Must-read books on education system and its hidden agendas

In case you're interested in finding out more about the present-day mainstream education system...

  

If you're new to this topic, you can start with Dumbing us Down. I'll recommend all parents of school-going children to read this, skip to the first chapter if you have less time. (the link is a google books preview and the main chapter can be read there)

Next, for data and references to back up the theories, Weapons of Mass Instruction is best (it's also his latest book so most updated)

You can buy the books here:
Dumbing us Down, Rs.156 on Infibeam
Weapons of Mass Instruction, Rs.195 on Infibeam


Some background: The present-day schooling system, with age segregation, subjects division, periods, top-down control, compulsory seating, divide-and-rule, standardized curriculum, grading human beings by irrelevant marks, etc was first set up in Germany, with the intent to create a more obedient and efficient population. Adolph Hitler passed a law banning homeschooling or unschooling in Germany before WW2, and that ban remains in place to this day.

Many scholars and authors over the past century have credited this system to having created the environment that made the First and Second World War possible -- little to no domestic opposition, loss of independent and critical thinking among citizenry, high obedience to authority, and loss of community responsibility among others.

It has also been credited with, in partnership with TV, for creating a consumerist culture and hogging up precious time that an individual could otherwise have used to ponder upon the deeper aspects of life.


Lastly, with the industry rigged to favour these arbitrary qualifications instead of actual competence, there was practically no free choice left for people who even knew that they were better off on their own.

As a result we today have a world where, from doctors to tax collectors to the upper levels of major companies, critical decision-making powers are vested mostly in the hands of persons who were able to best crack certain exams and courses, but who might not be so well-placed for the job in real terms (added of course the enormous egos and disconnect from the people they are supposed to serve); whereas the people who could have really made a significant contribution, are locked out due to being under-qualified just because they listened to their innate instincts a little more in childhood/youth and didn't score as well as they were ordered to.

Does that ring a bell? Then do read! Pls email me on nikhil.js [at] gmail.com if you want to know how o get digital copies of the books.


OK, so is there a better way to raise our kids? I don't want to keep them locked up in home all the time.

If you want to see the potential of a REAL education and what a true school ought to look like, I highly recommend you check out Free at Last - the Sudbury Valley school.

No age segregation, no compulsory curriculum, no fractured time division, no treating children as dumb, no grading or discrimination between students. The link above leads to a google books preview and most of the book is available for reading. You can also buy it at:

Free At Last the Sudbury Valley School, Rs.234 on Infibeam

Here's an excerpt: And-Rithmetic-by-Daniel-Greenberg which shows that it's possible for a kid to learn all basic math, from 1+1 to square roots in 20 hours (1 hour per week), not six years as assumed in mainstream schooling.

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Update: Got a freely distributed ebook by Sudbury Valley School, 58 pages, that includes all the most important and awesome details! Highly recommend this to anyone who's got an interest in exploring how children ACTUALLY learn.

The Sudbury Valley School
----------------------
More Addendum:
The paragraph below (excerpt from Free at Last) is dedicated to all the amazing, brilliant and incredibly hard-working Teach for India Fellows, along with the message : You've all been barking up the wrong tree.

 Not long ago, in 1968, Sudbury Valley School decided to take a fresh look at reading. Children were left alone and never forced to learn how to read. The result was stunning. During the years that have elapsed since the school was founded, all the children learned how to read, but at widely different ages. Some learned at 4, others at 6, others at 8 or 9 or even later. By the time they were teenagers, you couldn't tell the difference between early readers and late readers. No one hated reading, all did it quite well, and there have been no observed functional disorders at all.

-- from http://mountainlaurelsudbury.org/reading.asp

moving on to Swaraj

Something about Swaraj I wrote on FB recently in reply to a friend's
very good queries.
Maybe this might tell you a few in-depth things about what I'm up to nowadays.

ya, it's vague. Actually if you look at Swaraj from a professional
angle, a lot of things are unclear. But that's the point : In a world
where there are no real guarantees, is it smart to judge anything by
the guarantees it gives? What did TFI promise, showcase, and what did
it turn out to be? And btw, a line from John Gatto : I've found that
good teachers are more dangerous than bad teachers.

Finance: Rs.45,000 a year. Through the year, when we're not at the
campus, our transport and food expenses are re-imbursed, but with
limits.
Internships - payment or non-payment depends on our mutual
arrangements. Since we're so much into gift culture, even this part is
usually addressed like that. Usually we eat and sleep at the same
places, so food and lodging is taken care of.

For the most part, in Swaraj we're looking for ways to enrich our
heart and soul rather than our pockets. In the outgoing batch, the one
common current I found was that they had moved on from living in fear
of this or that. On the way, needs for expensive lifestyles vanished,
they got simpler, and needs for survival worked themselves out
organically. So yeah, it's way more spiritual than professional. And
no weekly DEADLINES, thank God!

To answer your questions, first of all, there's no THEY. There's no
real upper authority or system or staff that plans this and decides
that. We decide the whole plan of what we want to do during our meets
(a month long) on the first day by sitting together and coming to a
consensus. And if something comes up we sit together and discuss
again. Recall what we heard at Manav Sadhana? Pretty much the same
thing. At most there's about 5~6 ppl who have had lots of experience
in these sectors over the course of their lives and who share them
liberally.

"Partner organisations" mostly translates to lots of phone numbers,
email addresses, facebook friends and websites gathered and which keep
getting added to. (Btw that was the deal in TFI too) The way Swaraj
helps is by being a resource of contacts and credibility - it's still
easier to visit ppl as part of a group than going it alone. And then
everyone shares whatever they found so one person can benefit from 20
ppl's experiences.

