Gettin' Leh'ed!

SECMOL - Short Documentary Film - Ladakh, India
In 2012, during our 33-day backpacking trip in the Himalayas, Ladakh(of course) was an eye-opening, mind-altering drug-stop. I say mind-altering because it really was one hell of a trip to yonder-land, or should I say, a different planet altogether. And vacation is a bad word to use here, because if you are taking a trip to the Himalayas, especially Ladakh, it is an adventure that will rattle your bones(literally and figuratively) and your core. It will change the way you look at things, people and what-the-hell - life itself.
And during the stop-over there, we called up our then-new friend, Sonam Wangchuk, the revolutionary extraordinaire and a simple man with a singular vision. We didn't know much about him then, as we were wondering where really we were heading when we took the taxi to Phey, about 18 kms from Leh city. We only knew that he was the founder of SECMOL(Student's Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh) which was founded in 1988 by him and a group of young Ladakhis with the aim to reform the educational system of Ladakh.
It is rumored that Sonam Wangchuk is the real-life Phunsuk Wangdu, the character played by Aamir Khan in the Hindi film, 3 Idiots. But anyways, during our stay there and our interactions with him, his team and the students, we realized that there's a lot than meets the eye. We observed that students identify themselves with their Ladakhi culture, as Ladakhis, and rarely do they associate themselves with the Pan-Indian identity. Like hell that's necessary. But well, let's get to this.

This short profile documentary film was shot in 2012 as a way of bringing to light the result of the efforts of Sonam, who has created waves in educational and cultural reform. We filmed this during our 1 week stay at SECMOL, volunteering for them, teaching Ladakhi students and culturally exchanging ideas and basically having a great time with them.
A couple of changes to the above film:
1. Rebecca should have been labelled Volunteer Advisor/Instructor instead of Co-founder as labelled above.
2. The volunteers for ice-skating are from various countries in the world as opposed to just US or Canada, as mentioned above.
Camera provided by Subheer from Always Outbound.
Created and presented by us, yours truly, the Accessible Horizon Films team.

A thought on rape and Arundhati Roy's take on the issue

It seems that in the after-math of the rape incident and the furor over it, we are slowly starting to see misogynistic patterns emerge in India...as if this is opening up a pandora's box of misogynistic assholes. This is not a one-off incident as many seem to think of it. The rape only opened up a can of worms that is seemingly more and more harder to swallow. Though the incident has thrown light on the under-belly of the issue, it only reminds one of the ghastly truth, that we are surrounded by highly conservative and traditionally patriarchal values that provide the actual reasons for rape...that women who have been conditioned over centuries of servitude are skeptical about confronting their sons and men about how they should be treating women in general. Case in point, 'literate' mothers with sons would rather reprimand other liberal women than try to teach their sons a thing or two about respecting women. That's how deeply rooted this problem is.

The above interview of Arundhati Roy offers an alternative, incisive analysis of the social-class implications of our society. I'm amazed how almost always she comes up with a holistic and bird's-eye-view point of an issue. But my point is, now is the time when we have to fight harder. No actually, now is when the fight has actually begun. And I don't mean it for women...but for our society too, if we want a dare-i-say 'progressive' society.

A world of WHAT IFs!

Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute

Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute is committed to increasing citizen involvement in decisions that affect our region's environment through community organizing and education.
Mission Statement
The mission of the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute (PCEI) is to increase citizen involvement in decisions that affect our region’s environment. Through community organizing and education, PCEI assists members of our communities in making environmentally sound and economically viable decisions that promote a sustainable future.

Primary Goals

• To promote the ecological health and social welfare of the Palouse-Clearwater region.
• To actively participate in the conservation, preservation, and restoration of environmentally sensitive lands, natural areas, and unique ecosystems.
• To provide forums for the free exchange of views in matters of concern to the public.
• To inform and educate the public on issues of importance to the sustainable future of the Palouse-Clearwater region thus promoting a well-informed, active and concerned citizenry.

Watershed Programs
Environmental Education Programs
Community Food Programs
Transportation Options
Alternative Energy
..more..

MIT OpenCourseWare

I recently stumbled upon the following link where MIT offers lots of free courses. When i visited the website i found that they have separate course materials for High School students and teachers. I think this will definitely help students and teachers all over the world and help the students decide and choose a course of their interest.

Also there are so many Audio and Video materials that can be downloaded for free. Lots of schools in the rural areas who are creating their own course materials can also make the best use of these materials. And provide higher standard of Education for free. It is our collective responsibility to provide a better education for our future generation.

