Multiworld Multiworld websites A wordfromtheeditors Welcome aboard! taleemnet issues,especiallythepublicationof the Navina VenkatfromMumbaicomeforweekly stintstoworkwithClaudeAlvareson Hyderabad andAnuradhaVeeravallifromDelhi. NylaCoelhofromBelgaumand the multiworldwebsite.Wehavealsohadconferences withGurveenKaurfrom month. Informationaboutthemandthedates fixedforthesemeetingsarepostedon for week-longMultiversityconferencesinGoa. Theseconferencesareheldevery would behappytoreceivethematerial. your institutionorgroupwhomightbeinterested and those sectionstosomeoneinyourneighbourhoodor (multiversity) orthesecondhalf(taleemnet),passon materials thatappeareitherinthefirsthalf as atwo-in-one.Soifyouarenotinterestedinthe separately, wehavefounditconvenienttobringthem expressed vehementlythatthetwoshouldbepublished taleemnet concerns.Thoughsomeofourreadershave eight dealingwithmultiversityissuesand Kamiriithu articles andspeeches. Kamiriithu give usinspirationandcouragetocopewiththeserudetimes.Thisissueof downloaded fromwww.multiversitylibrary.com.)Avisittoallthesesitesisbound websites onboththinkers.(Mostoftheprintedworkstwothinkerscanalsobe resources haveachievedalmostnothingincomparison.Therearenowdedicated one throughhistory,theothersociology.Manypeoplewithfargreater contributed inasubstantialwaytoredefiningoralteringourperceptionsoftheworld, provided pioneeringleadershiponhowwemightbecomeourselvesagain.Both with eternaltime-framestobringaboutthechangeswedesire.DharampalandAlatas two trulyinspiringindividualsisagentlebutfirmreminderthatwearenotworking pioneering Malaysiansocialscientist,SyedHusseinAlatas.Thedepartureofthese forever twobeaconlights–thedistinguishedIndianhistorian,Dharampal,and Kamiriithu Those havefinallyarrived.Goodsensewillalwaysprevail.There-appearanceof quality stuff,wedecidedtosittightandwaitformorepropitioustimespeople. the verybeginningannouncedwewouldbringoutissuesonlyifandwhenhad hands hands. Sorryfortheinordinatedelay.Itwasneverthoughtwewouldbeshortofboth: education –isrejuvenatedand,afteraconsiderablelapseoftime,backagaininyour Kamiriithu A wordfromtheeditor From January,RamSubramaniamandVishram Guptehaveattachedthemselves Thistimetheissueof On theotherhand,wemustweepaswell:inmorerecentmonths,havelost Dharampal (1922-2006) and minds.Howdosmallfrylikeuscompetewithcallcentres?Sincewehadat isthereforeanoccasiontorejoice. –Multiversity’scriticalandno-holds-barredjournalonlearning hasatotalofsixteenrichlystackedpages, alsocarriesnotesonbothDharampalandAlatassomeoftheir 2 1 universities. residues ofcolonizationfromourmidst.Like considerably longerperiodoftimetoextinguishthe colonisers fairlysoon,butitwouldtakeusa the viewthatwemightsucceedingettingridofour politic immediatelybeforeindependence,hadhazarded further sixty.MahatmaGandhi,talkingofourbody years andwehavecontinuedtopatronisethemfora educated peopleofthevastsub-continentforninety These institutionsruledthemindsofso-called modern universitiesofIndiabyBritain’scolonialrulers. fiftieth anniversaryofthesettingupfirstthree Dharampal Multiversity news Mutiversity: Workinprogress The universityinruins The captivemindrevisited Multiversity This yearalsohappenstobetheonehundredthand Learning Sourcebook Syed HusseinAlatas(1928-2007) 8 7 6 5 3 First person:DavidHogg Educating differently Vernacular educators Aksharnandan Taleemnet news Rural curriculum Taleemnet . Interested? 16 14 12 11 10 9
T h e M u l t i w o r l d N e t w o r k ’ s N e w s l e t t e r 2007 Vol.IINo.4
UN MUNDO EN QUE QUEP AN MUCHOS MUNDOS 2
Multiworld websites
www.multiworld.org alternative learning organic agriculture multiversity msn Multiworld.org is the main This site is exclusively for report- This site deals exclusively with the Yusef Progler from the UAE runs Multiworld website. ing on discussions and experi- field of organic agricultural science an independent Multiversity A related website maintained ments dealing with learning and the workings of the Natural website which also features by Citizen’s International can be experiences outside school walls or Farming Institute. exciting new discussion material, accessed at the following url: outside the framework of ‘factory Traditional agriculture in rare articles and reports on www.citizensint.org schooling’. almost all countries has been Multiversity themes. We are encouraging educa- Taleemnet is actually the first replaced by imported agribusiness You can access the site at: tional activists in every country major network dedicated exclu- science based on use of copious http://groups.msn.com/multiver- within the South to have their own sively to de-schooling or synthetic chemicals and toxic sity Multiworld chapter and site, unschooling experiments in Asia, pesticides. Join the discussions there. The operated by their own core group. Africa and South America. It is In several countries farmers, in site is frequently updated and the Naturally, several of these will be determined to reverse the fact, have completely lost the discussions way out. Everything in their own national, regional or processes of colonial education indigenous knowledge of farming relating to the regime of Western local languages, with crosslinks to which still persist in our countries and are now finding it difficult to academic studies is being chal- the main Multiworld page. despite political independence. lenged with determination, verve The main website will eventu- survive with an alien system of The site aims to create an growing crops that is not only and imagination. ally host discussions in the international community of Progler is also editing a series principal languages of the South unprofitable but actually devas- parents and students who take a tates the environment. of short booklets containing essays basides English: Hindi, Chinese, decision to “walk-out” of school and by important scholars who have Swahili, Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, The site will report on intellec- resume learning using their own tual work carried out by farmers attempted to challenge in a etc. fundamental way Western aca- Multiworld.org also hosts the resources. and innovations in the area of Multiversity site, the Taleemnet Educators, parents and stu- restoring soil fertility, improving demic culture and its various site, the organic agriculture site dents are encouraged to visit the the micro-community of soil associated components. Called the and the (Natural Farming site to learn about the mental and species and organisms, homemade “Radical Essentials Pamphlet Institute). spiritual damage that is done to inputs, etc. Series”, the essays appear in the We also provide linkages to children and learners when they The main activities of organic format of colourful booklets. several other sites which are submit themselves to the coercive farming are carried out under the working in similar directions, processes of schooling. rubric of the Organic Farming including Shikshantar and the After reading the critique, Association of India which has multiversity USA website parents may be