I've found the sessions, dialogues, support VERY good... am generally
feeling quite happier and sturdier than I was in TFI. Most importantly
we get time and space to really get to know ourselves and shed the
outer masks and address our inner feelings. There's no fear of being
ostracized and no "directives" from the top. There's way more humour.
There's no compulsion to always be 'in' with the crowd. Of course,
there have been issues in interactions with others, and I'm glad they
came up rather than being suppressed because they helped me.

There's no Mandatory. Even in TFI, there's actually no mandatory, you
just don't get the paycheck and the certificate. There's no paycheck
nor certificate in Swaraj, so there. (Btw, I've decided NOT to take
any experience letter from TFI)

The campus tech is basic (Well, it's an ashram, not a campus). There
is minimal internet connectivity, you share it with the group so that
limits the time. It actually helped me a lot in de-addicting from
techy life. There's a lot of focus on healthy living.

There is a LOT of interest in rural life, organic and natural farming.
We've talked, visited people doing it, some of us are trying it now.
Living at the ashram the last 1.5 months was lovely. We take part in
the day-to-day activities. I ploughed, dug, weeded, mixed cowdung and
mud with my legs and hands, and helped out in the kitchen every few
days, with cooking and cleaning.

All our illusions about the importance of schooling get wiped out when
we meet kids and adults who've consciously never been to school, and
when we really spend time with people in the village.

Lastly, no more assessments, no more tracking, no more controlling
other human beings, no more being controlled by other human beings.
Thank God I walked out (of TFI) when the time came.

Maa Baap ka Ehsaan

Warning: If this article seems offensive, please be assured that it only means that it is having the intended effect on the people it intended to have an effect on.


We come across a lot of stories and advice on the immeasurable, un-repayable debt we owe to our parents.
A favorite is the story of the giving tree. The brat comes along and takes the fruits, branches and finally chops the whole trunk off and the whole time our dear tree is supposedly just happily giving of itself for the sake of the brat. The author of that bogus tear-jerker ought to get sued for taking undue advantage of the fact that trees can't talk. Just because they can't talk, it's suddenly o.k. to imagine that they're oh-so-giving-and-sacrificial. My Ass.
Anyways, this story then gets magically metamorphosed into telling us that our parents are just like the tree. (actually, wouldn't it be so awesome if they couldn't yell or move around...). Forget about the lessons in sustainability that they didn't teach their kid. (Like, plant 10 more trees for every one you chop, you blathering idiot)

I'd like to punch a few holes into this "we-are-indebted" philosophy.
Now, it would seem rude to directly point fingers at my parents and state that they haven't done any ehsaan (aka favors) on me. So let me take it a generation forward.
Suppose that I have a baby and I am raising it as its parent.
During the whole time that I'm caring for her, feeding her, loving her, nurturing her... for even one single second am I going to think that I am doing some major Ehsaan on the baby?
Suppose that she's adopted.
Even then, should I be thinking for even one second that I'm doing the baby an enormous, unpayable, immeasurable favor?

Pedal powered devices by Hiren Jayesh, Gujrat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad India

Where: Alternative Energy Department, Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad

Who: Hiren Jayesh (one person) , Contact: http://www.facebook.com/hirenjayesh

When: Swaraj K3 batch’s Ahmedabad Learning Journey, August 22, 2012

1. Hand operated Blender / mixie

A hand operated drill attached; there are about 4~5 gear connections including one horizontal-to-vertical axis conversion. Results in very high number of rotations of the final blender end upon slow rotation of the handle.

Advantage vis-a-vis cycle-operated device: This is smaller, can fit easily inside a kitchen, close to where the cooking is happening. Doesn’t need legs, so more suitable for kids, senior citizens and people in sarees/lungis.

2. Pedal powered washing machine

A circular metal cage with holes is fitted inside a standard metal grain-storage box.

Advantage vis-a-vis another simpler model where a drum is directly attached to the shaft:

This takes care of the issue of leakage of water. The clothes and detergent are put inside the drum via a hinged hatch on the curved side (hence loading/unloading clothes is also easier than the model we have). The whole box is filled with water upto half the drum’s height. Thanks to the several holes, water enters the drum too. And then the drum is spun, making the clothes slosh in and out of the water. The only watch-out places for leakage of water are two small circular holes made on 2 sides of the box for fitting the shaft. And those spots are non-moving.

Since the drum is smaller, and not holding the bullk of the water, there is comparatively lesser inertia during rotation, making it easier for the user to halt and reverse direction.

3. Pedal powered car battery charger

A rubber belt tied around the bicycle wheel’s rim drives the dynamo. A normal cycling speed input generates 1100RPM at the dynamo end. Hiren has tested that an average user can run this for about 15 minutes before needing a break.

The dynamo generates DC (direct current) electric power. This is connected to a small voltage regulator that stabilizes the voltage at 14 volts. If the cycle speed (and hence output voltage) drops below a certain limit, the power supplied to the battery is automatically cut off by the regulator. If the cycle speed is excessive (due to an over-enthusiastic cyclist), then too the regulator limits the voltage to the battery at 14V (or something like that). This is done to prevent damage to the battery.

To use this stored energy, a separate DC circuit is connected to the car battery (when not charging) that would have some voltage-varying mechanism to supply power to any DC electronic devices like LEDs, mobile and laptop chargers. Simplest being a potentiometer, could use a chopper circuit to supply higher than 12V, or can connect two car batteries in series to make a 24V source. (We did not see/explore this part in our visit).

