Somedays back, while going through a book in the Discworld series, I came across this statement: "Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on." Very true for the education prevalent in most parts of the country. To this there was this budding desire among some of the students, to do something for the society. This left me thinking of the following:
Many times we think that child labor should be banned. Children should get education as a right. Bit what shall we achieve out of that? Lets say rag pickers or mess boys or hotel boys; we can not give them formal education; evenif we give them a formal education, current educational degrees do not give you life-skills. So can we design a small but effective capsule of lifeskills? Then same course can be given in many platforms, starting from orphanages to our security guards. If it clicks, then it can be listed in a webpage and made into a mass-volunterism activity. Please help us in giving your idea of what should be included into such a course. Some things which i thnk can be included are:
1- spoken english (detailed strcutre needed; may be we can discuss with the eduction dept of any nearby university)
2- useful mathematics!! eg mensuration, interest on money, multiplication tables, time-date-years etc. (again detaield structure to be decided)
3- some moral issues (for this may be panchatantra/fables stories told in english will be fine)
4- life skills and motivation: for this I thnk if we can have a bundle of good movies it will be best; amreican movies mostly say ki u can do it; aau movie dekhu dekhu thy will see western life style and why thy r successful.
Please share your idea, and more importantly some formal and firm structre/idea!!
3 comments:
Sir i definitely agree with you that even formal education can't provide much help to them.But I think that the probable structure you provided is first of all not enough { which according to me is not that important as far as the feeling is true), but at the same time its not interrelated.
Teaching spoken English without meaning is like viewing things with one eye closed, you can see everything but can't analyze, feel anything.
Mensuration and simple mathematics is very important but I think after designing a simple course system for them we should leave them on their own to learn and explain it to themselves.Its just a suggestion but it should be taught in a applied manner.
instead of teaching them about moral issues I think we should tell them real time stories of children like them and how they become to live. Motivational stories are a part of the above pt.
Now what I would like to add is that," child mind is the most innocent, new and easily moulded" thing in the world. If somehow we :
1. try to get hold of their innovativeness at that time ( seems very difficult,infact it is)
2. turn them to something profitable and at the same time easy to learn and set up, could be understood as a kind of vocational education, but not exactly that.
villages in India are a great asset to the nation, the traditional methodoogy we follow for some simple things like Weaving, Pan making, handcraft, Silk, food, list tends to infinity...
what I think could be done is that if some village follow a particular tradition of making things and its quite followed and accepted work in that region then if we somehow interchange the profession of some people in some of these villages could benefit them in 2 ways. a more diverse work environment in the village, second give them more profit chances.
Its just a thought Sir,
"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."
Arpit.
It’s indeed a very good idea and you have already simplified the process. kintu kan spoken English jaruri ki?if they can read and write English, then that will be a very good thing. And if they can understand, then they can speak it also, why a separate class for that? We should keep it in mind that after all this education, where they are heading? Simple mathematics is necessary. I think there should be something about health and hygiene.so that they can apply it in real life.
its just a thought.
best wishes
what i understand is, a child has birth right to enjoy his/her childhood. education, though present system has a conservative meaning but, should be more oriented to let a child be creative, to think how can he contribute in society etc.
forcing a child into certain work, without his/her consent is nothing but slavery.
the fact is that society always need less people for production than it has.
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