Joy of Learning

Metamorphosis

Cautious caterpillars

Approach my classroom door

Reluctant to release their mothers'

tight-held hands

A tangle of tears and smiles

Envelops their fragile frame

With joy and fear

Calmly, reassuringly

I take their hands in mine

And we begin a journey filled

with change.

Thus the nurturing begins

Within the confines of this

chrysalis

called 'classroom'

Changing voices can be heard

as 'I can't' becomes

'I'll try' becomes 'I did it'

No longer cautious caterpillars

Now emerging butterflies

Confident and ready for their flight

Although it happens every year

I always stand amazed

To witness such a miracle as this

I hear the rustling of their wings

As my butterflies take flight

My heart is filled with pride and celebration

But the celebration time is short

For while memories of sad 'goodbyes'

Hang heavy on my heart...

I turn with tear-filled eyes

To see outside my door

More cautious caterpillars

Reluctant to release

Their mothers' tight-held hands.

By Susan K. Hansen

I am doing a reading course called Problematizing Indian Education with Dr Geetha Durairajan. This is part of my MA English coursework in the fourth semester. One of our primary texts is Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I finished reading the second chapter yesterday, and feel like sharing some excerpts from there. Freire is very articulate, and his assertions are most striking. So, here you go. The edition I am quoting from was published by Penguin in 1996. The translator is Myra Bergman Ramos.

A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness.

The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration – contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity.

…Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers”, into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.

Education thus becomes an act of depositing…This is the “banking” concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.

In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher’s existence – but, unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher.

The raison d’être of libertarian education, on the other hand, lies in its drive towards reconciliation. Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.

…the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.

…Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world. They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world…Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information…Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow. In this process, arguments based on “authority” are no longer valid; in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it.

…The problem-posing method does not dichotomize the activity of the teacher-student; she is not “cognitive” at one point and “narrative” at another. She is always “cognitive”, whether preparing a project or engaging in dialogue with the students. He does not regard cognizable objects as his private property, but as the object of reflection by himself and the students. In this way, the problem-posing educator constantly re-forms his reflections in the reflection of the students. The students – no longer docile listeners – are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher. The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-considers her earlier considerations as the students express their own.

…Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming – as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality. Indeed, in contrast to other animals who are unfinished, but not historical, people know themselves to be unfinished; they are aware of their incompletion. In this incompletion and this awareness lie the very roots of education as an exclusively human manifestation. The unfinished character of human beings and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity.

epiSTEME - 3

Third international conference to review research on Science,

TEchnology and Mathematics Education

January 5-9, 2009

Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (TIFR), Mumbai, India

Conference epiSTEME-3 is the third in a series of biennial conferences

meant to review research world-wide in science, technology and

mathematics education. It is being organised by the Homi Bhabha Centre

for Science Education, a National Centre of the Tata Institute of

Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India.

Science, technology and mathematics education have, in recent decades,

emerged as lively new research areas. This research, inspired by

issues of learning and teaching, has clear uniting themes in the

cognitive, pedagogical, historical, philosophical and socio-cultural

aspects of the sciences. The name epiSTEME connotes, at one level, a

systematic study of knowledge, while as acronym it suggests a

meta-view of science, technology and mathematics education.

The epiSTEME conferences aim to bring together researchers in the

neighbouring disciplines of science, technology and mathematics

education, and in the disciplines that inform this research such as

history and philosophy of science, cognitive and socio-cultural

studies. For information on the previous epiSTEME conferences see

http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/episteme. Conference epiSTEME-3

continues the tradition of interdisciplinary exchange.

Aim of the conference:

Conference epiSTEME-3 will focus on four broad strands of research

that impact Science, Techology and Mathematics Education, which are

listed below. Under each strand, one or more focus themes have been

identified that reflect active research topics and areas of

interest. Leading scholars in the field will be invited to give

overviews of some of the themes within each strand. Paper and poster

sessions will complement the review talks. Pre and post conference

workshops are being planned, the details of which will be announced

later. The conference will strive to nurture the research community in

India while fostering linkages between theory and empirical research

in STM education. The conference aims at strengthening academic

interactions among research groups in this field across the world.

