21वीं सदी में समृद्धि के लिय क्यों भिन्न जीवन कौशल आवश्यक हैं? Why a different set of life skills is needed to flourish in the 21st century?

Inspired by the trip I made to the Himalayas in December to conduct Timeless Lifeskills workshops in small schools, I have started rerecording the videos I have created earlier on 21st century life skills with narration in Hindi. Here is the second video with Hindi narration. I discuss why a different set of life skills is essential for flourishing in the 21st century. Original videos in English are available on Timeless Lifeskills website - http://timelesslifeskills.co.uk

Timeless Lifeskills video in Hindi

कालातीत जीवन कौशल - Timeless Lifeskills video in Hindi: अhen I was interacting with the teachers in the schools in the Himalayas in Dec while conducting my workshops, I figured that the videos I have created on Timeless Lifeskills are relevant and useful for the teachers but because the videos are in English it becomes difficult for most teachers to understand these videos. Hence I have started rerecording these videos with narration in Hindi. Here is the first video with Hindi narration on 'Timeless Lifeskills - The Second Strand of Education' -

Self-Directed Learning workshop, at Pataudi, a small town in Haryana, India

The last workshop I conducted during the Dec 2013 trip to India was at Pataudi, a small town in the state of Haryana.

9th class students, 15 from the local government school for girls and 15 from Pathfinder school attended the workshop. The workshop was held at the Pataudi Palace, courtesy of Mrs Sharmila Tagore.

My focus was on self-directed learning and how ability to self-learn is becoming essential in the 21st century when knowledge is exploding.

We looked at the story of Eklayva, a tribal prince who when refused tutelage by the royal guru, Dronacharya, created a clay statue of the guru and self-learnt the art of archery. We deliberated on the dispositions that made Eklavya a self-directed learner – grit, growth mindset, self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, emotional resilience and ability to overcome inner conflicts like fear of failure and ridicule.

We considered how an Eklavya in the 21st century can find many a virtual Dronacharya by making the most of Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, games and apps now available on the Internet.

We also discussed how skill sets required for social success change with the changing complexion of the economy. How in the agrarian age learning the 3Rs and a family profession was adequate for economic wellbeing; how the industrial revolution meant that beyond the 3Rs learning a technical skill became important; how in the information age getting deep knowledge in a domain (like a university degree in a particular discipline) became essential for employability, and how the ongoing automation, computerisation and knowledge explosion implies that a new set of skills, dispositions and competencies need to be learnt for social success and long-term well-being.

We concluded the workshop dwelling on how multiple ‘performances of understanding’ lead to deeper comprehension and how ICT and multimedia now offer very interesting and engaging ways of demonstrating deep understanding (beyond rote learning and regurgitation in exams). For example, to demonstrate understanding a student can write a blog, summarise in tweets, create multimedia presentations, videos, animations and more. The students then split into groups and I worked with them to create short 10 frames animation on a topic of their interest.

Timeless Lifeskills Workshop at Aarohi Bal Sansar, Satoli village (near Almora)

Around 30 kms from Almora is village Satoli, where Aarohi is located. Aarohi is a not-for-profit grassroots organization, with the mission of creating development opportunities for rural Himalayan communities through quality healthcare and education, enterprise promotion, sustainable natural resource use, and the revival of traditional culture.

I spent three days at a school run by Aarohi called Aarohi Bal Sansar (ABS). Agenda was similar to Jeevanshala – teach the kids basics of movie making and animation and demonstrate how these skills can be incorporated to deepen comprehension of curriculum by doing multimedia projects and creating e-portfolios.

I was interacting with 50 plus students from classes 6, 7 and 8. We started by looking at how a series of stills can be made into a flipbook animation. Students then worked in small groups. Each group had 10 post-its and they had to create a short story that could be animated. For example, how, when a fat ball bounced it burst, or how a chick hatched out of an egg.

All of us were sitting in a room and I thought I will give the students instructions in small doses. To my surprise, as soon as I had given the first set of instructions all the children ran out and spread out in the field. ABS is located in picturesque settings and in the distance one can see the snow clad Himalayan peeks. It was a sunny day and it is usual for ABS children to have their classes outdoors. Lucky guys!

After they had finished sketching and painting each group used a free stop-motion app to create simple animated stories. One group could not create a story because they could not agree on a topic! Later, with the entire group, we had a very interesting discussion on what makes collaboration tick and how conflicts in a group can be resolved. We also discussed parameters on which animations should be judged and deliberated briefly on how the animations could be improved in the next attempt. Empathetic collaboration and ability to self-judge and improve performance are very important life skills in today’s world.

