Museums, Fun and Education

Bharat reminds me how Museums are a powerful tool for education and it is sad that many Museums in India are in a sad state of affairs.

So, let us revisit Museums' role in education:

Prabhas Kumar Singh quotes John Falk & Lynn (1992), who had extensively studied museum education in U.S.A, India, U.K and many other countries:

The information a visitor receives during a museum visit tends to bear a ‘contextual map’. The museum visit represents a collection of experiences rather than a single unitary phenomenon.

Any information obtained during the museum visit is likely to include social related, attitude related, cognitive related and sensory related association.

These associations will become embedded in memory altogether with the result that anyone facet of these experiences can facilitate the recall of the entire experience.

Thus Museums are rather a source of intellectual stimulation and entertainment.

Exhibition halls, properly arranged secondary collections, labels, guided tours, traveling exhibitions, school class visits, loan services to the schools, training courses to the teachers, illustrated lectures, motion pictures, film trips and publications, etc. are the various means which constitute the educational activities in a museum.

There are many organizations, projects and budgets, but no ENTHUSIASTS among those who run these initiatives!

For example, National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), an autonomous society under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India (formed 1978), administers 27 science centres/museums/planetariums spread all over India.

The Delhi unit is National Science Centre , www.nscdelhi.org, (Pragati Maidan, Near Gate No.1).

Its various VARIOUS INDOOR & OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES include:

• Commemorative Events
• Community Programmes
• Creative Ability Camp
• Environmental Awareness Programmes
• Film Shows
• Nature Study Camps
• Popular Science Lectures
• Science Camp/Fair
• Science Demonstration Lectures (SDL)
• Science Quiz
• Science Seminar
• Science Shows
• Sky Observation Camp
• Taramandal Shows
• Teachers' Training Programme
• Vacation Hobby Camp/ Centre

An interesting project : Virtual Museums as Innovative Tool for Adult Education (VMIT)

Pay MORE to Teachers

It is well known that most people avoid teaching as a profession (usually it is the last resort.)

The United Nations has reiterated that "Low salaries, lack of job security, inadequate training and overcrowded classrooms have combined to deter many willing and eligible people from becoming teachers....The shortage of qualified teachers is one of the biggest challenges to achieving the Education for All goals.”

How can we encourage talented people to take up the teaching profession?

First thing, of course, is to pay them more. But, what else?

What ALL do we need to do to CAUSE a world-wide revolution in education?

How can we create a powerful context for people to CHOOSE teaching as a first-preference profession?

हे शिक्षक जागो!

हर बच्चा एक चंचल कन्हैया है,
खूबसूरत सपनों की सुगन्धित पुरवैया है।
बाहर से कच्ची मिटटी का ढेला है,
किंतु भीतर असीम आत्मबल का मेला है।

हे शिक्षक जागो! अपने कर्तव्य से मत भागो,
इन बच्चों से ही देश का भविष्य दिव्य है।
इसलिए इनके बुनते हुए सपनों को संवारों,
यही तुम्हारा धर्म है, और यही राष्ट्र-सेवा है।

Ekal Vidyalaya

Ekal Vidyalaya: "A charitable trust that initiates, supports, and runs non-formal one-teacher schools (popularly known as Ekal Vidyalayas) all over the country. With the participation of numerous non-profit trusts and organizations, this program has now become the greatest non-governmental education movement in the country."

Vision: To banish illiteracy from the face of tribal India by providing free, non-formal education through a People-Movement.

Mission: The Ekal Vidyalaya movement aims to help eradicate illiteracy from rural and tribal India by 2011. To date, Ekal Vidyalaya is a movement of over 24,006 teachers, 5,000 (Approximately) voluntary workers, 20 field organizations (scattered in 20 Indian states), and 8 support agencies as on December 2007.

Join as a Volunteer here.

Sponsor a School here.

Teach Children to Draw Animals

Here is great site to help children learn to draw a variety of animals:

How to Draw It :

How to draw animals from pears
How to draw sheep
How to draw a parrot
How to draw an owl
How to draw a dachshund
How to draw a frog
How to draw a hen
How to draw a rooster
How to draw a pig
How to draw a goat
How to draw a cow
How to draw deer
How to draw ducks
How to draw birds
How to draw snails
How to draw a cocker spaniel
How to draw a poodle
How to draw a squirrel
How to draw a koala bear
How to draw a rabbit
How to draw kittens
How to draw bears
How to draw horses
How to draw a crocodile
How to draw a porcupine
How to draw an opossum
How to draw a seahorse
How to draw a swan
How to draw a whale
How to draw a camel
How to draw a kangaroo
How to draw a giraffe
How to make alphabets into animals
How to draw lions
How to draw tigers
How to draw a dinosaur
How to draw a walrus
How to draw penguins
How to draw a rhinocerus
How to draw a hippopotamus
How to draw a peacock
How to draw an angelfish
How to draw elephants
How to draw centaurs
How to draw a unicorn
How to draw a griffin
How to draw an octopus

Which Disney Princess are you?

Bharat (who has an eight year old daughter) had shared a fun link (Disney Princess) for my seven year old daughter, Aditi.

Aditi had been exploring the site for the last few and days and today she stumbled upon the 5-Question Personality Quiz "Which Disney Princess are you?"

It was amusing see my daughter choose among the various options and finally read her result: You're are most like Belle:

You are loving and giving and can always see the good in others. You love to read and spend time with friends.

Very interesting for a 5-Question personality test!

What can schools do to help students dream bigger?

Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon professor and alumnus, died on July 25 of complications from pancreatic cancer.