Strand 1: Historical, philosophical and socio-cultural studies of

STM: Implications for education

Focus theme 1: Perceptions of science, technology and mathematics

Focus theme 2: Gender issues in STME

Focus theme 3: Using history and philosophy of STM in teaching

Strand 2: Cognitive studies of STM learning

Focus theme 1: Visual and spatial modes in STM learning

Focus theme 2: STM learning in multilingual and multicultural

contexts

Focus theme 3: Interaction between cognitive development and

STM learning

Strand 3: Pedagogical studies of STM education

Focus theme 1: Curriculum and classroom studies of STM learning

Focus theme 2: Integrating content across STM education

Strand 4: Learning resources and teacher support

Focus theme 1: Role of new communication technologies in

providing learning resources and teacher support

The conference will include about 12 review talks, and about 30 paper

presentations and 30 poster presentations. Additionally, time will be

allocated for discussion sessions on STME issues of current importance.

Approximately 120 participants are expected.

Invited Speakers (confirmed):

Abraham Arcavi, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

John K. Gilbert, University of Reading, UK

Farida Khan, Jamia Millia Islamia, India

Helen Longino, Stanford University, USA

Vivek Monteiro, Navnirmiti, India

Eduardo Mortimer, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Chitra Natarajan, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, India

Veena Poonacha, SNDT University, India

Anna Sfard, Michigan State University, USA

Shailesh Shirali, Rishi Valley School, India

Kay Stables, University of London, UK

Call for Submissions:

Papers on the strands and focus themes listed above are invited.

Submissions must be made online in the form of full papers of 6-8

pages (maximum of 8 pages including references) of A4 size in single

space, 12pt, Times New Roman font with margins as follows: top - 3 cm,

bottom - 3 cm, left - 3 cm and right - 2 cm. Submissions may be made

in the following formats: Rich Text Format (.rtf), Open Document Text

(.odt) or Latex (.tex). A template for submission may be downloaded

from the conference webpage. To enable a blind review process,

authors' names and other details must be provided separately in the

online form, and must not be included in the papers.

Papers will be peer-reviewed and acceptance will be notified to

authors. The deadlines for submission of the paper and of the final,

fully revised version are given below. All the papers accepted for

presentation and presented at the conference will be published in the

Proceedings. Proceedings will be available to conference participants

in print form and on CD.

There are two modes of paper presentation at the Conference: oral

presentation and poster presentation. The academic committee will

assign accepted papers to one of the two modes of presentation.

Authors may indicate their preference for mode of presentation at the

time of submission.

Important dates:

Deadline for submission of paper: April 30 2008

Notification of acceptance: June 30 2008

Submission of revised papers: August 15 2008

Registration with payment: September 30 2008

Conference: January 5-9 2009

Participation without paper submission:

Those who wish to participate in the Conference without submitting a

paper may fill up a form on the epiSTEME-3 webpage before May 31,

2008. Participation in the Conference will be confirmed by July 31,

2008.

Venue:

Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (TIFR) is located at the

North-Eastern end of the island city of Mumbai. Until recently known as

Bombay, Mumbai is India's most cosmopolitan city, finance and business

capital and home of the entertainment industry, popularly known as

Bollywood. Mumbai is a vibrant, pulsating metropolis, which affords

diverse sightseeing opportunities.

We expect to accomodate most conference participants on the HBCSE

Campus, which is also the venue for the conference.

Conference fees:

Conference fees will need to be paid by 30th September 2008. The

modalities of payment will be notified on the conference webpage.

Participants from Institutions outside India

Regular USD 450 Student USD 200

Participants from Institutions within India

Regular INR 4000 Student INR 2000

Conference fees will cover: accommodation for 5 nights (January 4 -

8, food from January 4 (dinner) to January 9 (lunch), conference

materials and proceedings.

Partial support for travel may be available to a limited number of

participants from India. Applications for travel support must be made

before September 30, 2008.

Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental

Research, V. N. Purav Marg, Mankhurd, Mumbai 400 088, India.

email: episteme3@hbcse.tifr.res.in; episteme3@gmail.com

fax: 91-22-2556 6803, 2558 5660

Academic Committee

Sudhakar C. Agarkar

Sugra Chunawala

Savita Ladage

G. Nagarjuna

Hemachandra Pradhan (Chair)

Jayashree Ramadas

Vijay Singh

K. Subramaniam

Local Organizing Committee

Sugra Chunawala

Madhavi Gaitonde

Anwesh Mazumdar

Shweta Naik

Chitra Natarajan

Jayashree Ramadas

K. Subramaniam (Convener)

K. Subramaniam, Convener, epiSTEME-3

http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/episteme3

I brought in the New Year revisiting one of my favourite books - Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. It's a delightful book, full of warmth and laughter and kindness. It's about a little girl in Japan who is expelled from school because she is considered a nuisance. Thankfully, her mother doesn't give up on her, but finds a school where they would understand her daughter. Totto-chan loves this school...classes in railroad cars, walks to the pond, overnight camps in the assembly hall, hot water spring baths , ghost trails and the lunch break!!! 
Most of all, she loves Sosaku Kobayashi, the friendly headmaster who listened to her for four hours when they met for the first time. And he didn't get bored, or tell her to stop, or laugh at her. He just listened and smiled and enjoyed himself. You'll love this one. And if you've read it already, please share what you thought of it. In India, it's available with Earthcare Books, and it's quite inexpensive. You can also find an online copy in the Books section of the website http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/, under the heading 'Books on Education'.

When I was working with Life Positive magazine, I heard about this amazingly beautiful concept called Appreciative Enquiry from our editor Suma Varughese. When faced with a problem in an organization, there is usually a tendency to point fingers or pass the buck because nobody wishes to be the person who is in the wrong. Appreciative Enquiry is based on the understanding that complimenting people for what they do well – rather than picking out their flaws – is a more effective way of resolving issues and improving efficiency.

I think this is quite applicable to the systems of evaluation followed in schools and colleges. Teachers are usually so occupied with making an inventory of mistakes that they hardly have the time to acknowledge and compliment the efforts put in by the child. This can be very damaging to the child’s self-respect. On the other hand, if the teacher is sensitive to the child’s strengths and weaknesses, and rewards attempts at self-improvement even with a smile or a pat on the back or a ‘good’ in the notebook, it makes the child feel so much happier.

You might like to read a wonderful story that I found online. Do check it out! It’s called Life is Baeutiful.

http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=6736

This Christmas, I watched a wonderful movie called Miracle on 34^th Street. 

The leading lady in the film works with a store whose publicity campaign for Christmas revolves around Santa Claus. While she is brilliant at her work, she doesn’t believe in Santa Claus at all. And this is a belief that she passes down to her little daughter as well. But one fine day, after a encounter with the Santa at the store, the daughter has second thoughts about what her mother said. The child asks her mother if she doesn’t have to believe in Santa right away. Her mother, after a little pause, tells the child, “You have the right to believe whatever you want to. I’ve told you the truth, but if I am wrong, I wouldn’t mind admitting it.”

I just love this bit from the movie. It is so often that adults force the child to agree to and internalize concepts that they believe in. If there is any resistance from the child, it is quickly snubbed. Perhaps this has to do with the adult’s fear of losing control. It is important to allow the child to create his or her own world. Play and fantasy are such an integral part of childhood. Kids should be given the freedom to grapple with the world they encounter. It is a quality to be nurtured for the child’s own growth.

I quote here from Jane Sahi’s book Education and Peace (published by Akshar Mudra):

A child’s quest and questioning can be an expression of wonder. Sometimes the questions are to enlarge a view of the world: ‘Do frogs have teeth?’; ‘Why can fish swallow salt water and we can’t?’; ‘Where do flies sleep at night?’; or ‘Why don’t we feel giddy when the earth keeps going round?’ Sometimes the questions lead us to search for what we really believe. ‘Can I ask God for wings?’, ‘Are there small people living under the earth?’ or ‘Have you seen a ghost because I have?’

It is not only the child’s questions and the way we respond that is so significant but also the way an adult addresses questions to children which allow reflective answers that are not pre-determined by the adult.