interested in Barefoot College. located its central secretariat in Vinay Lal, Indian historian now We envision separate knowing what other parents are Goa. (See its website:www.ofai. Multiworld sites on specific issues doing in different parts of the org.) domiciled in the US and a partici- like the WTO, debt, international country and abroad. pant in both the Penang The first major activity of OFAI conferences on redesign of social law, etc. Any person volunteering The site features stories of has been the conducting of to set up and run such sites for us children who have done better out training camps for farmers eager science curricula, has hosted the is welcome to do so. Please keep us of school than if they had USA equivalent of Multiversity at to turn away from chemical the above site. You can access it at: informed so that work is not continued with it. farming. unnecessarily duplicated. If you The site also provides a One special focus is the http://vlal.bol.ucla.edu/multiver- come across interesting sites that detailed overview of educational sity/. children of organic farmers who The site is designed to assist should be linked with the systems outside the purview of once they go to school, find Multiworld page, please inform us. Western educational institutions. themselves alienated from the students and lecturers in the US The multiworld.org site is All the prominent thinkers on who are interested in pursuing land and from agriculture. The these issues and forming a being updated regularly. We education from the Global South Natural Farming Institute is keen welcome comments and contribu- are also featured, together with on formulating a syllabus for home workgroup on some of tions to the multiworld webpage their writings. Multiversity’s themes. It is schooling of children of such therefore devoted exclusively to from sympathetic colleagues and Links are provided to signifi- farmers, so that they can be well friends in Asia, Africa and South cant home-schooling movements versed with both, the demands of university education and not to America. This Network is not schooling. within the industrialised countries living in the modern world and the designed to be run from above, but where there is an even greater The site also provides details of through its numerous constituents. knowledge and expertise of their mental anguish about the negative parents relating to agriculture. a series of pamphlets brought out You can also join the e-group set impact of schooling on personality by Vinay Lal on thinkers and up by Multiversity from the A recent report commissioned articles of consequence for scholars website. development of children and youth. from Sarang on a rural curriculum is posted on the NFI site. interested in these pursuits.
Subscription Form for Newsletter SUBSCRIPTION RATE India: Rs.100 per year (including postage) Yes, count me in on this enterprise. I want to deliver a mortal blow to globalisation’s Please send the subscription money as a pay designs on the minds, spirits and lives of children and young people everywhere. order, M.O. or DD in the name of Other India Bookstore, Mapusa, Goa. You can also send it in the form of postage stamps. Name: Asia, Africa, South America, Aotearoa: Air: US$ 6.00 Address: Kamiriithu postal address: G-8 St Britto’s Apartments, Feira Alta, Mapusa 403 507 Goa, India. Phone/Fax: (91-832) 2256479; 2263305 (fax) E-mail: Country:______Pin / Post Code: [email protected] WEBSITES Tel.:______Mobile: http://www.multiworld.org http://www.multiversitylibrary.com Fax: ______E-mail: ______The Multiworld Network’s Newsletter 3
B R I N G I N G C O L O U R B A C K I N T O A C A D E M I C S T U D I E S
Prof. Syed Hussein Alatas inaugurated the Multiversity II Conference on Syed Hussein Alatas ‘Redesign of Social Science Curricula.’ What follows are excerpts from his (1928-2007) lecture on ‘the captive mind’. Prof Syed Hussein Alatas passed away at his home in Damansara Heights, Kuala ‘The Captive Mind Revisited’ Lumpur, on the evening of 23 January 2007, after suffering a heart attack. He was born on 17 September 1928 in Bogor, Indonesia. Prof. Alatas began his academic career in 1958. Between 1963 to 1967 he taught at the University of Malaya (UM) and from 1967 to 1978 he served as the Head of the Malay Studies Department at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Between the late 1960s to the 1970s, he played an active role in Malaysia’s political environment, helping to form the multiracial Gerakan Party in 1968. In 1972 he helped to form the Parti Keadilan Masyarakat Malaysia (Malaysian Social Justice Party, Pekemas). In 1988 he was appointed Vice- Chancellor of the University of Prof. Alatas presents his talk on the ‘captive mind’ flanked by (from left) Vinay Lal, Mohamed Idris, Claude Malaya. From the mid-1990s he Alvares and Ashis Nandy spent the last decade of his academic life at the Department I would like to share with you mind. One aspect which I did not convince society of the need to get of Anthropology and Sociology today four or five aspects have time to develop is the away from intellectual captivity of the National University of connected with this theme, of the problem of the captor mind, or the and that is by doing some works Malaysia (UKM), before moving ‘Captive Mind’. It was in the early capturing mind. I have which demonstrate that this is the on to serve as Professor and 1950s that I started doing some concentrated so far on the captive kind of work which we want done Senior Fellow at the Institute for research on this subject. My first mind because the captive mind is and this does not bear the stamp of the Study of the Malay World publication on this theme was most urgent as far as the intellectual captivity. Hence I and Civilisation (ATMA) at the titled ‘Some Fundamental developing society is concerned. wrote the book ‘The Myth of the same university. Problems of Colonialism’. It We are concerned with the Lazy Native,’ to demonstrate the appeared in 1956 in a London enslaved because we all know that kind of scholarship that was He is best known for his journal called The Eastern World. change can be achieved only if developed in the colonial period, critical questioning of the there is an awakening of the slave which is no more relevant. education system and creating After the second World War we community. Without a change in an environment for witnessed the independence of the attitude of the slave I believe that we should have understanding of the world several states in Asia and Africa community, there can never be any our own scholarship. Having our independent of western and one of the problems which change. Understanding the own scholarship does not mean entrapments. In 1956, as a emerged was this tendency of our slaveholders was less urgent to me being ethnically biased. It does postgraduate student at the people to imitate the thinking of at that particular point of time not mean turning the tables on the University of Amsterdam, Syed the West and the ideas introduced than understanding