A dream for tomorrow

http://ngopost.org/story.php?title=The_amazing_Doctor_couple_of_Tamilnadu

and then this:
http://www.thulir.org/about/about.html

Two people have dedicated their entire lives for this from 1993?! And two more from 2003!! What will it take for India to get to where it needs to be???? When will that happen?

And I am definitely making a trip there when I am in Chennai next! Applications invited for those who want to give me company. June 2010 sometime? :)

For a better tomorrow, my current thoughts are that we must focus on the people who engineer the tomorrow - K-12 teachers.

First draft of my HOW-TO guide for this huge plan:

1. Study current methods that are producing such low quality teachers in India
Is the input to the teacher training program not good?How good do they have to be?What is needed to be a good primary/ secondary school teacher?What is lacking in the incoming people?How to inculcate the qualities in the incoming batches of people?Is this possible?If not, why is it not possible and what kind of people should come in?To get these people what do we need to do?Is the curriculum outdated?What should go?What should stay?What should be added?Are they motivated and told that they are engineering the future? They must be. They are going to be doing important, very cool work and not something drab - and they should know that!
2. Get money from corporations (force them to pay up - training fees that is going to reduce their traini…

Here is what I wrote more than 2 years ago hoping to apply for a Masters program in Education. Eventually, though, I never used this for anything. Took the well tread route. Applied for a Masters program in Computer Science and that is what I'm doing now.

But this is still close to my heart, something that I want to do. Someday, I will. Probably.

Education
I dream that there will be a day when every child is given equal opportunity regardless of gender, financial status and parentage. I want to engineer a bright tomorrow for every child for whom a tomorrow is a very bleak prospect. A tomorrow which will see every child blossoming into the best that he or she could ever be. With nothing discriminating them from the rest. Without anything to hinder them from realizing their beautiful dreams.

The disparity that is existent in today's world is shocking. A case in point is a personal example. Our domestic helpers son is 22 years old.  He has passed his 9th standard and works as a pe…

I'm moving the education related posts from my random thoughts blog to here - this one was originally put on it on Nov 6, 2009. The next two posts are also just traveling here from their old home.
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This is one of my favourite passages from "I Give my Heart to the Children" by Vasily Sukhomlinsky. A must read for any teacher dealing with children. I wish we had some great inspirational training for all teachers. Don't they make the future?

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Our Corner of Dreams

Finally we lit a fire in the stove. The dry twigs blazed up gaily. Evening fell over the land, but our little hideout was bright and cozy. We looked at the trees and bushes covering the slope of the ravine and there, from the secretive thickets, fairy-tale images came to us. They seemed to ask, “Tell a story about us, please." The trees and bushes were enveloped by the semi-transparent haze of twilight, bluish at first and then lilac. The trees took on unexpected outlines in th…

No one can tell whether a child gets more from looking at the blackboard or looking out of the window
- Janusz Korczak in "When I Am Little Again"

I will use this blog to think out loud about my dreams for attaining an equitable tomorrow through quality education for every child on the planet. By providing interesting blackboards and rich experiences, between and outside safe windows, and all the support to make happy childhoods.

I hope that one day, these dreams will come true.