E.F. Schumacher sums up the purpose of education as “to lead people out of the dark wood of meaninglessness, purposelessness, drift and indulgence up a mountain where there can be gained a truth that makes you free.” The actual experience of the journey is hidden from teacher and child alike and the vision at the top remains a mystery for each to discover.

Play, wonder and the asking of questions and finding out answers are all ways of exploring the world around.

Here’s a link to a very interesting article written by Kamala Anil Kumar. The title is Tamarind Seeds and Little Children. It appeared in the Journal of the Krishnamurti Schools in July 1998.

http://www.journal.kfionline.org/article.asp?issue=2&article=13

I wrote this article for Life Positive, a magazine dedicated to holistic living, spiritual exploration and alternative healing therapies. An edited version of this was published in their August 2007 issue. 

LET THEM PLAY

Play constitutes an important part of your child’s growth. Do recognise this.

By Chintan Girish Modi

Walk into Anurag Tated’s house in Baroda, and you are more than likely to find the eight-year-old jumping about from sofa to table, playing with cushions, pulling someone’s hair, cooking up his own lingo, or inventing his own steps to go with the latest Bollywood dance number. He loves playing ‘dark room’. Getting blindfolded, running around, making all sorts of strange noises before you eventually get hold of someone who will then get blindfolded and do all of the same – the sequence is thrilling enough for Anurag to want more of it. He enjoys playing badminton, with a racquet usually snatched from one of his sisters, although he is still learning to hold one properly. There’s a lot of energy and enthusiasm bubbling inside him, and he needs to use it his own way. If you try to force him into staying put, sitting quietly, and learning math tables, he’ll find a way to dodge you; else, he will stay glued to cartoon films on television.

Unblock their creativity

Anurag is still young, and since the burden of studies isn’t too overwhelming, he can make enough time to have fun. But older kids are so caught up with school, homework and tuitions or coaching classes that there is little time left for recreation. Their natural impulse to play is curbed under the pretext of equipping them for the competitive world.

Lavina Gulati, who was formerly a counsellor at Bombay International School, feels that play is the only way in which children get to express themselves freely. She says, “When children play, their creative potential comes out. But parents want to structure every moment, sending them from one class to another – dance, art, music, swimming, etc. They want their children to be super kids. Kids are hardly ever just allowed to be, and to do their own thing. Thus their creativity gets blocked.”

Lavina’s two-year-old son Ahan loves water. He finds it soothing, so Lavina often takes him to the swimming pool, to let him enjoy it. She also takes him along to the bookshop, the zoo, and other places. He always finds something fun to do. Lavina feels that it is important to let children make what they wish to of what is given to them – be it toys, colours, or pieces of paper. “These bring out a lot of things going on in the child’s mind. Kids cannot come and tell you about everything that bothers them. They express through their play. But look at the kind of toys parents are buying these days, operated using batteries and buttons! Everything happens for you, and you just sit and watch. Play becomes mechanical. One should just give them stuff, and let them play in their own way. This will enable them to try out different things, learn on their own, and discover their creativity.”

In her book The Treehouse, Naomi Wolf records a conversation with her father Leonard Wolf, a well-regarded poet and teacher for 60 years. Leonard says, "We played with pebbles, corks, spools from thread. We built cities out of mud and twigs. I haven't the slightest memory of a single toy in my childhood. But there was plenty to do. There was a grain warehouse owned by a Jew -- ten- or twelve-feet-high bins filled with wheat, corn, and oats. He would let us play in the bins: we would climb to the top of the mounds of grain, slide down it, roll in it. It was marvellous."

Allow spontaneity

The argument about play becoming increasingly mechanical, and far removed from unstructured joyful expression, is a strong one, and is supported by many who work in the field of education. Aban Bana, who teaches at Tridha, a Waldorf school, run in keeping with the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, is among these. At Tridha, children play in specially built sand pits, with sand from the nearby Juhu beach. They also frolic about in water, and play with wooden planks. In addition, they learn eurythmy, an art of movement practised to infuse oneself with health-giving rhythms, and develop the body, mind and soul.