Note: It is not practical to invert this to 230V AC power (too much energy is wasted in storage then inversion to AC and then stepping up). Better in the longer run to re-design the devices we use to work around low voltage DC.

Specifications:

Dynamo : A permanent magnet DC motor/generator manufactured by Pranshu motors,


14 volt, 1100 RPM (revolutions per minute), 3.7 Ah (Ampere hour)

Manufacturer: Pranshu servo motors, http://www.pranshu.com/htm/contact.htm





Battery : 26 Ah (Ampere-hour), 12v standard car battery (Amaron)

Poem: Swaraj Milan 2012 invite

आयें हम सब अलग जहां से

दिल में अनेक ख्वाइशें लिए

कुछ नया करने की चाह से

खुद को और जानने के लिए

Aayein hum sab alag jahaan se

Dil mein anek khwaishein liye

Kuch naya karne ki chaah se

Khud ko aur jaanne ke liye

स्व -जीवन और सह -जीवन

इन दोनों को एक साथ लाया

तपोवन की खुली वादियों में

जीने का नया नजरिया पाया

Swa-jeevan aur sah-jeevan

In dono ko ek saath laaya

Tapovan ki khuli vaadiyon mein

Jeene ka naya nazariya paaya

एक दूसरे का साथ देते

किये कितने नये खोज

नए उठे सवालों पर

किये कितने नए प्रयोग

Ek doosre ka saath dete

Kiye kitne naye khoj

Naye uthe sawaalon par

Kiye kitne naye prayog

 





चलो एक बार फिर एक हो जाते हैं

वहीँ जहां हमने की थी शुरुवात

पुराने और नए यार सब मिलके

आगे बधातें हैं बात !

Chalo ek baar phir ek ho jaate hain

Wahin jahaan humne ki the shuruwaat

Puraane aur naye yaar sab milke

Aagey badhaate hain baat

बहुत सारा SHARING, बहुत सारा FUN

शुरू करते हैं खोजियों का...

मिलन !

Bahut sara sharing, bahut sara fun

Shuru karte hain khojiyon ka...

MILAN!

This is a poem I wrote in an invitation to all the batches of Swaraj University (me being in the 3rd batch) for a one-week get-together that we've named "Milan" which means "get-together". Not related to the football club ;)
Learn more about Swaraj over here.

Koondankulum and the power junkies

Ain't it weird how of all the people ostensibly voicing support for Koondankulam's nuke power plant, no one actually lives there nor are they willing to have their own families located anywhere near a nuclear plant; and most of the people on the ground risking their lives (one just got killed btw), continuously campaigning since months against it, standing up despite repeated intimidation by the e
ntire police force, happen to actually LIVE over there, have families settled there since generations?

Ain't it weird how with over 1 million people located in the immediate impact zone of the plant in case of any sudden or slow disaster, with absolutely no sound evacuation plan in place -- a situation that goes against all international nuclear safety regulations and which would never be permitted by any other country on Earth, it's being vouched that there can NEVER EVER EVER be any slightest possibility of anything going wrong? (Didn't we last hear something like that being said and proved wrong before, and aren't we supposed to be one of the most terrorism-hit countries in the world?) Ain't it weird how none of the people who stand to make big bucks from the plant are willing to live anywhere near it?

Ain't it weird how all this hulabaloo is being done for the sake of generating 9.2GW of power (with a permanent, recurring high import and high maintenance bill that will exceed the full cost of any renewable alternative in a 50-yr calculation exercise), when India's projected electric demand will cross 300GW in under 10 yrs time? So something that's only going to chip in 3% of the country's total power needs, which won't even satisfy its own state's power needs, is suddenly so critical for the "progress of India" that it's ok to put all concerns aside?

When did Indians become a bunch of short-sighted, impatient little power-junkies? Sigh.

Story: The Peacemonger's advice

A short story (ie, short compared to novels!)

Once upon a time, a person once was witness to a crime. Let it be any crime... theft, murder, rape, beating, harassment, fraud, cheating, usurping... whatever. The main thing was, there was an aggressor who committed the crime within full control of his actions and fully knowing what he was doing, and the crime was planned in advance. And there was a victim and she was put through severe trouble and faced a bleak future as a direct result of this crime.

The aggressor, upon being confronted over the incident by the witness, showed neither any viable defense for his actions, nor any hint of remorse, nor any willingness to reconsider his actions. Instead, the aggressor then started to make moves to cover up the crime, including making attempts to land the witness, who'd had nothing to do with the whole thing except to witness it, into trouble. It did not help that the aggressor happened to be the witness's and the victim's boss and used his position to have things his way.

So the witness naturally had his task cut out. The only way to undo that trouble caused to the victim was by exposing the crime and the aggressor's actions to all. This was unfortunate, but the aggressor had put himself clearly in a position that would have to be overturned if there was to be any hope for the victim.

But then the witness was advised by a beloved friend.

This friend told our witness that every time he points a finger at someone, there are 3 fingers pointing back at him.
By some twist of logic, that was supposed to mean that if the witness points out the criminal, the witness himself magically becomes 3 times more guilty that the actual criminal. ( I know, LOL )

He said that this wasn't the witness's fight, so by even trying to help someone he must be committing some grave crime. (Must be!)

The friend told him that by exposing the crime, the aggressor isn't going to change his ways so what is the point, it will only increase the net negativity and spoil relations for a long time to come.