Thank you MIT for the opencourseware.

CURRIKI.org

The Global Education & Learning CommunityWe believe that access to knowledge and learning tools is a basic right for every child. Our goal is to make curricula and learning resources available to everyone.The above is a website which has abundant resources for children's education and it is absolutely free and you can also contribute to the curricula if you think it might be useful for our future generations...Some of the features that are available in CURRIKI.org
THE ART OF INVENTION
These resources teach students about artists who invented new tools to explore topics they find interesting.
Decimal Basketball
Getting students actively participating in learning is one teacher's strategy for teaching decimals.
Teaching Satire in High School
A teacher in Minnesota has created a unit on reading and understanding satirical literature.
Teaching Holes in Middle School
One teacher shares her roadmaps and reading logs from the popular novel Holes by Louis Sachar. Fee's collections also include Holes vocabulary activities and materials for other great middle school books.
Unit on Things Fall Apart
This teacher shares her week by week materials to scaffold reading and get students writing about Chinua Achebe's popular novel.

If you think we can add more resources for kids to access...let us do it now!!

WINGS OF EVOLUTION - Screening at CCNY

After ages, I had an opportunity to step into a college and that too in a place where the culture, environment and people very different from what I was exposed to, almost a decade ago. Recollecting those old days of my college I went searching for the class room in the City college or New York, NYC, where our documentary film Wings of Evolution by Accessible Horizon Films was screened for the students pursuing their studies in Urban education in the U.S.

The response was very good as there were a lot of students who raised a lot a questions. Although addressing a group of people was very much new for me, handling the questions seemed to be easy because I had to explain what I did, unlike struggling to answer for curriculum based educational system.

One of the question that interested very much was "Would you make sequel for the documentary after 4 or 5 years?" I look forward to revisiting the school after few years and know how the students and the school evolved in the mean time.

Our special thanks to Carol for screening the documentary.

Related Topics

1. Documentary Film - Wings of Evolution
2. World Wide Postcard Sharing - Connecting the kids together all over the world
3. Siragu Montessori School - A School for underprivileged and homeless children in chennai

What will happen to the Earth??

I found this in the comic strip of a newspaper years back and have saved it to remind myself of the state of our Earth and what man is doing to Nature....and this is depressing, not funny!! It hides such a horrible truth within...of how mankind is exploiting Mother Earth...and her inexhaustible beauty...!

Language...and its effects! SDaS

John Taylor Gatto on System of Education!

I asked this question in Yahoo...

Why does the current system of Education in our world alienate theory & practice, confuse & burden the child?

Children of today's world are burdened with heavy syllabus and they have no concept-based learning. What they learn in school for 17 years and college for 4 years has no connection with what they experience in the real world of work. Moreover, they are always made to understand that education has to be related to the amount of money they earn in the current world. The result is that children lose their interest to go to school and the actual learning process and mostly are exam driven and they have to force themselves to go to school simply because they have to survive the current system. Many children drop out of schools and some of them are so stressed out that they cannot handle any issue without being scared. Education on the other hand has to be fun for the children and not intimidate them and push them to the edge.

...and I got an answer from Limbonia asking me to read books written by John Taylor Gatto...

Please read the following pages to get an idea about what Gatto's work is like...
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history4.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history5.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history6.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history7.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history8.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history9.htm

DISTRESS SEASONAL MIGRATION - 2 - Locked Homes Empty Schools

Am trying to put the whole process in simple sketches...more to come.
Courtesy: LOCKED HOMES, EMPTY SCHOOLS. Smita, Prashant Panjiar,AIF

GI - MUN - DO (Ji - MUN- doe)

...is a place of inspiration, hope and goodness; a better world!
Came across this website and the positivity they want to spread...
Check them out at
http://www.gimundo.com/
And also if you want to turn yourself GREEN in every possible way...try this website...
http://www.treehugger.com/gogreen.php
Take care and enjoy the Summer!!! It is Green,Green everywhere!!

Here Vs There (3)

Here's the third installment of the "Here Vs There" series . To read the other entries in the series, refer to the link HERE.

"Observe around you and be thankful for all that you have in this transitory lifetime…
We are fortunate, we have much more than what we need to be content. Let’s try not to feed this endless cycle of consumerism and immorality in which this “modern and advanced” society forgets and ignores the other two thirds of our brothers and sisters.
Let us complain less and give more."

