Stellar Museum at Ambience Mall

With such a strong ad campaign...I couldnt stop myself but to be at the Children's Stellar Museum at Ambience Mall in Gurgaon.

I wonder why they chose to be called a Museum...may be because they thought parents would be happy to take kids to a museum than an entertainment centre.

Anyhow...here are my thoughts about the place.

Its basically a space with multiple areas where kids can entertain themselves and also get educated about some aspects. So, there is a space which has some dynamics of air...things fly, a place where you can build up stuff with blocks, a section...where you can play and channelise water...a place where you can play doctor doctor type games...some other sections where you can paint and play with clay...and other such activities


There are few more games...the most popular, where you can push some assorted straws to make some patterns. There is also a gear wall...which I was most amused with.

While its a good start by Indian standards...I think those guys need to do a need analysis with children and see what works and what doesnt as there are clearly some sections which kids are not at all amuse about.

I think a lot more can be added to make this place interesting. Right now as there is a vacuum in this arena...thats why this place has a foot fall...parents leave there children at this place..if they need to roam around the mall. Also, it seems to be a good place to do your birthday parties...saw many parents doing a reccee for a birthday party. The place also has a cafe.

While you should definitely take your kids to this place once...they need to do a lot to make this place happening. They need to be  introducing more stuff in the museum and may be stop calling it a museum and get some more hands on stuff.

Bihar and Bihar Curriculum Framework

Life took me to SCERT Bihar. A place which is the center stage of pedagogy in Bihar. And it was an experience to be remembered.

The place itself was awesome. The Bihar SCERT is housed in a palatial building ( as my friend Sushant puts it) and it is indeed palatial. Informal conversations revealed that some portions of the campus were used in World War II. That makes it historic.

But this isnt only about the historicity of the place.

For me it was surprising that a state of India, which is considered to be at the bottom of the development index is simmering with pedagogues, whether from SCERT or some small District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) in a nondescript place like Lakhiserai.

Most Indian pedagogues take pride in the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 and it came as a surprise to know that Bihar was the first state to come up with its own Bihar Curriculum Framework. This was interesting news as Bihar is not considered any way up the literacy ladder.

No doubt that the people at SCERT took pride in it and the fact that they challenge the NCF and in fact made it add a chapter or two with inputs from Bihar.

I havent read the BCF or Bihar Curriculum Framework till now but its exciting that Bihar was the first state to produce its own Curriculum Framework.

I was also bowled over by the participation of the DIET teachers and Principals which attended a workshop done by my organisation. They were indeed grounded in pedagogy and towards the end surprised me as they summarised the learnings from a workshop which we conducted.

I have always felt that India would change the day Bihar changes and I am glad to know that it indeed is on its way in a bright way.

Sixteen - a peek into an urban teen's life

Sixteen is the latest flick at the box office, all about teens and their socio-emotional life.

One thing was clear for me while watching this film...that I need to spend some time with the teenager students in a school and understand their lives before writing articles as an educationist and pedagogue.

This is a film about four friends from middle and upper middle class studying in a upmarket school in Delhi. After a long time I have seen a film about schools where adults dont rule the movie. The four teens rule this film.

The film does not sermonise on how life should be but just presents it to the audience. Yes...the director has picked up some exclusive cases...perhaps not all teens go through the events shared in the film. But for sure...all teens would relate to the film in having portrayed their lives vividly.

The film shows the parent child relationship very beautifully and has a variety of parent characters starting from overtly strict/abusive parents to parents, who give a lot of freedom their kids.

As the posters tell you...this film is also about sex and how teenagers take to it. It somehow takes away all the significance that the society attaches to sex. The film has been given an A certificate, which means the average school going student cannot watch this film. Thats the irony as I would certainly want to screen this film in a school.

For all the adults who talk about how teenagers should be and those dealing with their lives...its a must watch. Perhaps you could take a lesson in parenting through the film.

