Do Good, Be Kind !

Write something about the picture that you see below – This is a task that I give to students as part of my workshop. Invariably everyone will write about the coloured triangle, its position at the center and what not. They completely miss out the wider white space that encapsulates the blue triangle. Our career choices are also hovering around a triangle like this. In that focused approach to arrive at one of the vertices above, we miss the white space that is probably where you will find the careers of twenty first century . In this rush to become an Engineer, Doctor, Lawyer, Accountant, and other professions, what is happening in the country is that society’s interest in creating other options is weakened. (We of course need Engineers, Doctors and Lawyers, but we need other professionals too)  -- Moreover, our choices of higher education get aligned to the above professional education and are swinging between the left and the right as depicted below, creating a huge gap of o...

  In the first two blogs on Liberal Education, I wrote about 1-     Lesson-1 : Opens up a world of possibilities after graduation. 2-     Lesson-2 : The Curricular / Programme Structure Now, I turn to some of the Teaching methods / Pedagogic practices and approaches in a Liberal education environment. (Disclaimer: This is not an exhaustive list but some glimpses)   1.      Faculty members are facilitators: They want students to be producers of knowledge and not just consumers of information. This requires quite an open classroom, encouraging questioning, forum for debate and discussions. There is no one textbook, but many texts, sources from journals, articles, Op-Ed pieces, extracts of textbooks etc that students have to read. 2.     And some i nteresting questions that the faculty encourage students to ask could lead to exciting research projects – For e.g. Peacocks Don’t Fade: The...