Primary School Teachers, The training was conducted by the Department of Education, Puducherry with the collaboration of Azim Premji Foundation. 9 th August 2012, The training program started at around 9:30 AM. The first activity was of introducing each other. There were about forty primary school teachers from different schools of puducherry. The teachers introduced themselves by saying their names prefixed by an adjective which best suited to them and also the reason which they have choose teaching as a profession. The activity went interesting. After the self-introduction of the teachers the facilitators projected some photos in front of the teachers. The photos showed some children as well as teachers clicked from different situation. The teachers were asked to discuss on the photos; about the emotions, background and also the teachers were asked to connect these photos with the experienc...

Thursday, 19 July 2012 An Inspired Teacher. Julia Weber, a single-teacher school teacher in the United States. She proved that inspiration and enthusiasm of a single teacher can make huge differences. Having the best infrastructure does not mean q uality in education. A teacher who is continuously innovating, reflecting and acting plays a key role in achieving quality education.  Using locally available resources is very important and effective in teaching. If the local community is thoughtfully involved in the schooling processes, most resources needed for learning can be easily organized. Currently, in most schools, irrespective of the management, the community is kept either out or they are only involved in a unproductive manner. Most places the community is not aware of what is happening in the schools. The schools are seen as building where something is taught, and this ‘something‘ is not known by the community. The idea of peer group learning is an effective way...

Learning by doing… Always we hear about this term, but when we experience it, the multidisciplinary action which comes in a single activity can be observed. When we analyze, everything which we know is only learned by doing.  Learning by doing will enable us to understand the nature and the kind of life and surrounding we have. Understanding of the concepts of mathematics really was a very wonderful session. But one thing which struck my mind is that, when an assessment is done and the result is been got that there should be changes in the teaching, how the teacher will improve himself/ herself. Is it that the portions ahead will be taught in an improved way or the taught one will be re-visited?

Wonders of Language.. An understanding on the acquisition of language was really a eye opener for me. Nothing in language is insignificant. This became a great motivation for thinking. It was of great wonder to know that that the sound structure of majority of human languages is following a certain pattern where the alteration of consonantal sounds and vocalic sounds is inherent in words. That is, every word will have a combination of consonant and vowel sound (CVCV pattern). For example, Baby is clearly in the patter of CVCV. I tried it in Malayalam and the pattern was clearly seen. this may be because the inherent want of human to make his/her language ease to his/her vocal chords. When I used to observe small children I used to get surprised how they speak with not at all been taught. The conversation with these children are really interesting. It was understood that a child can be made exposed to more than one language at a time as the inherent teacher in him/her would help h...

I think, when we talk about individuals, it would be nice if we do not use gender to represent him or her. A child is not always a ' HE '. What I understood about the relationship between genetics and  intelligence is. Genetic traits plays a very meager role in ones intelligence. It is the environment where he or she live add to his or her development of Intelligence. I believe you all would agree to it. It was made clear that the IQ test which is referred is used to assess ones learning, and the learning is something which happens from interaction while interaction is very much respective to ones environment. It can also thought that the physical health of the child can really affect his or her learning. For example a child having Asthma wont be able to go school every time. He/she will be loosing classes and in turn missing learning. This will certainly affect his/her learning and the IQ level of this Kid will be less compared to others. Here I believe that his/her ...

Understandings on my last three day session in Azim Premji University The session which had the discussions on equity and quality was really interesting. Understanding equity is complex, it is a very broad term. If quality of education is achieved through ensuring participation, reflective processes, better teaching practices, improved school infrastructure for all walks of the society equity will happen in the long run. When the preparation of policies are taken in to account, I think that the participation/buy-in of the Implementing body should be ensured. Specific field level researches can be conducted before drafting a policy in order to understand the need as well as specialties of different regions. As far as my understanding is, reflection of thought on a concept can occur only when there is an experience. A teacher all of a sudden will not be able to experiment on children, only through having a deep understanding on the behavior, learning capacity...

Tuesday, 24 July 2012 Excerpt from an interaction with Padma Shri Dr. Anil P Joshi, Director HESCO (Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation) What according to you is development? Development according to me is not urbanization. The whole idea of development has confined to a small area called a city while the rural areas remain untouched/ignored. The major strength the people living in urban areas is money and this is something which the rural people lack off. India as a country claims that it has grown. Something still remains is a huge gap between the urban and the rural areas. In the course of the so called development we forgot about environment, and this has lead to different problems like climate change, global warming etc. Natural resources are depleting day by day. Almost 90 percent of the natural resources are been governed by the rural folks. For food, water, forest, greenery etc. we have to depend on the rural people. Time has come where a shift is requ...

Gladson is gonna start blogging... you will find me talking on my learning and views about what I come to know everyday..