The friend extolled the noblest and most peaceful thinkers of our times, quoted them to justify not taking any action. (whilst conveniently ignoring all their activist sides)

The witness found it hard to put through to his friend that his objective did not even concern the aggressor. The victim's distress and the need for putting an end to that misery was far more important. Everything else... including the aggressor's feelings or his perspective or his relations with anyone -- were irrelevant. The act was done, the evidence was there, plenty of investigation had been done already. There was no room left for speculation of whether the crime had been committed or not - it had.

When he told this to the friend, the friend immediately said that he "does not know" whether the crime actually took place or not (despite all the evidence staring him in the face). And so the friend could not take any position on whether or not the aggressor was guilty, Apparently since his body wasn't glued to the aggressor's during each and every second of the crime and since he wasn't in the room (aka, he wasn't a DIRECT eyewitness), he could not even consider the faintest possibility that the aggressor may be in the wrong. He grandiosely gestured that the aggressor be given "the benefit of the doubt".

AT THE SAME TIME, this friend never bothered to apply this benefit-of-the-doubt theory to the one suffering as a result of all of this, the victim. As far as this friend's perspective went, the victim might as well have never even existed on this planet. Taking the same yardstick of neutrality that he had used for the aggressor, he could have at least pitched in some of his energy to help remove the suffering of the victim, to undo the adverse action that had been done upon her. The same way this friend refused to accept the aggressor as guilty, he indirectly refused the accept that the victim was innocent and something unjust had been done to her. Instead of practising benefit of doubt, he practised curse-of-doubt upon her. Just because HE was not in the same place or glued to the victim's body when the act took place. There were times when he even mentioned that he "did not know if that was true and so cannot comment on this", even when the witness as talking in the victim's defense -- hence directly casting aspersions on the characters of both the victim, and his friend the witness!

In addition to this, the friend exhibited a total lack of big picure or long term thinking. If it indeed turned out that the aggressor did do wrong, was there any merit in giving him a free hand, in the name of non-violence, non-intervention etc etc? Wouldn't that make him more aggressive and hurt others too? Wouldn't inaction at this point increase the net suffering and negativity for everyone in the long run?

The witness saw through this double standard. When he tried to persuade his friend to abandon the double standards and at least give the facts on the ground, the physical evidence some credit, the friend told him he was being too aggressive / biased, taking sides, that he was getting too negative, too aggressive, going into a downward spiral, etc etc etc.

And all this time what our friend the adviser was ACTUALLY doing, in the name of the noblest ideals around, was finding an excuse to not act, to not stand up against an obvious wrong, to not do the right thing. It was also politically convenient, seeing that the aggressor happened to be the authority. He also wanted to prevent others as well (particularly the witness) from doing it, for if that happened, wouldn't he have been exposed for what HE truly was - a coward, a charlatan? In the process, without fully comprehending it, he ended up giving blind, unconditional support to the aggressor and became a party to the crime wreaked upon the victim.


Luckily, the witness had other more sensible friends and a stronger internal compass. And he learned, the hard way, that this fence-sitting friend of his couldn't be trusted or consulted henceforth. It wasn't worth debating the facts with someone who respects people's perspectives and assumptions more than facts, someone who differentiates credibility solely based on hierarchy ("the aggressor is the boss so he must be right, while the victim was just an employee so she could be wrong"), someone for whom the words "Satyamev Jayate" do not have any real meaning. Such people can be a serious waste of time and mental energy.

He soldiered on, stuck to the facts on the ground and ignored the speculations, dug deeper, found the evidence required, exposed the aggressor's actions, got the whole community to acknowledge the facts and admit that a wrong had been committed, and got the harm to the victim undone. Sure, he committed a few minor faux pas, pissed some (irrelevant and highly over-rated) people off, and had to face some consequences of his own due to a large number of the crowd being of this fence-sitting mindset. But all that was trivial compared to the several more real friends and tons of goodwill and credo from across the board he earned on the way, and the lessons in leadership and systems of operating he learned at a much higher level of cognition than any passive spectator could have.

The friend had assumed that his "neutral" position gave him immunity from all responsibility or consequences relating to the matter. Had his "neutral" advice been heeded, the victim would never have seen the light of justice. So he ultimately ended up losing his own credibility, created a totally negative image for himself in the eyes of the victim and her loved ones especially, and lost his friendship with the witness forever.

Something we must keep in mind : Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the presence of justice.

Poem: Thoughts from a secular humanist

Re-posting this image and a transcript of the poem in it.

Thoughts from a secular humanist

I have no invisible authority
I am not mentally enslaved,
I am not an unworthy sinner
Who is waiting to be saved.
My actions are my own
Responsibility for which I take,
Credit for the good and penalty for the bad
The payment for my deeds only I can make.

I'm not the innocent, confused child
'Humble' messengers try to find,
I'm a skeptic with adult reasoning
Who has left Faith behind.
The answers gifted by logic and reason
Are far more appealing to me,
I keep searching for the still unknown
No fitting baseless assumptions dishonestly.

Morality for me is not dreived from an ancient book
With tiring tales of brutality and occasional verses of love,
To be good and to care for my fellow beings
I don't need promises of gifts from above.
The knowledge and wisdom accumulated by science
Sincere and provable, without disguise,
Is what I find more comforting and reality revealing
Than ones given by power-hungry cults fighting over lies.

I'm not someone who thinks women
Compared to their men, are any less,
When her right to say 'No' is violated
I don't blame it on her dress.
Her body is her own, her character not just her face
Rather than a world of fear and suppression,
They deserve a better place.