Here Vs. There (2)

Here's the second installment of "Here Vs There" . To read the first of the series, refer to the link HERE."Observe around you and be thankful for all that you have in this transitory lifetime…
We are fortunate, we have much more than what we need to be content. Let’s try not to feed this endless cycle of consumerism and immorality in which this “modern and advanced” society forgets and ignores the other two thirds of our brothers and sisters.
Let us complain less and give more."

Here Vs. There

This is the first installment of a slice of life comparison between Here Vs. There. By 'Here' I mean the developed countries that we comfortably sit in, often complain about and take for granted. By 'There' I obviously mean the so-called Third world(I hate that term) countries, so we shall refer to them as developing /under-developed countries. These images are meant to jolt us into action...at least ring a bell deep inside us to appreciate the little things we have in life.
This was actually an email forward that I received. Also see the afterword below the picture.

"Observe around you and be thankful for all that you have in this transitory lifetime…
We are fortunate, we have much more than what we need to be content. Let’s try not to feed this endless cycle of consumerism and immorality in which this “modern and advanced” society forgets and ignores the other two thirds of our brothers and sisters.
Let us complain and give more."

Wings Of Evolution meets Asim H. Premji

Ok, so we thought we had only a few proponents of quality education in India - education towards building a better tomorrow, education that lets children decide what they want to study, education that truly focuses on the learning process. Guess what? The (above) theme of our documentary film Wings of Evolution is exactly the same as what Asim H. Premji, Chairman of Wipro Technologies, thinks that education should do.
Wings of Evolution, based on Siragu School in the outskirts of Chennai, focuses on Education that makes children an integral part of creating the learning process, themselves. Children have playtime and study time mixed up in the right combination that children never feel the pressure or the need to compulsively allocate study time. This has helped them to focus on areas of learning that they truly feel attracted to. This has enhanced the quality of learning such that there has not been a single dropout during the 3-4 years of their school's inception.
Best of all, all this quality comes FREE. Free education combined with quality and international standards can only result in India looking forward to a better future.
Asim Premji in his column The Weight Of Wings on Outlook India magazine, talks about revamping the entire system of education in India. Of course, this is an issue that needs to be addressed not only by the independent NGOs or social organizations or Trusts, but also(obviously) by the Government of India, through policy makers who have to play an instrumental role in seeing this change happen.
Key quote from his article:

In India now, there is a growing realization of the need for change. We have begun to realize that our children don't seem to learn how to learn; numerous studies have proven this. We have made the transition from concern for just basic literacy to quality education. We need to progress from a compulsion to mass-produce stereotypes to creating independent thinkers and active learners.

For more, check out The Weight Of Wings, We need a revamp -- to create free thinkers, not compulsive learners

Freedom Writers: Remove Racism through Education

Last night we were watching this 'film for change' - Freedom Writers, which is based on a true story. This is a movie that was not only well-made but also has been timed so right, because of the current situation the world is in right now.
Essentially, it's about a committed teacher with a noble cause who eliminates the visible and invisible racial borders between the students of her class, by educating them and liberating them from their prejudices. There's another kind of liberation at work here, liberation of the creative unconscious, that is, she makes the students write out their stories, their own true stories onto a diary which serves as the way to freedom, the way out of racism, the way out of the inexplicable hatred that they find themselves in. She finds innovative ways to teach the students about the irrelevance of hatred by enlightening them about the Holocaust and does all this at the cost of her own personal loss.
Primarily, a must-see movie for everyone, but otherwise, a excellent study tool for children especially teenagers all around the world. Although overt racism is now supposedly 'outdated', that is, we have legal regulations and the like, it is still very prevalent in more subtler overtones but nevertheless, filled with the bitterness that every form of discrimination engenders. Sometimes, we feel it in the air like a slow poison entering every cell of our body. I can't even begin to get into the heart of the topic, but the point here is, as we are maturing philosophically, we need to try and take that extra step towards eliminating racism. If we don't know how, education through this movie would be a step in the right direction.
For more information about the real-life teacher on whom the movie was made, check out Erin Gruwell at www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/

Wings Of Evolution - World Wide Postcard Sharing

This is a clip from our New Documentary film "Wings of Evolution" on a school for homeless children in India. This clip shows the Postcard painting workshop where children on one part of the globe draw/paint postcards for children in other parts of the globe, thereby promoting peace, diversity and understanding in the long term.