learning – Itisaras

Re-thinking Indian Childhood: Conception, Gendered Socialization and Education

October 5, 2020October 5, 2020 Supriya Kaushik 0 Comments adulthood, American, benefit, boundaries, boy, boyhood, British, carefree, child, childhood, cognitive, colonial, comprehension, conception, confident, deprivation, emotional, experiment, feelings, fluid, freedom, Freud, generalization, girl, governmental, Happiness, ignorance, immature, india, Indian childhood, influence, kids, knowledge, learning, mature, mental, oblivion, participation, pedagogy, physical, Piaget, process, Protection, prototype, research, safety, school, sexual, skills, social, societal, system, talent, teaching, teenagers, thought, unaware, viewpoint, Western childhood

Of all the seasons we weather in our lives, childhood is one we hold on to. We carry it with us wherever we go. Virginia Woolf had said, “Why must they grow up and lose it all?”. The question is, does childhood actually have a proper definition or do we mould it as per our needs to see what we want?

Society

Education at “the soul of India”: Ashram Schools

September 8, 2020September 8, 2020 Smriti S. Raj 8 Comments community, Culture, Development, education, environment., holistic education, inequality, learning, life skills, rural/urban divide, stakeholders, students, teachers, technical skills, Tradition, unity in diversity, urbanisation, village

While there can be no standardised holistic form of education, in order to smoothen the crevices of our educational topography, we can take inspiration from Ashram schools, models of learning that aim to be inclusive, integrated, and multi-faceted.

History

Remembering Shankaracharya: Lessons from the Jagadguru’s life and work

September 5, 2020September 5, 2020 Editor 0 Comments acharya, adharma, Adi Shankaracharya, ascetic, asura, avatara, Bhakti, bhoga, brahmin, Buddhist, Caste, charvakas, debate, didactic, disciple, Discrimination, education, evil, guru, hermit, heterodox, Hindu mythology, Hinduism, History, hostility, householder, humanity, interpretation, Jagadguru, kamashastara, kapilakas, knowledge, learning, legend, legitimacy, madhyamika, materialist, memory, Mythology, Namboori, opponent, philosophy, proliferation, proponents, Rama, Ravana, Religion, Sanskrit, sanyasi, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, scholar, scholarship, school, scripts, scriptures, shaktas, Shastrath, spirit, story, tantric, teachers’ day, thinking, Tradition, tribute, Vedas, vedic texts

In Shankara’s age, the threat to Vedic dharma was from the evil within and he had to tackle it through intellectual debate or shastrarth. Evil therefore had to be fought with the weapon of jnana or true knowledge.

Polity Society

Gaps in Virtual Teaching

August 5, 2020August 5, 2020 Tanya Mittal 0 Comments academics, administration, assessments, Catch-22, CBSE, challenge, classroom, content creators, content developers, Corona Virus, Coursera, COVID-19, Development, digitalization, disability, e-material, education, exams, experience, futuristic, helicopter parenting, incommunicado, indispensable, institutions, interference, Internet, invasion, knowledge, learning, link, malpractise, medium, ministry, online classes, online school, online teaching, pandemic, personality, planning, primary, privilege, repository, reputation, responsibility, secondary, skills, teachers, teaching, traditional, Udemy, UGC, virtual, Virtual teaching

Learning and gaining knowledge these days no more remains limited to the four walls of an institution or a classroom. With digitalization, spreading fast these have become a thing of the past, and more so due to ongoing pandemic. Moving ahead head first into the future is one thing, but should we not pause and consider if everyone is reaping the benefits of it?