the enslaved. colonial powers and offering Hussein’s article on ‘Some by the colonial powers. For Therefore I had concentrated then something of the same kind by way Fundamental Problems of example, heavy emphasis was on the captive mind. But now, I of a substitute. For instance, in Colonialism’ – in which he given to this new fangled idea of think, this subject should be history, the colonial historians argues about the folly of aping development. Simultaneously, explored too. wrote about our bad rulers, so the Western thinking – was important interests of the Third what do we do – we just reverse it. published in a journal called The World were cast aside. The new I have also spent my time We just say that the guys they said Eastern World based in London. leaders also saw no function demonstrating my ideas because I were bad, were in fact good. Oh no. His best known work is the ‘The whatsoever for the religious believe that we cannot have such a This would mean adopting their Myth of the Lazy Native’ leaders in the development dialogue merely on a theoretical attitude and values in reverse. originally conceived in 1966 and programme. Development was plane. We have to demonstrate. That attitude according to me is after much research published in purely a matter of government You cannot, for instance, settle the the summit of captivity because 1977. His two contributions in planners and economists. The issue of beauty in a beauty contest this would demonstrate that they the International Social Science function of other groups in society (pardon me for using this example have conditioned you to react Journal on the captive mind in was not seen and not highlighted. because I am not in favour of exactly like them. The scholarship 1972 and 1974 were the only This is what I mean by imitation – beauty contests) by discussing the we have to develop is our own two offerings on the subject. The not only taking up certain ideas theory of beauty. You can settle the scholarship, with our own conceptualization of the captive and concepts introduced to us by contest by lining up the beautiful categories of analysis, giving a mind led to several books, the West but also, at the same contestants and declaring the different picture and dragging out among others, The Myth of the time, setting aside things which winner. So you have to put your what they tried to hide. In other Lazy Native, Intellectuals in are very important to the non- beliefs into practice in order to words, we have to offer a more Developing Societies and western world. convince people. complete and true picture, using Modernization and Social values which are truly universal Change in Southeast Asia. I have spent a lot of time in the Similarly, in the field of and truly moral. sixties on the theme of the captive research, there is only one way to 4
Another subject for study is to captivity is not an epiphenomenon trace the historical origin of the of colonialism, although it started captive mind. The origin of the with colonialism. captive mind is not parallel to colonialism. During the beginning However, now, this captivity of the colonial period there was no has become worse. It became much mental captivity. The phenomenon more intensive and much more of mental captivity arose more or widespread after independence, less in the nineteenth century, not when there was no more before that. Before the nineteenth colonialism. So the development of century there was no intensive the captive mind has nothing to do intellectual contact of the with its origin in colonialism. Now colonized with the colonial power we are politically free, yet we are and there was no attempt by the mentally enslaved. I believe that colonial government to even if we are economically indoctrinate at this level. In the dependent on the West, it does not beginning they were only mean that we must also be interested in making money. mentally dependent. For instance, people in the West know how to A very clear manifestation of assimilate certain things from the this phenomenon is in the history East, without becoming mentally S.M. Mohamed Idris inaugurates the ‘Redesign of Social Sciences’ interna- of British India. When the British dependent on the East. The very tional workshop organised by Multiversity at Penang. came to India in the latter part of fact that you are using something the eighteenth century, they had from another country does not I have spent eleven years in Not everyone in the West no vision of themselves as a mean you must be mentally Holland, as a student in the shares this opinion of research colonial power. They were traders. dependent. If you use Chinese University of Amsterdam. I being apolitical and neutral. There The Dutch took control of Java in chopsticks in America (USA has remember being continuously are undoubtedly people in the Indonesia in the eighteenth many Chinese restaurants and bombarded with the idea of West too who disagree with this century. It was only in the latter many Americans eat Chinese food) neutrality and the theory of amoral attitude of the part of the nineteenth century that it does not mean that Americans relativity in the social sciences. I functionaries. But they are in a there was intellectual discussion are conditioned to think like the resisted them from the beginning. minority. The majority follows this within the Dutch communities. Chinese! But in our part of the There is no such thing as trend and this morality has been Later, schools were started and world we are using a lot of western objectivity without morality. exported by them to our part of the they deliberately set up an goods and at the same time Research must be based on world. institution called Balai Pustaka to imbibing western ideas objectivity, but it cannot be unquestioningly. without morality. Take some recent examples Social scientists should not be from Malaysia. For years and victims of intrusion of their own years, we have been continuing subjective value judgement. with development, without However, after studying the investigating the kind of subject objectively, the question of development we need. We know morality comes in. that when a country develops, it must not avoid or neglect the Do we want crime to happen or agrarian structure. Europe, Japan not? Of course not. We study the and all the leading industrial problem of crime because we do countries were very careful to not want crime to develop. We preserve their agrarian structure want to find ways and means to and they developed their reduce criminality. industrial structure without harming the agrarian structure. The same thing is true for But we are developing our medical science. If a cancer expert industrial structure, without studies cancer cells objectively, i.e., paying any attention to the as they exist, and their influence agrarian structure. This is what I on the human body, he does not Ms Gloria Emeagwali, historian, USA, addresses the Penang group while mean by imitation thinking. bring his private bias into the Vimbai Chivaura and