Aban advocates playing with traditional toys as opposed to the plastic, battery-operated, so-called ‘educational’ ones.  She says, “Children can learn so much from traditional toys. The skipping rope is a wonderful way to co-ordinate movements. It gives the child a certain lightness. When children play together, they give and take and share. One holds the rope, and the other jumps. It’s a great way of learning rhythm. How many children play marbles these days? It is beautiful hand-eye-brain coordination. They push and pull and make a lot of noise. It’s so exciting. The more they play, the more guileless, innocent, natural and spontaneous they will be. Let them fight. What’s wrong with a fight? It shouldn’t get ugly, parents should keep a watch on that.”

Be natural

Comet Media Foundation, a Mumbai-based organisation has been holding children’s festivals called ‘bal vividha’ in different parts of India, exploring and making accessible alternative approaches to learning. The idea behind each festival is to provide hands-on and activity-based learning, to de-stress the learning process, and to make it joyous. A section of the festival is devoted to interactive corners, where children can play with toys, meet rural artisans, and learn to make handicrafts. This concern with encouraging creative play has led Comet to take up the promotion of toys made from organic materials like wood, lacquer, bamboo and cotton fabric, which provide employment to rural crafts persons. Chandita observes, “Playing is often children’s way of recreating the big world in a miniature form, and trying to make sense of it in manageable proportions. That is why you see them playing shop-shop, doctor-doctor, home-home, mummy-daddy, etc. There is another kind of play, which is logical, and involves strategising – hopscotch, ludo, chess, etc. That helps to develop skills of another kind.”

Chandita feels that children should be allowed to play with puppets, because this gives a boost to their imagination and encourages storytelling abilities. “No tale is static; it is constantly re-told in the light of one’s values, emphasising the parts one liked, reinterpreting the parts one didn’t like.” She speaks of a child who swore that the woodcutter was the real villain in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, while the wolf was the victim. How could the poor thing survive when the woodcutter was chopping down forests? Understandably, the wolf was compelled to encroach on human territory, and devour people! This was the child’s explanation. And the line of argument is quite convincing, especially in an age where environmental consciousness has become so important.

Bridge barriers

Chennai-based Kreeda is another organisation actively trying to revive and popularise traditional games, many of which are played with stones, marbles, shells, tamarind seeds, cups and coins. Vinita Sidhartha, founder of Kreeda, believes that play is crucial, for it goes a long way in breaking down barriers and building relationships. “Today, with nuclear families, it is sad that kids are losing touch with their grandparents. There are many single-child families, and sometimes, even one of the parents is missing. This is becoming more and more common. Relationships don’t have a chance to blossom beyond a structured environment. The beauty of traditional games is that they can bridge any barrier. My son is 15, and my grandmother – his great grandmother – is 95. There is an 80-year gap, but when they play together, it is bridged effortlessly. Old people may not be comfortable with a computer game, but traditional games appeal to the child in everyone.”

When the Kreeda team was working on their gilli danda, Vinita showed it to her father. He talked about how he used to play with his friends and siblings, the mischief he did, how he cheated, etc. She says, “There is something so magical to see the child in your parents. For most people, their happiest memory of childhood is laughter, and this is often associated with playing. To win a game, to lose with a friend – these are such important things to learn.”

It is important we that we recognise the significance of play for its own sake, and not merely as a distraction from a serious academic routine. Play constitutes an important part of a child’s growth – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. It helps him channelise his energy in a creative way. It equips him with social skills.

Deal with eyeball addiction

Parents are not always the ones at fault. A number of kids today prefer computer and television screens to the playground. During a recent Comet workshop at Devlali, Chandita met with a lady whose eight-year-old son has a tendency to obesity because his attention is constantly focussed on one screen or the other – the television or the computer. Even here, there is no concentration involved; the child is either switching channels with a remote, or browsing a couple of websites simultaneously. Recalling her conversation with the worried mother, Chandita remarks, “All the play is intellectual. The kid has to be sent out to breathe some fresh air. And there he meets with another kid. They sit together and speak in low voices like old men, using the football as an elbow rest rather than a toy. The mother finds it absolutely strange, because as a kid, she used to spend most of her time playing outdoors.”