One of the questions put up to him was (10 Questions for Randy Pausch):

What can schools do to help students dream bigger?

His answer:

All universities ought to do a better job
of encouraging students to take courses outside of their major.
Dreams come from broadening your horizons and
rubbing elbows with different kinds of people.

Watch his Famous Last Lecture on YouTube. Download the transcript [.pdf].

WAH! Empowering Rural India. One Child at a Time.

Work An Hour 2008: Asha for Education has launched the 11th edition of its flagship online fundraiser Work An Hour. From July 15th to September 15th, you are invited to donate to 15 very special projects in need of funding to help educate underprivileged children in India.

The concept is simple "Participants are asked to symbolically Work an Hour towards the cause of children's education by donating an hour's worth or more of their salary."

Some highlights:

• Donors will have the ability to give to a project of their choice.
• First WAH campaign started in 1998, raised over $30,000 from close to 700 donors. Last year, WAH raised over $140,000 with a donor base of over 1,250 participants.
• Projects chosen in the past included a wide range of education initiatives, such as educating slum children, supporting schools for the disabled and non-formal education centers, educating children of sexworkers, mitigating child labor etc.
• This year's campaign addresses the empowerment of rural and tribal communities & centered around, Empowering Rural India. One Child at a Time.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE.

Youth at Rescue!

Can Youth Save Our World ?: Alexander M Zoltai writes about the story of The World’s Youngest Principal - 17-year-old Zhang Yong and throws up some very powerful questions!

How do you think youth can be helped best to understand the world?

How do you think adults can be educated to accept the power and creativity of youth?

As we ponder over these, Alex shares a few inspiring quotes, one of them being:

“The cause of universal education deserves the utmost support,
for no nation can achieve success unless education is accorded all its citizens.
Such an education should promote
the consciousness of both the oneness of humanity
and the integral connection between humankind and the world of nature.
By nurturing a sense of world citizenship,
education can prepare the youth of the world
for the organic changes in the structure of society
which the principle of oneness implies.”
Bahá’í International Community, 1992 June 06, Earth Charter

Read it all at Our Evolution.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Methods: An interesting list of suggestions by Abraham Maslow on teaching children:

* Be authentic.
* Transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens.
* Find their vocation and right mate.
* Know that life is precious.
* Be good and joyous in all kinds of situations.
* Learn from their inner nature.
* See that basic needs are satisfied.
* Refresh their consciousness; appreciate beauty and other good things in life.
* Understand that controls are good, and complete abandon is bad.
* Transcend trifling problems
* Grapple with serious problems such as injustice, pain suffering and death
* Be good choosers
* Be given practice in making choices, later allowing choices in their religious beliefs.

Want to add to this list?

Should you volunteer, or support financially?

How do you deal with children begging on the streets?

Nandita Das shares:

Children begging in the streets, for instance – that’s one issue that I have not sorted out in my mind, yet. I don’t know whether I should give alms and encourage begging. I also know that is not going to change the situation. But then, am I doing anything else in lieu of not giving a tenner? When I see them at traffic lights, I feel that at least I should make eye contact, talk to them. Many of my friends keep telling me, ‘Don’t talk to them’, ‘Don’t even look at them. You are asking for trouble.’ But I try to connect with them. I make faces, talk to them... that is a moment of lightness in their lives, and, as I have realised, in mine too.

I don’t undermine monetary contribution, because there is such an unequal distribution of money in this world. It is important that people contribute financially too. But being involved, volunteering to give some time, apart from money, often enriches one’s own life.

If, as a human being, one wants to grow and be more sensitive, there’s nothing like giving time and creating those experiences for oneself.

What is your take?

How would you like to contribute towards education of underprivileged children?

Inclusive Education

Teach India: 'Don't weed out kids, work them in' : Amol Gupte, writer and creative-director of Taare Zameen Par, has very strong views on overhauling the Indian Education System. He says:

An Inclusive education, to me,
is one that does not practice selective exclusion—
weeding out children on the basis of unreasonable milestones.....,
and I am shocked by the way
the education system systematically and selectively
denies children with special needs access to the classroom.
What people forget is that
the speed of the herd is not determined
by the fastest but the slowest in the pack.

On, what would he like to change?

A total overhaul of the curriculum.
I would like to see a more holistic curriculum,
where the focus is on knowledge not scores.
Besides, I would like to replace rote learning
with subjective knowledge that would benefit a child much more.

Hmmn...that is lot work! Let us get going!

Sign up for the 'Teach Neta' campaign

Sign up for the 'Teach Neta' campaign: Bachi Karkaria writes

"My theory is that this whole campaign is not about Illiteracy Hatao,
but about hataoing ethically illiterate politicians.
I suspect that 'Teach India' is secretly about teaching our leaders a lesson,
creating a huge mass of empowered citizens
who will be able to sternly order them,
'Get out of the ruling class!'; 'Stand in the corner!'; 'Stand on the bench.
No, not on the Opposition Benches!'"

But, what will you REALLY TEACH & IMPART?

But, what will you REALLY TEACH & IMPART?:

"BUT, ARE YOU REALLY AWARE OF THEIR WORLD?
WHAT ARE THEIR REAL ISSUES?
Back home OR back on the streets WHAT ARE THEY UP AGAINST?
A hostile world?
Scared Parents (or, worse, abusive parents) ?
How can they experience freedom from such severe conditioning?"

Teach India

Teach India: Teach India aims to support the education of underprivileged children....


DONATE SOMETHING MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAT FUNDS.......

YOUR TIME

HOW MUCH TIME do you HAVE for underprivileged children?