Kantibou Edjou look on. study of cancer. That is medical Now some of our scientists and translate European classics into science. But having done that he Note: has to ask himself the question - builders in the Third World are Indonesian. So the attempt to The detail transcripts of Prof. does he want to promote cancer? Is also adopting a similar attitude spread ideas in Indonesia started Alatas’ lecture, and of the the purpose of his science to and this is an other example of the around the beginning of the Multiversity I and II meetings can promote cancer? The answer is no. captive mind. The builders of twentieth century. Thus, in 350 be downloaded from the In that sense there is no science, atomic weapons in Asian countries years of the colonial period, it is multiversity website: whether social or physical or - I do not mention the countries only in the latter part of the www:multiworld.org. Multiversity I natural, without morality. but we all know who they are – nineteenth century that we see must be made aware of the intellectual exchange and conse- is also available in the form of a However, a certain trend has consequences of their research. quently intellectual captivity. This book. Multiversity II is due to be developed in the West to separate The builders of land mines must is an indication that intellectual published shortly. science from morality. The scien- know that they are maiming little tists say that morality is not their children because land mines are business. They only study a not being used in war against subject, that’s all. What happens soldiers, but in guerrilla warfare later with the research is not their against civilians. Villages are concern. That is the work of mined just to isolate them. This is politicians and the administrators. going on in Burma, in Afghanistan, That was the attitude of some in Africa. We all know how many scientists in connection with the children have been killed by land dropping of the atomic bomb on mines. But the scientists involved Japan in World War II. The in making the land mines feel that scientists claimed they were only this is not their business. It is the involved in physics and how to business of the politicians who are construct the bomb. How the bomb using the land mines. We should was used was not in their hands reject this kind of morality. This is and it was not their business, what I mean when I say that the implying thereby that they were Third World should adopt an indifferent to and unconnected independent attitude, and not be with the use of the bomb as an captive either to their scientific instrument of destruction. concepts or to their conception of Wasif Rizvi and Sheznaz Bano from Pakistan participated morality. enthusiasatically in the conference. The Multiworld Network’s Newsletter 5 ‘White Studies’ and the University in Ruins Should we vacate the space or continue to dwell in the ruins
By YUSEF PROGLER
In the current university system, quantity is more important than that journal were not writing only nationalists tried to wrestle from history and political science quality and that technique and as academics, they were also control of the state away from the to agriculture and health care, efficiency must govern all aspects of writing as activists. And so, like colonialists. But, the bad subjects Western knowledge is the only a desacralized life. Those seeking activists, although they can be cannot really change much, they knowledge. Cherokee scholar Ward guidance and prosperity through intellectually grounded, the main can just gain control, or they Churchill aptly dubbed this White Studies may find that the reason for putting forth the complain, or they argue, but they amalgam of Western theory and best they can attain is to keep their writing is a call to action. do not really get at the root of the method as “White Studies,” which traditions in private and let the It is not meant as an exercise problem, they do not alter the was his succinct way of identifying West do the rest in public. This is in polite conversation between terms of the discourse, and so they what might be more politely, but true for anyone attempting to live academics, but as a call to action, more or less perpetuate the same also more cumbersomely, referred within or revive any number of to do something. And so that is colonial system. to as a “Euro-American centric traditional cultures, since most of why it appears irreverent, too, But there is a third option, to knowledge system.” In any case, the world is firmly ensconced today because there is no need to join the continue with John Mohawk’s pursuing an education dominated in a system created and main- polite parlour games that most reasoning, and that is to become a by White Studies today means tained by the purveyors of White academics play to maintain their non-subject, to abandon the adhering to a set of theories and Studies. status. It identifies the problem, discourse completely, to “vacate practices that were developed with Ward Churchill observed that if succinctly and irreverently, as the space,” if you will, to give up Western modernity and spread by you look through university White Studies. on it. Now, granted, this third colonialism. catalogues you will find When faced with this regime of option is very difficult to pursue, In addition to evaluating the departments and programs in White Studies, one realizes that but it is none the less, at least in content of the contemporary African Studies, Native American both the subject and the object of my view, a viable option that ought academic disciplines, one would Studies, Latino Studies, Islamic study will occur through the lens to be pursued. …Maybe some have to consider the institutional Studies, South Asian Studies, and of what some have called the academics (need to become the structure of White Studies, which next Edward Said and work from has enabled higher education to within the university system) can normalize narrow forms of West- do that, but many of us cannot, ern knowledge. first of all. Second of all, and more Supposedly rooted in Western importantly, by staying the course civilization by way of the Seven and not vacating the space we are Greek Sciences, the Roman validating the system. We are in a Quadrivium and the sense paying allegiance by our Enlightenment’s Useful Arts, very participation, by publishing White Studies as presently in its journals, by teaching in its configured in most modern institutions, by sending our universities assumes that the best children to its schools, by seeking way to control thought is to make jobs and fame and fortune from sure that no one ever sees the big within this system, we are sup- picture. Compartmentalization porting it, perpetuating it. So, was perfected during the vacating the space is a way to force Manhattan Project, under the the system to fold in on itself, by direction of General Leslie R. removing the diversity that it needs Groves, who later admitted that in order to be a legitimate aca- his main achievement was to demic system. We