Touching a variety of issues like peer pressure, teenage pregnancy, teenage delinquency and alcohol...its a delight to be in a teen's world for the duration of the film.

Watch it just to be in the world of an average urban middle class teen.

P.S - I would love to break the rule...screen this film for a group of teens and have a group discussion around it. Any takers.

As a pedagogue, the only thing I want to do is to go and have discussions with teenagers on issues raised in the film

Some of the scenes I enjoyed were:

1. Conversation between two teens as they are bunking the morning assembly...and the morning assembly goes on.
2. Conversations between the son and the father, who wants his son to be an IAS
3. Conversation between the daughter and father, who trusts her daughter not to let him down
4. Conversation between the drunk teenaged girl(Tanisha) and a young lad in the lawn of the house.

Tanisha is a star...I loved her.

Repairing-Restarting-Reusing: Teaching Innovation in schools

Everybody swears by innovation and wants innovation. We have numerous anecdotes and stories about how innovation happened...How some people created some new things/ideas/processes. But nobody knows how does anyone teach innovation.

There are exercises and activities to initiate people into thinking and creativity...But innovation is still far far away. But outcomes of these activities dont lead to innovation.

One thing that I noticed early on was that one key element in many innovations is a problem and then creating a solution to it. Another thing that I realised is that 'repairing' something is a key innovation activity.

Was glad to read about the 'Restart Project' being run in UK somewhere...where people get together to restart or repair something...(restart)old transistors and other electronic gadgets. The founders knew that this was a regular affair in developing countries but had perhaps died out in the developed world.

Also, repair has a lot to do with the environment as well...no wonder the tweet that led me to Restart project was tweeted by a environmentalist. 

But right now my effort is to bring environment, innovation and education on the same platform...and actually talk about the interface of all the three.

In my book...To, The Principal...Yours sincerely, I have talked of the idea of a 'kabaaad se jugaad' innovation lab...a lab at the interface of environment, innovation and education.

A lab full of all the tools (read screw drivers, spanners, springs, pulleys etc) and full of kabaad (read junk) old machines etc which are now junk. Using all of these to first get acquainted with how things work first and then using some of the material available to make something knew.

If children and left with constructive material to work with...even if it is junk...you dont need a Lego. Just old junk can work wonders with children and even adults. And the process of repairing leads to innovation. It could be even as simple as repairing a chair with a broken leg. 

My father was an Aeronautical engineer and often used to tell me that there are so many innovators in Old Delhi and Ludhiana that they could make a plane if asked to do. Dont think it was an exaggeration.

What the Restart project is doing is intrinsic and embedded in developing economies. 

I started on one such innovation lab in a school in Delhi. We asked students to get old material from home and we got some basic tools, screw drivers and spanners. It was fun dismantling stuff for all of them.

In subsequent classes we went on to take some specific items. We got a locksmith to our lab and got him to show us whats inside a lock...how do levers work. It was all fun.

Found out later that a Sweden based organisation called Snilleblixtarna is doing similar activities with children even in Grades 1 and 2.

Its just activities like these, which will get us to innovation as there is no specific path.

If we can teach innovation embedded in repair (reuse or recycle)...it will be best for the planet as we would be addressing the two most pressing needs of the planet envisaged in environment and innovation.

Suli Breaks Videos...Moving on from Ken Robinson's TED talks

I bumped into Suli Breaks on the net.

This man is up to something. As I watched ' I will not let an exam result decide my fate'...I was immediately able to connect to this guy.

The simplicity with which he talks about the issues of the education industry is amazing. No big jargon...just plain little talk.

What clarity.

 One thing that I immediately connected was the fact that we studied so much in school and university but dont remember even a tiny percentage of it. This resonated with something similar which I mention in my talks and in my book..."I remember just 5% of what i studied in school, university and college'

Ken Robinson was the rockstar in terms of great education related stuff on videos and I admire him a lot...but I am really excited about his new genre of videos from Suli Breaks. Though I also watched his first one on education i.e Why I hate school but love education. But this one ' I will not let an exam result decide my fate' is a block buster.

