Out of box 1.0

If we think in details then a universal panacea of all our problem emerges as a good inclusive education system. Be it the problem of traffic or health or corruption or anything else, education is considered as a magic wand to all our wounds. But question we ought to ask ourselves is whether current education system will prove a panacea or will it worsen the education system? Not very difficult to imagine, it may stop things from getting worse but it'll not guarantee to make them better. Case in point is all the big scams of India which has a serious involvement of so-called educated class. Similarly, violators of overspeeding and drunken-driving are not the illiterate rowdies. Oftentimes they are young educated modern class people. Therefore, our education needs some out of box suggestions to solve these problems.

A. We need to switch from k-12 to the k-13 system of education. The additional one year should be to learn the vocational skills like masonry, Welding, tool cutting, electronics, electricals, computers, manufacturing, traditional arts and artifacts, sculpting, hospitality, driving, and basic skills education etc. This has multiple benefits.
1. It'll allow people to develop real marketable skill set with which they can even open their own businesses.
2. It'll help in institutional mechanism to save our traditional skill sets.
3. We can hire traditional artisans as teachers and provide the platform to reach out to a wider audience.
4. It'll revive the Guru-Shishya tradition of India.
5. It'll reduce the pace at which people are entering the workforce and thus give more time to the government for generating more jobs.
6. It'll integrate the Skill India in our formal education system and thus will take away huge corruption introduced by a cartel of private skill training institutes.

B. We need to focus on ethics aspect of education by integrating subjects of psychology, corruption, cleanliness and social values in the age group of 12-16 years. The subject of psychology in class 8th will help in developing a sense of self-esteem and internal locus of control. It'll help in turning young boys into a man at an early age so that they will develop a sense of right and wrong. It will make them more immune to vulnerabilities of drug addiction, stressful life and prevent them from falling into the rat race.

C. We need to revive the library culture in our society. For this multiple initiatives need to be taken.
1. We need to amend the RTE act and ensure that libraries are opened in every school.
2. We need to conduct year-round competitions of readership/debate/extempore starting from primary level.
3. Reading cannot be separated from writing/speaking and listening hence a comprehensive Padho India scheme should be launched with a focus on essay writing, and district level student newspaper etc.
4. All the books and texts should be converted to local text and languages. More and more audio and video texts in a local language should be introduced.

D. A good teacher lays the basic foundation of the education system. For this, we need to recruit people who can reflect on the text and can really ignite the curiosity and zeal for learning among students. For this, prime minister's scheme of asking scientists to teach in schools is a very effective scheme. To this pool of engineers, doctors, administrators, and scientists we can add people who appear for UPSC interview but who fail to qualify for the final list of UPSC exam. Every school should compulsorily arrange for at least one or two hours of daily teaching by such people.

E. Another point is related to plagiarism. The model of UP government should be followed in entire India. All the schools and classrooms should be equipped with the CCTV and exam-time recording should be provided under RTI to RTI functionaries. Further plagiarism is one big menace in higher education as well. It has led to a deterioration in the quality of our engineers and arts graduate. Therefore, a medical like all India passing exam should be conducted for engineering students as well.

There are many other things which could be done in this regard but rest all are very general and oft-talked points. The recommendations of T.S.R. Subramaniam committee would have covered other points in detail.

अनुभूति

बा द ल  ह ट  र हे हैं
आ स मा न  दिखाई दे रहा है
दूर  है
अनुशाशन की कमी है
रेगिस्तान में भाग रहा हूँ
धीरे हूँ
पसीना नहीं आ रहा
पागलपन खो रहा है
मेला लगा हुआ है
कुछ ना कुछ छूट रहा है
एक अधूरापन एक खालीपन
में कौन हूँ
क्या चाहता हूँ
इन्ही सवालों की जद्दोजहद में खोया हूँ
मैं एक ही जगह पर खड़ा होकर दौड़ रहा हुँ
यहाँ बिना खुशबू का गुलाब है
यहाँ बिना तेज की अग्नि है
शीतला ता रहित जल है
क्या में लालची हूँ या स्वार्थी या एक मोहरा
में करनेवाला नहीं, ना ही में जाननेवाला हूँ
सब पागलों की भीड़ का एक हिस्सा हूँ
या भीड़ से अलग एक पागल
विचारों के द्वन्द या सवालों के शूल शब्दों के तीर या आखों की धूल
मैं मैं नहीं हूँ
ना में सुखी हूँ ना ही दुखी हूँ
ना शून्य हूँ ना ही अशून्य
ना श्वता हूँ ना रक्त हूँ ना भगवान् हूँ ना ही शैतान हूँ
मैं आत्मा में उठा कोहराम हूँ
में दुनिया में हो रहा संग्राम हूँ
रेगिस्तान का हिरन हूँ जंगल का हठी हूँ
चिड़ियाघर का शेर हूँ या गली का कुत्ता
मैं  गीदड़, चीता और सियार भी हूँ
मैं ही ब्रह्माण्ड हूँ में आत्मा और परमात्मा का निलय हूँ
में इंसांनी सोच का एक हैवान हूँ में धरती पर जन्मा एक प्राण हूँ। 

