How buildingBlocks intends to complete education?

The last two posts talk about the caveats or problems in the current schooling system and the ideal role that education needs to play. This post would highlight how we at buildingBlocks intend to play a role in completing the education. The chart below would give a pictorial view of what are the aspects of education that we would emphasise on:



Obviously, Vedic Teachings and Yoga are nothing but some examples of providing a spiritual experience and physical exercise respectively. So, if we add the incomplete education system of today and the buildingBlocks experience, it would complete the educational experience of the kids of today. Our experiments at the Arya Samaj, Moti Nagar are good examples of how this correction in the system works. Additionally, you can see how this complete system works in the picture below:



Finally, if you think there are some holes that exist in this holistic educational framework, please feel free to add anything through the comments section.

What's wrong with the current schooling system?

So here's my second post in the series of analysis about the education and its purposes?

So, let's see how the current schooling system in India (and that too public -- forget about the government aided) is faring? I believe that the current schooling system is able to do only 25% of it's job. Explanation is below:



As you can see in the figure above, the schools should be able to impart training/education in six categories, however, the Indian schools are providing training only in three areas (academics, physical and creative) aspects. One may ask why half bit of proficiency in the field of Academics, Physical and Creative aspects (actually the reason for 25% performance level). We do not need any science to prove that the learning, prevalent in our schools, is very rote based where the joy of learning is sucked out of the whole experience. Evidently, we faired worst amongst countries like Singapore, US and Australia if we believe India Today's recent survey. So, a lack of experiential learning from academics makes us believe that even schools are failing in imparting the 'right' academics education. Physical and Creative education is also suffering from similar problems (details on that to follow soon...).

So, how are we going to change this when these problems exist in overwhelming quantities throughout the urban society irresepective of any segment. My next post would try to tackle that issue. However, if you differ with our analysis at any point of time, please feel free to jump in -- the discussion would only create a better understanding of the problems and possibly solutions.

holistic schooling system

I reckon our organization is as strong as the research that we put in definition of our course curriculum. We have decided to invest into this very important and often overlooked aspect of education, the curriculum.

In order to ensure that we do justice with the same, we spent close to a month to come up with the role of education in the society. Can education be limited to the box of market based education, which is pervasive in today's world?

a). Is the education system limited to produce linear dimensioned individuals (read doctors, engineers, CA's, journalists etc).

b). Or is the purpose of the education to produce people who have multiple dimensions -- leaders at work, participants in community, compassionate for poor or the disadvantaged, ethical in their dealings.

After the brainstorming sessions with several eminent educationists and thought leaders, we have come to the conclusion that education is supposed to do (b). Unfortunately, what it's ending up to do is (a) and yes! that's true even for the creamy schools. The results are evident in the failure of the evolution of the Indian society into a ethical, compassionate and homogenous group. The results are also evident in today's kids becoming good engineers and doctors, however, insecure and lacklustre leaders.

We also came up with the model for holistic education -- and what it essentially means. Additionally, we analyzed what's being done by today's schools and where is the education system miserably failing and the role that buildingBlocks can play to complete the education -- I plan to cover this in two-three entries. This entry would just talk about what is holistic education:



As shown in the picture, the education is more than the commonly perceived academics and physical education. Education includes other very important fields like moral/ethical, spiritual, civic and creative education. If you think that there's more or less to education than this -- please enrich the discussion with your comments.

Indian Montessori Congress 2007

Anyone who has any stake in the education of the child education should definitely attend this Indian Montessory Congress 2007. I think it's a must for the educationists and NTT course holders. If you are planning to be in Bangalore during this time and have interest in knowing more about buildingblocks, please let me know through the comments section.

what's our wealth?

An observation that was impressed upon us in our Macro Economics class by Professor Karma was that the wealth of any nation is it's people. This is truer for some nations than others. For instance, our nation India has been built only by the human resources as we have not been blessed with natural resources (read oil) like Saudi Arabia, Iran or some of the countries in the world.

Whatever modest achievements, we have had, have been through our people's enterprise, perseverance and grit. So, essentially our true wealth lies in our people rather than any particular mineral, stone or whatever. So our goal should be to pay most attention to the grooming our people. This is a question that I would like to pose to the audience of this blog -- are we really doing that?

Is our government, rising above the petty partisan politics, ready to consider education as an equally important asset as roads or electricity. Our we as individuals ensuring that we become a stakeholder in the education of not our own kids, however of the whole society itself. I am sure the answers to all these questions are very grim and so is the future of nation.

I have thought about this a lot and have also worked on a long-term solution. I will post my solution on the blog in next couple of days. However, would be interested in listening to yours as well.

Further, we just launched a new feedback form on our website as we consider that the parents and teachers are the most important stakeholders in the whole educational reform process and we intend to learn a lot from their suggestions -- if you happen to be one of those concerned with the wealth of this nation, please give suggestions over here.

buildingBlocks@wikipedia

Finally, started promoted buildingBlocks on wiki as well... Wrote down a little blurb abt the mission and ideology of buildingblocks over here. People may pass it as a cheap marketing tool, however, I envision this wiki to become a source of universal feedback on the concept of something like buildingBlocks. Further, we plan to upload all the minutest details of our course curriculum and expansion plans on the wiki to initiate an unhindered third party dialogue with the consumers.

Next to come an entry about my experience of Mumbai as well.

Meeting with Aakar

Finally, I got a chance to meet up with some extraordinarily good and responsible talent in India. After talking to so many entrepreneurs/professionals who have their minds fixated on bottom lines, it was very refreshing to talk to someone who thought about social responsibility as well.

Yes! I got a chance to meet one of the founders of Aakar solutions (Saurabh Saxena). He was also in favor of doing something socially responsibly with a keen eye towards maintaining a healthy bottom line to ensure longevity of the organization. We got a chance to talk about the ailing aspects of contemporary education system. The whole discussion was very enriching and encouraging.


Additionally, I got some really good suggestions from him about not waiting till eternity to get out with something that is a good foundation and can be improved upon. Further, we seemed to agree on the problem of pervasive mediocrity in every aspect of our society – essentially the need to differentiate buildingBlocks.The issue that it is not just another hobby class, rather a place that offers holistic approach towards education. On the whole, it was great to catch up with entrepreneurs who are as passionate (and in all likelihoods more) about providing enriching education to today’s kids. The only hope is that collectively, we will take today’s education system to the next level.