The next activity was making a short video film on a topic that was being studied in class. Students put play dough and other material available to creative use and made projects on solar energy, amoeba, photosynthesis, how the internet works and more. Each group talked about their project for a few minutes. I recorded the same and made short videos.

The final exercise was looking at how special effects are created in movies. I was carrying a green-screen and a morph suit and we made one student fly and attempted to make another into an invisible dancer. A bunch of enthusiastic girls role-played being TV news reporter and music show host. Using green-screen we then removed the background and added background effects like footage from cricket and Bollywood.

I also interacted with some ABS teachers on how they could curate content online using computers and tablets and augment their classroom teaching. We looked at resources like Khan Academy, TED-Ed, apps and games.

Two NID graduates, Manasi and Dhruv, who were volunteering at ABS were a big help. Manasi has taken most of the accompanying photographs. My thanks also to Mr Pradeep Gupta, who heads the ABS education initiative and who was also my extremely gracious home-stay host.

ABS students were eager and enthusiastic learners and hence conducting this workshop was an exhilarating and hugely rewarding experience for me. ABS often gets visitors to interact with their students and how beneficial such exposure is was apparent in the children’s confidence and creativity.

I encourage readers of this post to consider volunteering at ABS. More information and contact details are on their website - http://aarohi.org/index.php 

If you are a keen cyclist Aarohi is organising a Kumaon Himalayan Cycling Tour from 18-20 April 2014. You can find information and register on their website.

Timeless Lifeskills Workshop at Jeevanshala - a tiny school in the Himalayas

In Dec 2013 I was in Almora (a major city in the Himalayan state of Uttrakhand) for 10 days conducting workshops on 21^st century life skills in small schools and organisations in and around Almora. My experience in one of the schools:

50 km from Almora is village Maram. In Maram, Jeevanshala is a tiny school run by two passionate teachers – Shankar and Sandeep. Though well qualified for a government job, in 2001 they decided to start Jeevanshala (JS) and have shaped the school since. They run the school out of three small rooms, which were originally constructed as roadside shops (see photos).

JS has 55 students ranging from Kindergarten to class 5.  Those who can afford pay Rs 150 (£1.50) a month to keep JS running. The total monthly income generation is around Rs 5,000 (£50). The school does not get any government support. The four teachers at JS hence earn a pittance of around Rs 1,000 (£10) per month.

Compare this to Rs 12,000 to 15,000 that the teachers in the government run schools in the vicinity earn but where parents don’t want to send their kids! As I understand, the three government run primary schools in the vicinity get a monthly grant of Rs 150,000 odd each but all three school together have only seven students. The villagers prefer sending their kids to JS because they believe JS is doing a better job of educating their children.

I spent two days at JS with class 4 and 5 students. My focus was on developing their self-expression and creativity using tablets and multimedia. Thanks to the generosity of some people JS has got 5 Android Tablets and the children are familiar with them. Though Maram does not have Internet connectivity so JS teachers come to the city of Almora once in a couple of months and download apps there.

The students told me that they were learning about the solar system so I split them into groups of 2-3 and asked each group to research one planet, write about it, make a model using play dough, stand up and speak about the planet they researched and I demonstrated to them how a short film could be made using a tablet.

We also made a stop-motion animation on local environment. The children researched about local crops, fruits, birds etc and depicted the same using play dough. We then discussed the impact of loss of trees on the local environment and converted all this into a stop-motion animation and a short film.

The objective was to demonstrate to the students and the teachers how they could use tablets and multimedia to create ‘performances of understanding’ i.e. instead of regurgitating rote knowledge in end-of-year exams they could create a ‘portfolio of multimedia artifacts’ to deepen understanding in a more engaging manner.

To enable this workshop, besides two tablets for the school, I was also carrying a USB microscope and we observed skin, hair, nail, teeth etc and discussed about hygiene (dental hygiene was very poor). I finished the workshop with some aerial photography using the remote control helicopter with camera that I had taken for them. Most of the kids had never seen a man-made object flying (other than on TV or in books).

I found the children at Maram to be highly enthusiastic, very independent and curious to learn. They start and end the day by themselves – opening/locking the classrooms, cleaning them and dusting the mats etc. The senior students conduct the assembly – prayers and exercises, and in case the teachers are absent they even start teaching the younger kids and give them homework.

My days at Jeevanshala were interspersed with discussions with the teachers on what would be a relevant curriculum and how it could be imparted in most effective and engaging ways. I plan to build on this in the coming months and return to Maram soon to conduct more workshops on weaving Timeless Lifeskills into the curriculum and use of ICT to enhance the learning experience.