have the power to compartmentalize, and thus Yusef Progler addresses the Penang group on the ruins of the present withhold that diversity, and to university system control, the scientific research for reveal the system for what it is, the atomic bomb. During the Cold a whole host of thematic and area Eurocentric worldview, to use a which is White Studies, for all to War, most universities in the West studies programs, except there is phrase that might be more polite. see. adopted this tactic. With the no White Studies. Why not? The All of the terms of reference, for Becoming a non-subject or rather limited “independence” of reason why, according to Churchill, ourselves as well as the world in vacating the space are not easy to all the formerly colonized nation is because all higher education is which we live, are through this do, and I am not saying that we all states, local universities adopted White Studies. Therefore, it is an lens of White Studies. have to do that, and I will not or continued the unnamed yet ubiquitous presence, So, if we are all subject to the chastise anybody for not doing compartmentalized structure of and it is implicit in the entire discourse of White Studies as we that, but what I am saying is that White Studies as their guiding and system. Even in those ethnic dwell in higher education, we do they can and should be possible normative mode of thought and studies programs can be found this not have many choices. John choices. After all, this is a call to action. dominant way of viewing the Mohawk, a Native American action, to return to Ward Church- Graduates with a degree in a world, which Churchill calls scholar, said that there are ill’s discussion of White Studies, White Studies academic discipline succinctly, in the Native American basically three options for and so it is not just an analysis. often use their limited sense of tradition of parsimonious speech, colonized peoples, in terms of What kind of action? I believe empowerment to reproduce White Studies, which also appears, subjecthood to a colonial discourse. that we all recognize something is Western modernity, sometimes perhaps intentionally, polemical The first response is to become a amiss in the university system, finding solace in the pious fraud and irreverent. His view of White good subject. A good subject means something is amiss with social that Western knowledge is the Studies has been motivating the that you play by all the rules, you science curricula. So, if there is sum total of human knowledge, or work for the past two years of the treat it with respect and reverence, something amiss, then what is that since Asians and Africans Multiworld Network and the and you do what you are supposed amiss and what do we want to do may have had a hand in develop- Multiversity Group, but it also set to do, you work within the about it? It is not as if we, or Ward ing these sciences centuries ago me on a path towards critical self- hierarchy, you follow all the Churchill or any one else, has they should continue to be en- discovery, and toward discovering parameters, procedures and suddenly discovered this problem. slaved by them now in their indigenous perspectives on protocols of the system, and you It has been happening, the system modern transmogrified forms. Western modernity. are a good subject. The second itself has now even recognized its The resulting pathological However, I am resisting the response is to become a bad own faults, its own uncertainties, condition, often referred to as being urge to evaluate Churchill’s article subject. its own contradictions, which “educated,” means that one takes as a definitive statement on A bad subject means that you means, in my mind, that this is an Western science as the arbiter of education and imperialism, or to do not really question the ideal time to act. There is a truth, even in matters of religion. It judge it as a theoretically rigorous foundations of the system, of the window of opportunity emerging means that in order to think one response to other academics who discourse, but you merely engage from Western uncertainty, and this must do so through the lens of the have written on the same topic. To in quibbling over its details, uncertainty has also been modern disciplines. It means that me, it has very little to do with arguing and perhaps even trying elucidated from within. unlimited technological progress engaging in academic discourse. In to wrestle some control away of the and economic growth are the keys fact, Ward Churchill and the other discourse from those who to human happiness. It means that Native Americans who I read in established it, much the way 6
Multiversity: Work in progress Multiversity Conferences 2007 A recent posting from the MSN Radical Politics and the Knowledge Multiversity Group Dialogue initiated by Sunil Sahasrabudhey aims to take the Since January 2007, week long Greetings one and all, we just completed a knowledge debate to the people. Multiversity Conferences are being held at new update to the group, primarily the Goa. These take place every month and are uploading of over fifty readings on a wide An excerpt from the current dialogue: currently focused on the development of variety of topics. You can find them in the ‘What are the sources of strength of the social science curricula. However, the Documents section, loosely organized into people in the Age of Information, discussions meander through very many the three main categories of Occidental Globalisation and the New Empire? This is other interesting areas. Food and bedding Studies, Indigenous Knowledge and the same as asking what ways are open to for outsiders are provided at the Schooling and Education. Here’s a small the people to effectively deal with the Multiversity office. There is a possibility of sample of some of the titles: powers of knowledge management, global long walks with Vishram Gupte which markets and the American wars. Does • Anibal Quijano, Coloniality of Power, could be enlightening. Enlightenment is knowledge in society constitute the Eurocentrism and Latin America possible in the Multiversity kitchen as well ultimate source of value and strength of as the guests can witness the daily • Fernando Tola, Philosophy of Mind in the the people in their struggle for innovations of Gautham Sarang, the Yogacara Buddhist Idealistic School emancipation?’ resident professor on many issues. He Sounds interesting? Join the debate at • Ali Shariati, Civilization and never went to school, hence his expertise is the website http://www.vidyaashram.org/ his experience and guaranteed original. Modernization Finally, a team has started to work • Wendy Brady, Indigenous Australian The Gap Year College starts this seriously on redesigning the social sciences Education and Globalization summer at Kempty, Mussoorie, India. curricula for the universities. Recently, we Can work be a motivation in itself? brought psychologist Sudhir Kakar into • Arun Agrawal, Indigenous Knowledge our scheme of concerns. In fact, there is and the Politics of Classification What should be the parameters for choosing my career… Money? Fame? much to report this time around. • Shikshantar, Healing Ourselves from the The Multiversity II Conference at Diploma Disease Do I want to compete or relate? Penang, which highlighted the continuing Who decides for me – the trend, marks, destructive impact of Eurocentrism on our • Seyyed Hossein Alatas, The Development parents or myself? of an Autonomous Social Science Tradition academic world, brought together What are the options for my future? individuals willing to work on redesign of in Asia: Problems and Prospects Do I study only for marks; or for the joy of social science curricula in specific areas • Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss knowing? including philosophy, psychology, sociology, And Recovery Of Self Under Colonialism political science and economics. Watch the Have I ever really explored my self? multiversity website for more • Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Occidentosis: A Plague In today’s society, education has been developments on this initiative. From the West reduced to competing for the highest A new on-line discussion group too has That’s just a small sample, there are marks and gaining entry into top universi- been setup for Multiversity. Please enroll many more, so please stop by the group if ties. The decision about one’s future and yourself if you would like to participate on you feel like doing some reading. We also one’s career has been reduced to whatever any of these discussions, you can subscribe added a small video clip, Gandhi on the happens to be the trend at that time and to to the group directly by looking up our Seven Deadly Social Sins, but due to whatever one expects will bring money and website (www.multiworld.org) and not wait upload restrictions on the site the available respect. As a result, the pressure on for us to send an invitation. We know many content is limited. However, now with the students has become overwhelming, with of you with much wisdom keep changing relatively easy availability of online no time and space to actually discover your email addresses and mobile phone streaming video sites, we plan to link to themselves and what lifestyle and work numbers so as to escape from being some content on those sites. More about will truly bring them happiness. The idea watched, wise move. Keep us informed this later... that the work they do could actually be a source of happiness and meaningfulness when you do that so that our contact list is Finally, we cleaned up the group a bit, has often been lost. kept updated, you never know we may especially removing the News section, have tips on your watchers! which contained mostly outdated links to The Gap Year College is an attempt to It is inevitable that sooner or later the streaming news stories. Nowadays, of create spaces and opportunities that fill world moves towards the Multiversity way. course, there are too many sites from that void by guiding students on how to Who wants a homogenous civilization which one can read the news, in all think, not what to think. made in the sole image of western man? flavours. Asia Times Online This is an attempt of SIDH, Mussoorie. To find more, write to the multiversity (www.atimes.com) is worth a look, for More about this initiative at: group at: example, but everyone likely has their own http://www.sidhsri.com/gyc/ [email protected] news preference. Hope you find this update, and the group itself, useful. If you do, please consider inviting friends and colleagues to join. That’s it for now, enjoy learning, with very best wishes to all.
The age of colonialism may be over, but not that of neo-colonial unique native spiritual, cultural and intellectual resources that, even captive minds in India as elsewhere in the former colonial territories. if not altogether annulled, were rendered more or less otiose. Nations struggled for and won political liberation from imperialist And it was precisely from the corridors of domestic academia that thralldom. But their tertiary institutions of higher learning hardly ever the dangerous and divisive infection of captive minds spreads to all (with rare indigenous exceptions) displayed any compelling urge to fields of the public life of a once subject nation.’ free themselves from the restrictive, euro centric disciplinary para- From: ‘Neo-Colonial Captive Minds’ by Devan Nair, digms inherited from western universities, or to delve into their own former President of Singapore. The Multiworld Network’s Newsletter 7
Interviewing Sudhir Kakar on redesign of Multiversitylibrary.com: psychology courses Cleaning the world 2854 times The Multiversity Library was started with the objective of providing free access to good literature from third world country scholars to a global audience. The on-line library provides a collection of choicest books guaranteed to raise some questions in the reader’s mind. The free downloads of the books available at the Multiversity Library website commenced in June 2004. Between then and now, i.e., February 2007, there have been in all 2854 book downloads from the site which is quite a record, as it works out to an average of over three books being downloaded daily. Sudhir Kakar (r) with Vishram Gupte of Multiversity at the former’s residence in Goa The most popular downloads Our in-house or resident philosopher, Kakar is therefore a quintessential include Dharampal, Claude Vishram Gupte, reports: Multiversity phenomenon. Alvares, Ashis Nandy, Ngugi wa Dr. Sudhir Kakar is an Indian psychologist Few people know that Kakar and his T’hiong’o, Ziauddin Sardar. and psychoanalyst who has more than a wife have settled down permanently in Recently, on the sad demise of dozen books to his name. He is loved in Goa! Claude Alvares, Sheela (my wife) and India and abroad for his original and I decided to interview him on multiversity Dr Seyyed Hossein Alatas, we have insightful understanding of the social and themes, especially on the subject of why added The Captive Mind and The cultural psychology of Indians. He is also a India does not teach its sons and daughters Myth of the Lazy Native to the list major exponent of the nature of the ‘Indian ‘Indian psychology’ when there is so much of books available. We have also Psyche’ and has developed a culture- of it and why do we continue with slavish posted the first real work of reverse sensitive interpretation of the subject. import of texts and concepts from anthropology in recent times: The Originally trained as a mechanical American universities. Kakar agreed that Danes are Like That? The engineer, Kakar found himself forced to the time had arrived to change things but Multiversity Library is cleaning up study economics for another five years did not envisage change in his own the world in its own way!!! before he decided to listen to his heart and lifetime. (The full transcript of the become a novelist and a successful interview with him will soon be posted on psychoanalyst. the Multiversity website.)