I particularly like the part when the kid tells the lady...that you were young at some point of time...but not right now.

I do have a dream of starting a Teachers' Band...which sings for the education revolution. But until that happens...and until we have quexaminations.

Watch Suli Breaks and connect with it as we revolutionise education.

Why aren’t our teachers fun? Why aren’t they mad sometimes?:Gangnam Style dance video by a Teacher

Teachers are folks who have to be serious. Whether we like it or not...thats the norm. Dare a teacher try to act anything but serious. The more serious you are, the better are the chances to go up the ladder.

While there are teachers who are friends with children but they never explore being fun with children. While its an established norm in early childhood education for teachers to do some mad drama for children...we believe that children don’t require that madness or drama as they grow up.

A tweet from Huffington post led me to  a video of a Head Teacher of a School who turned mad publicly...just to add fun and keep a promise he had made. This teacher had promised his students that if they keep up there grades, he will to a Gangnam style dance for all of them. The students got the grades and the teacher decided to do a video, which apparently is a hit on youtube. Find a link to the video in the end.

If you see the beginning of the video...he seems a serious teacher...the one I talked about. But its his dynamism that he had the courage to turn mad (read fun) for his students. I am sure his lectures will now be listened to and children will have fun being in his classroom...no matter he is serious in his classroom.

It takes courage to be mad and madness often helps with students...it brings fun, which is a necessary element of education.

I remember Aamir Khan doing Bum Bum Bole and some gimmicks for his class and remember the times when our teachers would shake a leg in some farewell party. I think I developed a liking for those teachers who could move out and be mad.

Inviting teachers around the world to experiment with madness.

Presenting the first mad video by a teacher in public

Save water on Holi - Illogical Environmentalism - Let the Rang Barse

Just came from a jog and saw the notice board of my society. There were at least two messages asking me to play a dry holi as there would be wastage of water otherwise. The morning newspaper also had a couple of advertisements to the same tune.  Though I get the concern of the individuals is simply to save water but its unfortunate that most of the people don’t question this illogical environmentalism.

So, let me make it simple. Holi is a festival of colours and its traditional to play with water. Until you are dipped in a water pool on Holi…its not really a holi. And its not wastage of water by the way…its judicious use of water for entertainment purposes.

If the citizens of this country do not use water on Holi, its not that we are going to save a huge amount of water to solve the water crisis of this nation. I don’t have the statistics but I can certainly state that if all citizens played a dry holi the water saved would not even cater to .5% of the water gap that we have. By the way I couldn’t  find a single piece of authentic research to show the amount of water wasted on Holi.

Then why this tamaasha. Let the people enjoy. Instead of putting a ban on wet holi…lets concentrate on more sustainable practices of water resource optimization like rain-water harvesting , water reuse and measures to minimize distribution losses of water.  While I support a wet holi I also support using organic and natural colours. That for sure is healthy and good for the environment.

And mind it, its not just Holi, this illogical environmentalism has taken the toll on many a festivals. I have been part of some of the largest environment education movements of this country and one of the things where the same mentality is at play is during Diwali.

It’s a trend for everybody to join the anti-cracker campaign. I say let the kids have fun for a day at least. Climate change is not going to happen if we light crackers on Diwali or may be a week before it. The amount of air pollution that we do by our crackers is nothing as compared to what we do by taking out our cars whenever we have to buy a pack of milk.

This reminds me of a popular Centre for Science and Environment’s report on pollution in Yamuna. The report was name the  Sewage Canal. It clearly asked the authorities to point the finger at the right place. If you were to give the topic of river pollution in a painting competiton of kids. 99% of the paintings would show a factory spewing its affluents in the river and people throwing stuff in the river. That’s the world we live in whereas the reality is that it’s the sewage from our civilized population, which causes that pollution…it’s the sewage not the affluent or what we throw, which is the real culprit. It is at max 5% responsible.

