May 07, 2024

Bringing the child’s culture into the curriculum

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

In this quote, Sri Aurobindo enlightens us that education doesn't end when we complete our studies at an educational institute. Rather, it begins after that ...
SAVITRI Book 2 (The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds) Canto 2 (The World-Stair) Find text at: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/33/the-world-stair.

Do higher fees in schools mean BETTER quality education?

Let’s look at this alternative school in Auroville that shows us how this is ABSOLUTELY not true! 

Note: if you want to volunteer in Auroville, read till the end.

I visited this school in the beginning of this month and made a documentary about it! 

Watch it here:

How did they start this school?

This school started in the late 90s as a music school for dropouts as a way to give them a space to express themselves. 

“Isai” = music 

“Ambalam”= public space

But after the impact of the mid-day meals in schools and increased retention, the dropouts began to reduce. 

Gradually the music school turned into a research school for rural children around Auroville!

What philosophy do they follow here? 

They follow something called “INTEGRAL EDUCATION”, integrating the mind, body and vital. 

They try to give as much importance as possible to each of these aspects. 

Examples for each aspect

1. Mind: academics, research, extra curricular activities.

2. Body: judo, Kurash, silambam, swimming.

3. Vital: meditation, working with nature, collaboration (team work in classes), plays, art.

They do not have exams till 8th standard. For boards they follow NIOS.

What makes this school different?

Here are the top 5 unique things:

1. Making learning visual

2. STEM

3. Cultural integration 

4. Equal importance to sports

5. No fees

1. Making learning visual

They want children to be able to express and see their own thoughts as well as others to see how everyone thinks. For this to be effective, they have created blackboards on walls and created circular seating arrangements!

2. STEM

They have a STEM land in school where children start with Scratch and then move higher up from there to more complex coding concepts! 

They also learn how to work with circuits, basic electronics, games around problem solving and they also conduct science experiments!

3. Cultural integration

The school focuses a lot on bringing the child’s culture into the curriculum so that they feel confident and empowered about their environment. 

e.g they write and perform plays inspired by local stories, play local games and read local stories.

4. Equal importance to sports

Each teacher gives equal importance to sports as they believe that it contributes to the child’s well-being. 

For example, if the teacher has not completed a portion from the syllabus, they will not compensate that with a sports period.

5. No fees

Until recently there were absolutely no fees as the parents could not afford to pay anything. But since the last 2 years, parents have decided amongst themselves to pay 1-2k per month. 

Whatever else is needed for the school is done through fundraisers!

In this way, regardless of their financial backgrounds, all children get access to this holistic education.

Volunteering opportunity:

This school is very open to volunteers coming in and teaching different subjects so do reach out to them via mail if interested. 

You can figure out your accommodation and food through your conversation with them!

If you liked this thread, RT the 1st tweet! 

Follow for more such threads on education and alternative practices!

https://twitter.com/SamrajSanjana/status/1783848778769789244?t=6PupMzKVjL895dTsA3w9ow&s=19

May 01, 2024

Ananda Reddy, Sraddhalu, and Beloo Mehra

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Evenings with Sraddhalu - Part 106 - Three Modes of Nature. 1 view · 7 minutes ago ...more. The Mother & Sri Aurobindo : E-library. 10.1K.
... 165 views · 20:08 · Go to channel. SRI AUROBINDO - GLIMPSES OF HIS LIFE | TELUGU | Film on Sri Aurobindo's Life. Sri Aurobindo Society
... Sri Aurobindo's Major Works Series: Auro Talks Speaker: Dr. V Ananda Reddy *** An offering to Sri Aurobindo on his 150th Birth Anniversary by Sri

The Vindication of the World: Essays Engaging with Stephen Phillips

M Keating, MR Dasti - 2024
Stephen Phillips has devoted his career to excavating some of the most valuable gems of Indian philosophy and bringing them into conversation with contemporary thought. This volume honors him and follows his lead by continuing his lifelong …