Last few days

The last few days have been disturbing as I suffered from indiscipline, neuroticism due to excess workload and struggled to finish things in proper manner. Lot of time went in listening to Osho and Sadhguru. Despite their soothing lectures, the reality that life is just drama takes some time to sink in. May be it comes by experience. May be we need to get rid of all our desires to get over this.

The biggest problem was feeling of incompleteness. When you try to do N things at the same time then it usually happens. We make micro-progress on each front and at the end of the day we feel that nothing is done or achieved. Last month was a disaster in this regard. I was simultaneously doing so many things that I failed to make any substantive progress on any of them except three. The only three bright spots in the pursuits were consistency in Gym, submission of research proposal and initiative of cyber security research group.

The problem is rooted in lack of planning, strategy and consistency. Somehow, I have not been able to get some free time for my fun activities and rest. It is not like I had no free time rather it is because of my tendency to take more and more work on my head. Sometimes I wonder how people like Shashi Tharoor and others manage to do so many activities at one time. In last few weeks, I have not even read one full book.

Anyway, the best part of persistent introspection is that you may miss on few things but keep coming back on the track. If your basics are right you may fall occasionally but you can never fail. The key to coming back again and again is to maintain a time table, list your activities, prioritise among them and keep moving. That is what I need to do at the moment.

Teaching

Teaching is one of the most selfless, and thankless job. A teacher ignites the dream, vision, and powers in his students. It requires being forgiving, joyful, and loving to the students. One of the big task for a teacher is to how to change the mindset of students? How to ignite that dream to achieve something? How to make them understand the importance of discipline? How to motivate them to pursue excellence?

The foundation of any teaching process is contingent on the teacher-tort relation. The recent innovations and development in the technology space have changed this relation. Now the offline classroom model is being replaced by the offline classroom model. The one-way information delivery has changed to a two-way exchange of the communication. Now the relation is of a friend rather than of a hierarchy. Classrooms have become more interactive and inquisitive.

People raise the question over the traditional model of brick and mortar universities. The online classrooms and courses have changed the entire landscape. In such scenario, the relevance of universities and classrooms have changed. The course material which teachers teach is also oftentimes available over the internet. Hence, students essentially pay for the culture, peer group and brand of the college rather than classroom content.

The culture of the university is defined by club activities, kind of discussions, quality of peer group and in-class conduct of the people. For example, whether classes are being conducted on time or not, whether college timetable is followed rigorously or not, the culture of copy-paste or plagiarism etc. in totality define the culture of the college. Thus the focus of teachers and college administrators should not be entirely teaching. Rather it should be to build the culture of the college.

Now comes the big question of how to build the culture of a place? Or how to change the culture of a place? Solutions of most of our day to day problems lie in this basic construct. Be it at the level of government or at the level of institution/office or even at home. Cultural reorientation will solve our many problems. For example, 'Chalta Hai' and 'Jugaad' culture of India has become anathema to our social system. Similarly, the culture of corruption has created a wide gulf in India's economic profile of people.

The first step of changing the culture of any organization is to identify the ills and goods. The immediate second step is to develop an alternate style of cultural behavior. For instance, if we wish to change the culture of cleanliness then we develop a cultural behavior of throwing the waste in the dustbin. Similarly, if we wish to change the culture of class punctuality then we develop an alternate behavior of coming to class on time. The third step in this direction is to develop some incentives for the new behavior and set some punishment mechanism for old behavior. However, this requires the change in the status quo which oftentimes result in criticism and resistance. Thus, it requires institutional and individual level leadership skills.

Therefore, today a teacher should not only be a content deliverer or content provider rather he should be a leader, a trend-setter and change-oriented person. In the process, he may face criticism, rebuke or ridicule. But that's what makes the teaching a thankless, faceless or selfless job. It is with this perspective, the students can gain the maximum from the relation of teacher-tort.