Things that others do without harming anyone or you
Are reason enough to make some disgusted or depressed
But when I come to know he loves another 'he',
I find myself hardly distressed.
It is better to judge people based on their actions
Not for 'what' they are,
Whether your genes played well or decided to change the rules
All of us are equal humans, who've managed to come this far.

I don't believe that the Universe was 'designed'
With a specific purpose, keeping and of us in mind,
A creator-free Universe is not uninteresting or colourless
But a lot more spectacular with added wonders to find.
Meaning is what we derive from the things that we strive
To achieve during our brief stay on this dot,
Knowing that none is bestowed with any special privileges
How many less battles would have been fought.

My love for this world and concern for its inhabitants
Is not restricted by any boundary line,
Whether you're from the West and I'm from the East
We're still on the same beautiful planet
So ought we not to get along fine?

I respect your right to believe what you want
I respect your right to choose,
But at times when what you believe and choose has a bearing on me
Don't expect me to keep shut or not refuse.
As you read these words, if you find yourself offended
And feel that you need to complain,
I hope you'll first pause for a second and try not to forget
How not being allowed to say it had once led our species
Into the Dark Ages of suffering and pain.


Disclaimer: I didn't write this, but I love it! If you know the author, please connect us!

Illness, modern medicine, and my mom

My mom was obese all her life after her last pregnancy. (for no fault of hers, I might add. The fact of having twins, life routine, health problems all contributed.) She had a whole series of chronic illnesses the whole way - knee problems, ankle swellings, hernia, thyroid, tension... She took painkillers and medicines all along, nearly every day. Being first generation migrants of small town to big city (of poor upbringing to prosperity), my parents had no reason to doubt the marvels of modern medicine. She did take homeopathy as well but her intake of regular medicines, especially painkillers, carried on.

After she passed away at the bitter end of a 3-year long battle with ovarian cancer, at one point I came across studies that showed that all the various painkillers and drugs she'd had to take regularly, in addition to the coffee she was addicted to, had carcinogenic material in them and contributed to a cancer risk if consumed regularly. Plus the fact that chemotherapy practically destroys the body's defenses and sets up the patient for even faster degeneration should a cancerous tumour return (which in my mom's case, it did, with a vengeance).

I can't really express how much that hurt, knowing that what we had accepted to heal her ended up killing her at the age of 51, that too in a way I wouldn't recommend even for an enemy. Dying is one thing, but to see the most important person in your life get slowly and utterly decimated, to see her essence as a human being get taken away... no one should have to go through that.

Since then I've pretty much lost faith in conventional medicine, do my best to avoid taking any pills. For now, if I ever come at a phase where I have to choose between a natural death and chemotherapy, I'll choose death. Homeopathy rocks too, but I prefer ways which don't involve putting stuff into my body. Instead I've found its better to embrace and go through whatever lows come - the feeling of wellness when we get out on the other side is really awesome.

Over the past 3 years I've been through a couple of bouts of severe illness and prolonged depression and found myself recovering much better if I let it take its time. illnesses were resolved by merely fasting and giving the body's digestive system a break. Once a bout of high fever that had lasted 3 days escalated to a point where I was literally knocked out, and after a brief second of unconsciousness (I actually thought this was it and I'm going to die!), all my sweat glands opened up like a dam had just broken and my body immediately stabilized and in a few hours I was walking and driving as if nothing had happened!

Edit: If you intake addictive substances on a daily basis, like smoking, alcohol, drugs, coffee, tea, soft drinks etc then the above paragraph has no meaning for you. I'm free of all of that and that's how natural methods worked for me. They're not going to work for you so don't risk it.

Depression... that's a tougher cookie, but I've found that by immersing myself into the lives of others, by doing everything I can to help another human being, by literally living for the sake of others, I've been happier, healthier, more creative and successful in spite of the depression. There are tragedies in all our lives and it's silly and kind of insensitive to wish we could erase them (I cherish even those worst experiences as they've taught me how to be more human) - we just have to learn to multi-task, have a broadband connection inside our head and live our lives fully at the same time.

At the same time, always keep in mind that there are others with much worse problems than yours and if they can deal with it then so can you. Finding a role model like that and keeping on referencing to them works wonders. Oh, and crying your heart out like a baby HELPS like anything - it's nature's very own anti-depressant, let it happen, people! (advice to men especially!)

And what if we just don't have the time or space to take a day off and let ourselves heal naturally? Well, I left that kind of lifestyle behind a long time ago. Take the time, chill out / blow out! One day of down-time today will give you several years in return later. You only get one life. 500 years from now no one's going to bother whether you met all your deadlines or not, whether you met all of "society's expectations" or not. But if you live fully and allow yourself to do something amazing - there's your chance for immortality!

Doesn't everyone have the same problems?

An interesting revelation came about in a phone conversation with a dear friend last night.
"Forget it, man, everyone's stuck in their own problems."
"But if we look close enough, doesn't everyone have the same problems?"

So what's the best way to solve our problems? To keep treating them as our own unique problems and continue waging lonely battles or silent compromises for survival?

Or to recognise the common traits, to share and band together to conquer them?

4 minutes that changed my life

Kung Fu Panda 2, from 1:01:56 to 1:05:10 (h:mm:ss)

Your story may not have such a happy beginning,

but that doesn't make you who you are.

 

 

It is the rest of your story. 

Who you choose to be. 

So, who are you, panda?

 I am Po.