Monil Dalal from Chennai has encountered several cases of children who are unable to experience the joy of play because of their addiction to either the computer or the television. A post graduate in Toy Design and Development from the Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Design (NID), Monil now works with BSA Cycles, a company that manufactures bicycles for children. For his research project at NID, he interacted closely with some latch-key kids (children of working parents, locked in at home with little to do), and developed a play unit based on their needs and problems. “These kids spend a lot of time eating junk food, watching television, and playing video games. Many of them are obese. There is a lot of strain on their eyes to understand the environment around. I made a toy that would help them improve concentration, kill time, and also provide acupressure therapy.”

Let them make their own toys

Perhaps we need to do something more in addition to encouraging creative play -- get the children involved in making their own toys. It is not as unthinkable as it sounds. Arvind Gupta has been doing this for years. Formerly an electrical engineer from IIT Kanpur, he is now at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, popularising science among children by sharing the art of making simple, ingenious, cost-effective toys from used tetrapacks, syringes, film roll cases, straws, wires, pen refills, matchboxes, cartons, etc. “If you let children play with toys that they can make themselves, they’ll have more fun. We live in a consumerist society that generates enough garbage, much of which can be used to make creative toys. Even if children were to break such toys, parents wouldn’t scold them. These toys have a strong component of recycling, so children learn to respect the environment. These are simple to make; once children get a taste of this joy, they get hooked. They can use all their senses, and play with their hands and heart. I used to make toys out of garbage when I was a child. Those were my happiest days.”

Sudarshan Khanna, who heads the Toy Innovation Centre of NID, and is also on the board of the International Toy Research Association, supports Gupta’s idea. In the preface to his popular book Joy of Making Indian Toys, he writes, “This simple, straightforward resource book has been prepared for two basic reasons: one reason stems from my belief that every society has a great deal of practical and useful knowledge which is often expressed most creatively and effectively through the tales and toys of that society; the other reason is based on my own experience with self-made simple toys. This gave birth to my interest and fascination for design, science and technology. Today we find children and their parents are obsessed with glossy, high-priced, factory-made toys, perhaps not realising what a child can gain from simple self-made playthings.” Both Gupta and Khanna have written several books giving detailed instructions on how children can create their own toys, and these books are very low-priced, so as to reach the average Indian child.

Remember to gift

After this long spiel on the importance of play, I hope you’ll let your child discover this wonderful gift. And if you still need a reminder, nothing could be more fitting than this quote from the Waldorf Education Exhibition Catalogue released on the occasion of the 44^th Session of the International Conference on Education of UNESCO in Geneva. In this document, Joan Almon writes, “Play is the serious work of childhood. In play, children take hold of the natural and cultural worlds, and, in so doing, take in the qualities inherent in those realms. They recreate human cultural development, and can later contribute to its further evolution, because they have understood through their hands. Kindergarten-aged children grasp the world in play; they experience with all their senses, they move with their whole body. Sure-footed, coordinated movement, balance and tactile sensitivity are schooled in play. This forms a basis for the conscious experience: I can shape the world because I have grasped it.”

Contacts

Arvind Gupta

Ph: 020-25604602

www.arvindguptatoys.com

Aban Bana

A-1 Building, 5, Proctor Road, Grant Road, Mumbai 400 007.

Ph: 022-23863799

abanbana123@rediffmail.com

www.anthroposophyindia.org

Tridha

Bhuta High School Building, Shahaji Raje Marg, Vile Parle (East). Mumbai 400 057.

Ph: 022-32921768, 022-26827258

tridha@hotmail.com

www.tridha.com

Chandita Mukherjee

Comet Media Foundation, Topiwala Lane School, Lamington Road, Mumbai 400 007.

Ph: 022-23869052, 022-23826674

cometmediafdn@gmail.com

www.cometmedia.org

Vinita Sidhartha

Kreeda Games, 755, Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002.

Ph: 044-28522423, 044-28528730

info@kreedagames.com

http://www.kreedagames.com/

To visit Life Positive
www.lifepositive.com

Advice To A Four-Year-Old On

Her First Day Of School

This is the sacred litany --

1.

Right-hand margins,

pin-drop silences,

pattern-writing

(without ruptures in the joineries),

sharpened HB pencils,

double-finger-spaces,

fingers-on-lips.