Neil Dalal

A Vedānta - The Vindication of the World: Essays Engaging with …, 2024
One of Stephen Phillips's greatest accomplishments was patiently guiding my unpolished philosophical thinking into a successful dissertation. I was fortunate to have his stellar supervision, for which I am grateful, and I fondly remember our many …

Transformative advertising: well-being Instagram messaging

S Dodds, N Palakshappa, S Bulmer, S Harper - Journal of Consumer Marketing, 2024
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine well-being messaging on Instagram to understand what constitutes transformative social media advertising with potential to enhance consumer lives and create change at a community and societal level. …

[PDF] CHANGING LIFESTYLE AND CHALLENGES IN MEDICAL SCIENCES

P Sawarkar, G Sawarkar - APPLYING LIFE SCIENCE
… diseases, which have an integral role in weakening the body's immune system. The current … safe options in Alternative sciences like Ayurveda, Yoga, etc. for the same where … the pioneer of ancient healing sciences such as Ayurveda & Yoga, society is still …

[HTML] Unleashing the Innovative Mind to Unlock Organizational Success

M Prabhu
… The center operates with the Vedic ideals of integral humanism to promote universal global welfare. It offers courses, consulting, counseling, and strategies to individuals and institutions to provide simple, practical, and effective solutions to …

[PDF] VASUDHAIVA KUTUMBAKAM AND INDIA'S SOFT POWER: A STUDY OF INDIA'S CULTURAL DIPLOMACY

PS Hirani, S Anam, MP Maru
… that approximately 30 million Americans practice yoga, which is a system of body and mind practices that originated in ancient India. … While Sanskrit dominated India's cultural landscape for a considerable period, other languages and religions …

[HTML] Yasmin Gunaratnam: Dragging the University

Y GUNARATNAM
… “Twenty years ago I had an intro to cultural studies class right after a yoga class I was taking. I always fell asleep during the final relaxation, … There is no getting away from writing as a commodity, integral to university supply-chains, used to …

[PDF] Managing Work-Life Balance: Tips for Business Leaders

SMSZA Bhutto - Journal of Accounting & Business Archive Review, 2024
This article explores the critical importance of work-life balance for business leaders in today's dynamic and demanding corporate landscape. It highlights the various challenges faced by leaders in achieving this balance and provides practical tips …

[PDF] THE ORGANIZATION OF IDEOLOGICAL, DISCOURSE IN

A Prasad
… population by pursuing its longstanding ideology of Hindutva. Using the most generous of terms, Hindutva is a political ideology for the BJP … Many of the BIP's efforts to advance Hindutva culminated in 2016, when the Lok Sabha–the country's …

Exploring the Interlinkages Between Contemporary Hindu Nationalism, Women, and Social Media

S Srivastava
… on the ever-popular rhetoric around inter-faith marriages, or “love jihad,” this paper seeks to highlight the distinctly polarized responses of the “Internet Hindus” to these issues, to bring to the surface the contradictions implicit within the seemingly “progressive,” …

[HTML] The Impact of Religious Nationalism on Right-Wing Populism

K Subramanian
… This feeds into the Hindutva narrative about India being a Hindu nation and that Islam is a group bent on destroying the nation. … is that the Supreme Court of India has seemingly moved past the secular foundation of India to favor Hindu interests …

Networks and Influencers in Online Propaganda Events: A Comparative Study of Three Cases in India

A Sen, S De, J Pal - Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer …, 2024
The structure and mechanics of organized outreach around certain issues, such as in propaganda networks, is constantly evolving on social media. We collect tweets on two propaganda events and one non-propaganda event with varying degrees of …

[PDF] ETHNIC DEMOCRACY AND INSTITUTIONAL MARGINALISATION OF MUSLIMS IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA

AM Khan - New Horizons in
To assess the absence of Muslims in contemporary India, in some of the most important institutions over the period is alarming. This has been a well-established fact; Muslims were never well represented in the state apparatus of India. But under …

