Support our Crowd-funded Comic eBook on Self-Directed Learning Skills

If you, like us, are concerned about how children are learning (or not learning) these days, consider joining us in creating a 'Comic eBook on Self-Directed Learning Skills' that will provide information and guidance to young adults on how they can become better learners. They will also find reading our comic ebook on their iPod, smart-phone or tablet pretty cool!

In the comic ebook, K, our 15 year old hero dives deep into understanding the dynamics of learning. He learns about the works of psychologists and neuroscientists and figures out the dispositions he needs to cultivate to become an inspired learner who yearns to learn and can make the most of the abundant learning resources available today at a click of a button.

The comic ebook will be created in English and in Hindi and will be very moderately priced so that it is within the reach of many.

We have launched a campaign to fund the comic ebook on the crowd funding website, Indiegogo. For as little as £2 you can support our project. Please click on the link below.

Please also consider sharing this message. We want to attract a crowd!

Endgame of Education?

Fellow travellers on the Jubilee line in London may recall an ad campaign for a university last year. The ad read, “Think Different, Think Employability, Think xxx University”.

The ad set me thinking.

While considering a university degree if you are thinking employability are you really thinking different?

I believe better copy for the ad would have been, “Think Different, Think Value Creation”.

After you have got your university degree you think of a job, self-employment or entrepreneurship and in today’s world all three require the ability to create value.

To thrive in the 21^st century you need to become “Creative Creators” (a term coined by Friedman and Mandelbaum in their book ‘That Used to be Us’) and cultivate the ability to do, what Seth Godin calls, ‘remarkable’ work.

What was even more fascinating to me about the ad was a university implying that the endgame of education is employment, or what we can call ‘Learning to Earn’.

We really need to question this. Why earn, Why earn, Y-earn, till we ‘Yearn to Learn’!

One of the main objectives of a good university should be fostering a yearning to learn, all life long.

Building character, encouraging ethical behaviour, enabling and empowering a person to pursue a life of meaning and purpose - with passion and compassion and encouraging joyous living are the other raison d’etre for education. Or so I believe.

Empathetic Human vs Efficient Machine

My son is going on a school trip to France and since he holds an Indian passport he has to apply for Schengen visa. This morning we went to the company that processes Schengen visa applications.

Although the experience was pleasant enough and fairly efficient it made me wonder how secure are the jobs of the people working in this company? How secure is the future of the company itself?

Work they are doing – inspecting original documents, ticking boxes on a checklist, receiving payment, biometric finger printing… these tasks are easily replaced by an algorithm, specially as scanning and digitizing bank document, birth certificate, passport and even biometric finger printing can easily be done at home and submitted online.

Even more important is to ask if the whole process can be reinvented? Can someone think different and create value in a novel way?

Surprisingly when it comes to tourist visas Turkey has got it right. You can now apply for a visa online and the process takes just a few minutes. I am sure simplifying the visa process will get Turkey more boost in tourism than an expensive tourism ad campaign.

I used today’s visa trip to discuss with my son what sort of skills and competencies will make sure that he is not replaced by an algorithm (he is 12 and he may well have to compete with artificial intelligence instead).

He made an interesting observation. Few weeks back, as part of his school debating team, few students along with their teacher were going to the debating venue after school. All of them didn’t have an Oyster card so they approached the Transport for London official at the station and he allowed them entry. My son pointed out that in the ongoing debate about replacing humans with automated machines at the London tube stations, he prefers interfacing with humans.

I think the key question is whether the human you are interfacing with is empathetic or not. If not, you would prefer the efficiency of a machine. Ask yourself who/what would you prefer dealing with - an angry bank teller or ATM, an un-attentive shopkeeper or a vending machine, a lazy check-in executive or a self check-in machine.

In the world we live in there is a lot of premium on efficiency so chances are algorithm and artificial intelligence will be our preference, unless the human beings we are dealing with are capable of highly empathetic decision making, adding value and when we interface with them it is a pleasant and enjoyable experience.

I hope as he is growing up my son learns the ability to think different and create value, learns empathetic decision-making and collaboration and most important, he becomes a pleasant human being.

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.