 And I'm gonna need a hat.

PS: Copyright wolves... I'm doing free publicity here! Live and let live, huh?

Open Content and Open Educational Resources in India

I sent this in reply to a mail on wikipedia india community mailing list. (click here to check them out),
that called for collecting Open Content and Open Educational Resources in India. Sharing here...

1. Arvind Gupta Toys
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/
This is a collection of fascinating videos, pictures and instructions to make scientific toys from trash. Also has books on a plethora of subjects.
I believe this collection has been given out with no strings attached - I have an offline copy and can share it if you want it. (we can meet up in Pune or Mumbai, or I can just courier a DVD to you)

Including the email address listed on the site in CC... Hope they respond with an affirmative!
Dear Sir / Madam at arvindguptatoys, can your content be taken and distributed freely as Open Educational Resources?

2. Rajasthan Ki Rajat Boondein -- by Anupam Mishra
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/node/7354
A seminal work on local sustainable rain water harvesting techniques being practised since generations in Rajasthan. Given out free of copyright, and translated to english as well. Check out his TED Talk.

3. Vigyan Ashram
http://vigyanashram.com/ , http://www.techshala.com/index.asp
An institute that trains school dropouts in rural technologies and entrepreneurship, following models of Gandhian Naee Taleem and hands-on learning philosophies. They have created a curriculum for schools, to equip high school students in basic technology skills in engineering, agriculture and animal husbandry, energy and environment. Including their listed email address in CC as well. See a documentary on them here (in Marathi but you'll understand)

Dear Sir / Madam at Vigyan Ashram, do you have content that can be taken and distributed freely as Open Educational Resources?

4. Natural Farming Institute
http://multiworldindia.org/natural-farming-institute/
They've prepared a comprehensive curriculum for rural education based on sustainable agriculture and it covers a lot of things that the conventional Indian education boards have missed out on due being urban-biased. The whole thing has been posted on this page for free download.

----------------------

Portals where you might be able to find more open resources and connect with people who make them:
http://multiworldindia.org
http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/
http://barefootcollege.org

-----------------
Projects underway to create OER, inviting collaborators:

1. Wikipedia for Indian Schools
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Projects:_Wikipedia_for_Schools/Indian_version
A spinoff from the UK-based wikipedia for schools, initiated by Ashwin, this project aims to create a comprehensive offline encyclopaedia having articles on anything and everything in India in addition to the original edition, (there is room for thousands more articles thanks to ZIM compression), to be distributed for free to Indian schools and homes. And by everything, we mean EVERYTHING. Places of interest, local customs and festivals, foods, flora and fauna, history, current happenings, things that we can find in India but nowhere else... we need to catch'em all.

2. Knowledge Base
http://wikieducator.org/India/Knowledge_Base
I set this up with a vision of having a one-stop resource base where educators from all over India can share and collaborate to build resources to help teach, like lesson plans, assessments, teaching methodology, classroom management techniques. The idea is to have several heads work together to churn out the best possible methods to teach any and every concept in every subject and every grade level, empowering anyone anywhere to dispense high quality education using local resources at no extra expense. Presently just a one-man pilot project, inviting collaborators!

3. A board for Alternative Education in India
http://wikieducator.org/Talk:India/Alternative_Education_Board
What if unschoolers, homeschoolers, unconventional schools and self-guided learners had a common platform that could lend them recognition and credibility in the mainstream? What if we could give millions of children and parents a viable, solid alternative to the rigid soul-destroying factory-based schooling system? Just in its starting phase, inviting collaborators. And of course this would make extreme use of OER.

4. Khan Academy subtitles
http://www.khanacademy.org/contribute , http://tinyurl.com/khanacademysubtitles
An awesome collection of 3500+ educational videos released in creative commons. I've figured out ways to download all the videos in bulk for offline distribution and even extracted their english subtitles that can help learners with weak English understand the lessons better. Now, need to add subtitles or audio dubbing in Hindi / other languages to overcome the language barrier. They have an open platform for volunteers to contribute audio dubbing or subtitling, need people to pitch in. Currently the Indian participation is very low.

Using BYTubeD in Firefox to download lots of videos from Youtube

1. Use Firefox web browser. (get the portable version here)

2. Go here: http://msram.github.io/bytubed/2013/02/11/new-development-version-1-1-2a2.html and install the BYTubeD extension.

2.1. Also go here:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/ and install the DownThemAll extension.

3. Restart Firefox (or just close it and open it again).

4. Go to this page which has a list of Youtube videos. (this is a list of all Khan Academy videos under a specific subject)


5. Right-click anywhere in the page (and by anywhere I mean DO NOT click on a link! There's so much more free space, use that!)

6. Choose BYTubeD



7. Now a smaller window opens up. Wait a minute or two, and BYTubeD will enlist all the youtube videos with their original titles. Green means... green!

8. Go to the Preferences tab and select the second option "Preserve order..." if you want to keep the files you're downloading in order. (in this example, that's important because it's a lecture series)

9. Other things... choose your preferred Video format..

10. For "What to do?", choosing "Enqueue... " will directly start saving it all using the normal saving mechanism. Not recommended. Better to choose the other option and it will make a page with the links listed and you can either select each one and download, or use a download manager like DownThemAll! to save them all.


11. Enjoy!

Panorama creation using Dermandar

http://www.dermandar.com/create/

Wow, this thing is FAST!

I took some pics with the mobile, transferred to comp, selected them here and in a few seconds a 360 degree view was ready!