[PDF] The Rebuilding of Ram Temple: New Wave of Hindu Ethnonationalism

RK Yadav
This proposed research would be on the new wave of Hindu ethnonationalism after the rebuilding of the Sri Ram Temple at Ayodhya. It sees the win of Hinduism after 300 years of legal battle. The survey reports of the'Archaeological Survey of India (ASI)'and …

[PDF] VIEWING INDIAN POLITY FROM THE PRISM OF MANIPUR

S Hameed, C D'Rozario - 2024
… There are stark similarities between the militias’ tactics and Hindutva outfits that are blamed for Ram Navami procession violence in … The clear cut agenda of bringing about a communal divide along religious lines by the right wing Hindutva …

The Aryan Invasion Theory is a key player in the Breaking India agenda because it “proves” that India is a multiracial country, which makes it easy to apply the same principles as the U.S, where race has been a key factor in perpetuating inequality and discrimination

https://twitter.com/InfinityMessage/status/1785555211022704893?t=kQ1KjVj3KW6mKohjCLSuig&s=19

It says a lot about India’s ramshackle opposition parties that the most effective BJP critic today is a 29-year-old YouTuber who got his start 10 years ago with a video of a water park in Germany.

https://twitter.com/dhume/status/1785004725647143185?t=mrTTb3sR62USq1LZoIcuoA&s=19

Xi knows that China is not rich enough yet to follow a consumption led model like the US. In the annals of economic history, only India has been foolish enough to believe in a consumption led model with a $2k/capita GDP.

https://twitter.com/DivaJain2/status/1785489470256484539?t=C7ToYfDspUNec_JARUemMw&s=19

Colonial Discourse and Suffering of Indian American Children 

This is an important book co-authored by Kundan Singh and Krishna Maheswari ji, just released by Springer with an open access. Anyone can download the book free of cost.

https://twitter.com/Sampadananda/status/1785485660390142344?t=2oin974xCT8jS5lVoLN__A&s=19

The Supreme Court has stayed the Madras High Court order of 15th March quashing the order constituting Auroville Town Development Council issued under its Governing Board and posted the case for hearing in the week beginning 8th July 2024 #Auroville

unitedtrueindia.blogspot.com/2024/05/suprem

https://twitter.com/trueseek/status/1785531267532062956?t=ZHNzwdQuv63NM5eszndmug&s=19

Modesty is not the underestimation of oneself but a psychological heuristic to avoid the excesses of vanity and the abyss of nihilism. It stems from a recognition that much of our life is contingent on the contributions of others & circumstances beyond us. I think. 

https://twitter.com/KS1729/status/1785554154288509417?t=y9eLPpYo30JKUGRm0qNY7Q&s=19

In this unique conversation between four people with deep interest in Hinduism, historian and author Hindol Sengupta speaks to the popular podcaster and author Kushal Mehra, lawyer Nikhil Mehra who practices at the Supreme Court of India, and Harsh Madhusudan Gupta, investor and author on the idea of Nastik and Astik or theist and atheist (translated loosely in Hinduism) triggered by Kushal Mehra’s new book called Nastik. But this translation is far from adequate both in text and in the experience of a world torn apart by faith-related strife. In a free-wheeling and free-spirited conversation which is sometimes funny, and yet deeply personal and profound, the four delve into a unique subject like never before.

Watch the full video - youtu.be/bNMLXwJb6R8

@HindolSengupta @harshmadhusudan @TweetinderKaul @kushal_mehra

#Atheism #Nastik #Aastik #faith #religion #Hinduism

https://twitter.com/grin_news/status/1785290855755960779?t=-WLIMx9OZhA5oYqLnZgyeg&s=19

The May issue—Hindutva’s consolidation of a varna autocracy is destroying the republic; Why the Biren Singh government gives a free hand to Arambai Tenggol; The Adityanath government’s persecution of Christians; The limits of Nitish Kumar’s social coalition; and more.

caravanmagazine.in/magazine

https://twitter.com/thecaravanindia/status/1785522020664439041?t=-QLvqbAOH_j2q3hLR7dQhw&s=19