So, its good to save water but lets look at the right place rather than play spoilsport on Holi.

Let environment not come in between our festivals…let environment be our religion instead…so that we live it every  moment rather than getting sceptic on festive days.

Wish you all a happy and wet Holi. Let the Rang Barse.

Mere Dad ki Maruti - A lesson in parenting

Watched the new flick 'Mere Dad ki Maruti' yesterday...great entertainment. But I am not going to review the film here. Woh kehte hain na ki halwai ko hamesha mithai nazar aati hai. Educationist ko hamesha education nazar aati hai.

I could see one of the primary lessons of parenting in the film...but not in action.

The primary  lesson is that of trust betwen a parent and a child...such that if a child goofs up in life...the first person to contact and confess has to be the parent. You may drill this into your  child...right from day one. Because if you dont then what happens is ...Mere Dad ki Maruti.

The film is all about a kiddo sneaking out his Dad's Maruti Ertiga to impress his girlfriend. The car gets lost and the kiddo is freaked out. Then starts a series of lies and arrangements...such that the father doesnt get to know that the car is lost. The kid gets into more and more trouble...and even at some point thinks of commiting a theft in his own house.

Such is the fear of parents...that kids will do anything not to let the parent know of a failure in life. We have heard so many incidents of kids faking parents signatures on report cards and what not.

Well had this not been the case...we wouldnt have got this entertaining flick...which ends on a good note. But not all such stories end in a good note in real life.

Kids get into murkier things in life and relationships with parents go from bad to worse.

The answer as I said before lies in a simple lesson in parenting - Give permission to your kids to let you know first if they  ever goof up...dont cover and assure them that you wouldnt scold or hurt them...thats it.
I assure you will be a happy parent forever.

Part 2
The logic extends to early adulthood as well. I know of a 26 something youngster boy  who lost his job and didnt tell his parents. The reason...yaar Mom and Dad get tensed and thats it. I will tell them once I get the next job...what if he doesnt. Its the same old story of childhood repeating itself. nothing else.

Part 3
This will be outrageous for most readers I know but I would fully self express myself here.

I am a dog lover and have been the proud owner of 2 dogs. One dog phenomena which every dog owner faces is that some dogs when they are able to break free sometimes dont come back. They would run here and there in the lawn or the society ...no matter how much the owner shouts 'Frisky...come here'...the dog doesnt come back. The owner tries to scare the dog and shouts in anger but the dog does not come back. After a while the dog gets tired and comes back on its own to the owner...and the owner gives it a tight slap. Whats the message the dog gets...never go back to the owner and this keeps on repeating. The dog never gets trained. Most dogs dont.

And then there are some wise one's like me...who got this tip from a trainer. who give the dog a treat when it comes back...and Wow...the next time the dog runs free...he comes back quickly to the owner...because he knows he wont get a slap.

Try it out with your kids...Create trust in them that when they goof up....they come back to you. And dont mind my comparison between dog training and parenting

Gross Motor Skills

We do talk about skill based learning at least in Early Childhood education. And in the domain of physical development...gross motor skills are a lot talked about. In fact you will find a number of lesson plans on gross motor skills with kids being asked to walk on a line drawn on the ground or walk on bricks.

Visited a school in a hamlet in Punjab. It had rained the day before and as the road was not metalled at this place....so there was mud  around. There were pools of rainwater everywhere and I had a difficult time reaching the school...jumping here and there...carefully placing my foot at places where I could get a grip.

After the school got over...was going back and saw some young kids negotiating the mud filled road...and then I realised...what nonsense it is to teach these kids gross motor skills...when they are getting developed anyhow on the road.

These kids are anyway skilled.

Perhaps the curriculum for these small ones in rural areas need to be customised to cater to only those skills which matter or may get missed out.