2.

Pink-and-white girls

who can play fairies in end-of-term plays.

Symmetrical girls

who don’t stick out at odd angles in the march-past.

Geometrical girls

always equipped with compass boxes.

Cultivated girls

with dictions manicured by militant horticulturists.

Musical girls

who chorus good-mornings in orchestrated D minor.

Softspoken girls

with tones so hushed it’s pardonable they don’t curtsey.

Streamlined girls

who don’t run into awkward lengths in 4-line report cards.

Ornithological girls

who prefer wrens and martins to day-dreaming.

Respectable girls

who prefer daffodils to Venus fly traps.

Down-to-earth girls

who know that boys are extra-terrestrial.

Dumb girls

who believe that Pavlov’s dog will have his day.

Now repeat.

I have been dipping into a wonderful book called Education and Peace by Jane Sahi. It is based on the Marjorie Sykes Memorial Lecture delivered by the author in 1998, and is published by Akshar Mudra, Pune.

Jane is influenced by the ideas of Gandhi, Tagore and Rudolf Steiner. She runs the Sita School in Silvepura village on the outskirts of Bangalore. Her book addresses something that deeply concerns me – the fact that students are exposed to an overdose of information but are blissfully unaware of how their learning is to be used in daily living. She uses two stories to illustrate her point. I quote from the book:

Excerpt 1

The kind of learning that is unrelated to practical life is illustrated in Mulla Nasruddin’s humorous story of the Grammarian and the Ferryman which tells of their journey across a river. The scholar was sitting comfortably in the ferry boat while the ferryman was exerting much energy to steer the boat safely across the choppy waters of a river. The scholar inquired whether the ferryman was a learned man, and if he knew the rudiments of grammar or not. The ferryman informed him that he was a simple man and had no such knowledge. The grammarian responded scornfully saying, “Well, my dear fellow, half of your life is wasted.” The ferryman continued his strenuous work in silence, until they reached about midstream, and the deepest part of the river. The ferryman then asked the scholar whether he knew how to swim or not, to which the grammarian disdainfully replied that he did not. The ferryman then said, “Well, my dear fellow, the whole of your life is wasted. The boat has sprung a leak, and we are about to sink.”

Excerpt 2

The perils of a disconnected learning and teaching are well illustrated in a variation of the Panchatantra story which goes as follows:

There were four learned men. One day they decided to go deep into the forest with the idea that there they would prove their great learning. It was a kind of testing. On the way one of the four found by chance the thigh bone of a tiger. Eagerly he picked it up, and proceeded with great skill and uttering of mantras to construct the skeleton of a life-size tiger. Whereupon, another of the four scholars, not to be outdone by his friend, put flesh and skin on the framework of the tiger to make him look more real. The stripes appeared with a flourish. Tail, whiskers, claws, and lolling tongue were all placed in a most lifelike way, until at last a stationary, but ferocious looking tiger stood before them. The man looked with pride at his handiwork.

One more of their number stepped forward. He, however, belittled his friend’s achievement saying that he had the greater power, for he had the knowledge to make the tiger breathe and live. The fourth of the four men was, naturally, alarmed and interrupted the man’s boasting, assuring him that it was unnecessary to prove his great learning by such a dangerous and foolhardy experiment. The third man was by now totally engrossed in the prospect of showing his superior skills. He refused to listen to what he dismissed as foolishness. While the third scholar chanted more and more incantations, and his friends gazed on admiringly, the fourth man climbed high up in a nearby tree, and there, from a safe distance, watched the spectacle with a healthy mixture of fear and wonder.

Suddenly, the motionless tiger changed to a snarling, growling, hungry tiger, and before the three worthy scholars could escape, he pounced upon them and with a few deft strokes of his sharp claws, killed them all. The fourth man watched as one by one the three men were greedily devoured until nothing was left of his friends, the philosopher, the artist and the scientist, but their bags of books which the tiger disdained to touch or taste. Nervously, the sole survivor of the unhappy party, descended from the tree, and returned to the town, and organized the rituals to commemorate the early demise of the three renowned scholars.