I got confused at the next step as there was an 'Upload' button as well as 'Save As' and I was thinking that what the heck, I have already uploaded the pictures. But actually, the website creates the panorama on our computer itself without doing any uploading. (I'm impressed!)

So now I press Save As and download a big stitched image file to my comp, and after that I press Upload, next screen it takes the panaroma's name and details. And THEN it takes a long time to upload the whole thing.

So, check out this address:

http://www.dermandar.com/user/nikhilsheth/

And.. we can embed it!


edit: changed to another higher res panorama we made later in the day

This panorama was made out of 9 photos, one of which is below:

use the Flash embed option instead of the default HTML5... the default one isnt working on my tiddlyspace at present.

more articles from the web.. on how we can create virtual tours..

Poor man's virtual tour with Dermandar

http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/apps/dermandar-photography-app/#axzz1vwLGqe1U

Remember, this is all for FREE!

India’s male-female ratio crisis and an out of the box soution

Pre-requisite: please first watch the Satyamev Jayate episode on female foeticide that aired on 6th May prior to reading this. The link will lead you to its webpage.

I want to illustrate, using just bare numbers, how serious is the crisis arising from rampant female foeticide in India is in terms of there being a shortfall in women for men of marriageable age.

When we take the absolute countrywide numbers, they’re too large to immediately make sense to us, so let’s scale it all down to this scenario:

Imagine a small island nation with a culture identical to our own. Meaning that there is a “rule” that marriage by the marriageable age is a must, plus the cultural trend of preference for boys over girls. Take the present Indian sex ratio and imagine that every year there are exactly 1000 boys and 914 girls being born. For the sake of simplicity we imagine a 0% population growth rate.

The table below charts the yearwise progress of the island’s numbers of girls and boys. Imagine that everyone gets married at some age like 25, but we’re calculating how many couples will form and how many will be left single right from year 1.

From the first year, (ie, 25 years on), 86 boys are left single.

For year 2, there are not 1000 but 1086 boys available for the 914 girls. Here we will assume the same trend of Indian culture of a preference for older boys by the girl’s parents (and increasingly by the girls themselves), with the usual immediate advantage of an older boy being more well-off, more mature and more able to provide for the girl. So, all 86 of the boys carried over from the previous year get married to 86 girls from year 2. As a result there are now 172 single boys left from year 2.

These get carried over to year 3, and again the same circumstances. So now there are 258 boys left single from year 3.

This number of boys being left single increases year on year, and at the 11th year, the number of boys left single has crossed the total number of girls that will be born the next year. Also worth noting for the guys is that by year 11 (+25), of the 1000 boys that were born, only 1000-946=54 boys are able to marry girls from their own year. If there is just one school and college, this means only 54 of the 1000 boys will marry girls who they studied and graduated with. Remaining 946 have to wait for their juniors.

And from year 12, the extras literally spill over. There are now more boys staying single than those that will be born the next year. From year 12 onwards, NONE of the boys will marry their batchmates, plus 32 of their seniors will join the singles club with them. Of course, with the cultural preference being as it is, these 32 will definitely get married in year 13, but there will be even more boys from year 12 who will remain single even in year 13.

Now, of course we don’t marry off the kids at birth, meaning that the surpluses that started from year 1, are only observed from year 25 when parents seek to get their kids married and settled. Till then, imagine that this imbalance has gone unchecked, unobserved by the population of the island. Where is the chart at year 25 when the first shortfall of 86 unwedded males is physically felt by the people of the island?

By year 25, there are a whopping 3064 boys for the 914 girls…a factor of more than 3! 2150 boys … 70.2% of the total boys, including all of the boys born that year, are destined to be left single by the time the people of this island nation actually realize that they have a problem on their hands!

And this is what has happened in India. Sure, there are variations limiting the number of boys available for coupling including deaths and diseases, singledom, homosexuality etc. But the same variations affect the total women per generation as well, and seeing the distorted numerical relationship, even a minor offset in number of available girls translates to big offsets overall. It’s like the case of a scarce commodity causing major issues when it decreases even by a little. And even if one argues that of course girls will marry older boys, Duh, just shift the girls column up a few notches (so year 1 boys are to be paired with year 5 girls, suppose) – the end result is unchanged. There will still be a widening that will increase year on year.

The effects are already all around us. Haven’t we all witnessed an increase in large age gap marriages somewhere or the other among the people we know? 7~8 years difference between the bride and groom’s ages (guy being older) are no longer uncommon. But the same thing flipped (girl being older), is still very rare. This age gap has only widened over the past decade and it is because those men could not find anyone their age. For a whole gamut of other problems arising, the Satyamev Jayate episode covers them very effectively and I won’t go into them here.

I’m a solution oriented guy, so I’m not going to just bray about the crisis here.

So let’s go back to the island. In which ways would a solution be sought?

We could of course bring the sex ratio back to 1:1. Imagine that this process has already begun. But seeing the nature of things, this is a slow solution, will probably take a whole generation to work out, and does nothing to address the immediate problem which will get truly disastrous by the time the first balanced generation comes of age. I want to explore, what can be the immediate solutions?

1. War : Start a fight with some neighbours, start a war, use the excess males in the population as cannon fodder. Very evil as well as dangerous option, this can very easily result in mass casualties of even the women if the enemy managed to break the defenses. And this is just plain unethical. So, war is a strict No.

2. Import brides from elsewhere. Now imagine that there is no other place to import from since all other countries have the same crisis going on, or that this island is simply not an attractive enough option! Plus, such a huge addition to the island’s population will doom everybody, zero population growth must be maintained.

3. Throw out the excess males. Yeah, right. Where will they go? And who decides whom to throw out – the richer, older singles or the young, poorer ones who aren’t at fault? This too is an unfeasible option and could very well lead to genocide, if not direct then indirect.

4. Make mass clones of the women. Sure… suddenly the war seems like a far better option. Will the nerds fantasizing about whom they’d want to clone pause to consider that what makes a grown person isn’t just size of body parts but the combined experiences as a human being she’s had growing up over the years? The men will be marrying clones, not women!

5. Force most of the men to be celibate. IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? And whoever suggests that ought to lead by example!!

Have you noticed that all of the above have something similar : They’re all about either eliminating excess or adding more to make up for scarcity. It’s like in a thali there’s not enough vegetable (sabji) available for the rotis you have, so you’re either adding more vegetables or throwing away the excess rotis. One way you’re hungry and the other way you’re over-eating! And the last option is as dry and pointless as having only rotis. This isn’t a sustainable solution! What else can we do to make do with what we have? How can we solve this crisis without any elimination or addition?

And this takes us to the logical conclusion : In the thali, we alter the amount of roti that we take with each piece of sabji in order to balance things out.

It is said that the simplest solution, even if most controversial, is often the best one.

Ready? Here goes….

We have to let the women have more than one husband.

At the same time. With full respect to women’s rights. Not extra-marital, but totally legitimized.

How.. where.. why… well, take a look at the latter part of the Satyamev Jayate episode above and you will know that if we don’t do it legitimately and respectfully, its going to get done illegitimately and extremely disrespectfully.

There are several factors that would go into and result out of this, and the consequences are all ones that I like … most importantly it will once again restore gender equality.

I don’t have the time to go into this right now, but heres a link to a note on my web notebook where you might find some material I collect randomly until I can find a way to put it all together.

http://nikhilsheth.tiddlyspace.com/#[[Opinion%3A%20We%20need%20to%20accept%20women%20having%20more%20than%20one%20husband]]

Inviting your views as well.. please leave them in the comments here (and for God’s sake do not put them on the link on facebook that just vanishes off in a day!)

Parents Vs Love

Videos on self-perception and love

Here's a list of things I want you to see and this concerns love as well as how we perceive ourselves.

I'm linking to the people who delivered these talks so you can read their brief description and get an idea of what they'll be saying, where they're coming from. The videos of their talks are then on the right side of the same page. Even if you can't watch, do read what's there on those pages.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/tony_porter.html - makes a call to men everywhere: Don't act like a man. He pretty much sums up all the issues I have with people of my gender.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/brene_brown.html - studies vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. Her talks turned my perceptions of weakness and strength upside down and resolved several nagging doubts I had.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/helen_fisher.html - gives an awesome insight into love and relationships. I STILL think it's just not fair and some things need serious thought and work.

Digging into the roots of gender discrimination in India and busting myths held about women

This topic is in ongoing development here:
http://nikhilsheth.tiddlyspace.com/#[[Discrimination%20against%20women]]

Found this in the Arvind Gupta readers library.

Read it from page 10 onwards (chapter 3)

It has a detailed account of the origins of discrimination between men
and women in Indian history, and shatters many long held myths along
the way.

On the web, here is a link to the same, though I found the pdf more
readable than the doc.
http://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/sexismkalia.doc

Excerpt-

Anti-Feminine Statements
The denunciation of females as a group began with aspersions cast in
the Vedic literature: ".. .the mind of woman brooks not discipline.
Her intellect hath little weight.. .with woman, there can be no
lasting friendship..." (Upadhayaya, 1974: 159). Though Buddha
reluctantly allowed women- to become Sisters, establish convents and
join the order, he considered them inferior to the males. In his death
bed conversation with his favorite pupil Ananda, Buddha outlined a
principle for behavior toward Women, instructing that Buddhist monks
should avoid them because, "Women are soon angered, Ananda; women are
full of .passion.. .envious.. .stupid.. .women have no place in public
assemblies..." (Coomarswamy, 1928: 164). Mahabharata enjoined women to
refrain from studying Vedas. The Epics went to absurd lengths to
portray women as carnally insatiable lewds. 'They are inconsistent,
irreligious, licentious, fickle, crooked, ominous catalysts of
conflict leading to the destruction of families, cities, and nations'1
(Jayal, 1966: 228-230). The vituperations of Manu set the tone for the
denunciation of women in Indian literature. After a token tribute to
the need for honoring them, Manu portrayed women as base and ignoble
subjects. No woman, Manu recommended, should attempt to be
independent, even in her own house. In childhood, she should obey her
father, in youth her husband. If her husband dies before her, she
should defer to her sons. Single, married or widowed, at no point in
her life should she make her own decisions (Buehler, 1964: 147-151).
Literature between 600 and 1000 A.D. continued to reflect the tone of
Manu in its antifeminine stance. Even the poets of bhakti-kaal, an
otherwise enlightened group of folk writers, denounced the female as
the gate to hell, more poisonous than vipers and worthy of severe
disciplining.

Asceticism (Women as the Source of Evil)
Asceticism, particularly the doctrine of brahmcharya, placed an
unusual emphasis upon the desirability of freedom from sexual desires.
The female, as a source of pleasure, was depicted as a temptress.
According to this image, women lacked the moral strength of men. The
scriptures are full of anecdotes in which deceptive women act as
decoys to distract the ascetics from their higher spiritual pursuits.

...