Introducing new friends to Multiversity Who was telling us the other day that the Muslim community insists on remaining backward? These people are already far ahead of their time. Mid-February 2007, I was invited to address meetings organized by the Solidarity Youth Movement of Kerala and the Jamaat-e- Claude Alvares Islami at Calicut, two organizations that appear to subscribe almost wholly to Multiversity goals. Teaching philosophy in Africa The marshalling skills of these two bodies (the SYM is a student wing of the Jamaat) were clearly impressive to behold. A Check out this paper by Mesembe Itaedet talking the MV well-disciplined force of 1000 people assembled at Allepey and language in Africa: ‘A paper on the teaching of Western more than 50,000 on the Calicut beach (in the same city where philosophy in African Universities.’ Mesembe is a Lecturer, Dharampal, Mohamed Idris and I had assembled in 1998 with Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Calabar, several hundred others to protest and successfully prevent the Nigeria. Portuguese proposals to celebrate 500 years of Vasco da Gama). More than 60% of the participants at the meeting were women! ‘The aim of this paper is to question the approach to teaching western philosophy in African universities. In the light The SYM has rapidly expanded its influence over Kerala’s of the results of recent research efforts of African scholars it has youth during the last two years. The movement defines its become known that the philosophical postulations of the likes coordinates differently: it challenges students to re-think their of Aristotle, Bentham, Hegel and Nietzsche provided the logic role in education and to get back to being of some use to society that inspired and justified colonization and slavery in Africa. It instead of being parasites or burdens. It is therefore extremely has also been affirmed that Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Hume and keen to link up with Multiversity. Hegel were pure and absolute racists; yet in teaching their The Jamaat is an unusual organization itself. It was founded philosophies in African universities, we treat them with so by Sayyid Maududi, who once declared that all colleges and much prestige and respect. The paper contends that in teaching universities are nothing but modern day slaughter-houses. The western philosophy in African universities, the paucity of Jamat’s literature is mostly in Malayalam and continuously political content is obvious. Consequently, the paper calls for a challenges the violence of Western civilization in all its forms. radical overhaul of the whole epistemological paradigm They have a number of mass circulation magazines and videos. underlying the current educational system based on an African centred curriculum anchored on a critique of Eurocentrism.’ We During the events, I also met six students from the Wayanad welcome Africa to the Multiversity revolution. Muslim Orphanage. Bright guys. They told me that they were required by their curriculum to spend half their time outside The article is available at the website http://www.frasouzu.com/ school walls, meeting, discussing and learning from guys like me. Vishram Gupte 8
Harnessing Gandhi as a beacon for the new Dharampal universities of India 1922-2006 By Dharampal
Multiversity will sorely miss one of its most important There have been rumours that scholarly exchanges with other Sevagram might be turned into civilisations. counsellors and guides. Dharampal’s work – which a university. That is a good idea. upturned many hoary perceptions of Indian society In recent years it has been the However just one university is not enough. If we are serious propagated by British colonial historians and their trend to set up chairs, departments, etc. on Gandhian in wanting to acknowledge and Indian spawn – will inspire generations. He was a mem- thought in certain universities. preserve Gandhiji’s memory, ber of Multiversity’s advisory council. A few institutes of study and there must be not one but research in the name of Ma- several universities in his name. hatma Gandhi have also been Gandhiji gave us the vision to set up. Even assuming that enable us to live our lives these have functioned well distinctly different from the under the rules that govern Western way of life. Gandhiji them and the environment in believed that it is only within which they are located, it is the framework of Indian doubtful whether they could tradition and culture that it was have escaped the intellectual possible to create the socioeco- sterility that surrounds them. nomic systems necessary to Their contribution could only be realise the vision of a clean and meagre even under the best of equitable society. He spent his circumstances. What is actually entire life attempting to design required is to analyse the systems that would be appropri- thought, approach and words of ate to the vision of Indian Gandhiji and incorporate them sanatana thought in contempo- within the curriculum of most rary times. It is true that he was academic disciplines in the not able to fill in all the detailed humanities as well as in the outlines of these systems. But sciences. Sadly this has so far his vision was so powerful he not been attempted. was able to infuse new spirit into the public life of India. It is Perhaps it was not easy to the power of that dream that initiate this process till the filled the people with so much Collected Works were available. confidence that they were Dharampal: a few months before he expired at Sewagram, the ashram with Now that they are, it becomes successfully able to end British which Mahatma Gandhi was closely associated for several years. the responsibility of the Indian colonial rule. academic fraternity to give Mahatma Gandhi in its teaching Gandhiji completed his work Born in 1922, Dharampal had before moving to London again. and research programmes the by ensuring that India became his first glimpse of Mahatma same attention that it does to independent. It is our task now Gandhi around the age of eight. He was back in Delhi again western philosophers, theorists, to raise the structures of appro- Though he underwent western from early 1958 to 1964. He now philosophers of science, political priate systems in order to education and college, he started took up the post of General scientists, psychologists, realise his dream. Gandhian moving towards the swaraj Secretary of the Association of economists, etc. It is possible universities would be able to option of Gandhiji and in 1940 Voluntary Agencies for Rural that the ideas of Mahatma give a concrete shape to started wearing khadi – a Development (AVARD). For Gandhi may not be able to Gandhiji’s dream by concentrat- practice he followed all his life. about two years, he also was the withstand the strain of modern ing on the culture and traditions In 1942, he was present as a Director of Research of All India academic scrutiny. But Gandhiji of this country and also by fervent spectator at the Quit Panchayat Parishad and spent stood for truth all his life. If by focussing on acquiring deeper India Session of the Congress in more than a year in Tamilnadu scrutiny of his life one were able knowledge of our neighbours in Bombay and he thereafter joined collecting material that was to establish that the truth value the east and the west, including the Movement. He was active in later published as the ‘Madras of what he said and did had only the countries of Africa. Gandhiji it till arrested in April 1943. Panchayat System.’ an ephemeral quality and even knew that a lot of thinkers and After two months in police Earlier, in 1962, he had less permanence, one would doers would be needed to detention, he was released but already published a smaller serve not only truth but establish the infrastructure for banned from Delhi. In August book containing the proceedings Gandhiji as well. A beginning in the promotion of his ideas. 1944, he was introduced to of the Indian Constituent this direction would Gandhiji had even advised the Mirabehn by his friends. He Assembly relating to the discus- automatically lead us to the Gandhi Seva Sangh to work as a joined her soon thereafter, at sion on the subject of ‘The exploration of the roots of postgraduate study centre. Now what came to be known as the Panchayat as a Basis of India’s Gandhiji’s approach and ideas. we can make his wishes come Kisan Ashram, situated midway Polity.’ From Madras he had to It would then only be a matter true by establishing several between Roorkee and Haridwar. move to London in early 1966 of time before Indian academics such universities. (Oct.2, 1986) He was closely associated with for family reasons. acquired an indigenous base her work from then onwards (From: Understanding Gandhi, strong and secure enough to and met her in the last two By then he was also keen on by Dharampal, OIP) enter into mutually beneficial weeks before her death in 1982. a detailed study of the Indo- British encounter during the In 1947–48, he had come in 18th to 19th centuries. This close contact with Kamaladevi time he stayed on in London till would have the copied notes Download Dharampal’s Chattopadhyaya, Dr. Ram 1982, but visited India in be- typed. He thus retrieved and Collected Writings in five Manohar Lohia and with numer- tween. In England, he did not accumulated thousands of pages volumes from the ous younger friends in Delhi and have much of an income. There of information from the archival multiversity library: was involved with the relief was also a family to support. record. When he returned to www.multiver- efforts for those displaced by India, these notes – which filled sitylibrary.com partition. He was a member of But notwithstanding all this, several large trunks and suit- the Indian Cooperative Union he became a regular visitor to cases – proved to be his most There is also now a site which was founded in 1948. The the India Office and the British prized possessions. dedicated exclusively to following year while in England, Museum and spent most of his Dharampal and his work: he got married to Phyllis who time pouring over the archives. They would become the basis www.dharampal.net. was English. Afterwards, they Photocopying required money. of much of his writing and would both decided to live in India. In Oftentimes, old manuscripts later be brought together in the 1950, the community village of could not be photocopied. So, he 5-volume Collected Writings. Bapugram near Rishikesh copied them in long hand, page Rarely has a single individual began to be formed. Dharampal after page, millions of words, done so much to change the face and Phyllis lived in it till 1953 day after day. Thereafter, he of Indian history and the percep- tions of Indians about their past. The Multiworld Network’s Newsletter 9
FREEING CHILDREN FROM THE TYRANNY OF SCHOOLS
A curriculum for farmers’ children
Do children of farmers need There is no child we know have themselves kept their separate schools? that was not interested in children out of school, and A very interesting question animals or worms or things asked it to create a fresh On Children to ask, but the answers are not that move. curriculum of studies that will And a woman who held a that clear. Yet we will try to ensure not only generate intense love It is a fact of life today that that when we are ‘educating’ for the land and agriculture babe against her bosom said, farming is a despised them, the knowledge we impart among rural children, but also ‘Speak to us of Children.’ profession, considered fit only is dry, sterile, lifeless, enable them to deal successfully And he said: for people with no education. theoretical, bookish and really with the modern world and its Or for persons unable to make of very little use for earning a demands including certification Your children are not your the grade to qualify for living. In fact, we are all in at high school and graduate children. engineering or medicine or agreement that if a person goes levels, if and when desired by computers. Doing agriculture is to school, he/she develops the the student concerned. They are the sons and considered a boring or low- most atrocious value system, daughters of Life’s longing The workgroup on grade activity. The central becomes generally a parasite, for itself. message of today’s greatly dependent on the rest of the curriculum design for rural distorted system of education is world to survive. children is constituted as under: They come through you but that agriculture is meant for The people who face this • Gopalkrishnan and not from you, persons who are failures in dilemma most cruelly are Vijayaleksmi Sarang, Kerala And though they are with some profound manner. Or for organic farmers. By nature and (coordinators) those who did not go to school. practice, every organic farmer • Ms Mona Patrao, Redstone you, yet they belong not to It’s crazy but true that the is a creative individual. There Farm, Maharashtra you. people who produce the rice or was no one from university to • Ms Juli Cariappa, Karnataka You may give them your love wheat and vegetables that go teach him/her because • Raghu babu, Andhra but not your thoughts. twice (sometimes thrice) a day university folk are all steeped Pradesh into our bellies we consider in the use of chemicals, which • K.B.Jinan, Kerala uneducated! Or untrained! Or organic farmers avoid like the For they have their own • Dhirendra Soneji, Gujarat thoughts. plain stupid! plague. So each organic farmer • Ali Manikfan, Tamilnadu Will this ever change? What learnt the methods useful on • Ms M. Revati, Tamilnadu You may house their bodies are the chances it will? his/her farm themselves. • Ms Meenakshi, Tamilnadu but not their souls, Why do children of farmers The children of organic • Dr L.S. Saraswati, Chennai, go to urban-oriented schools in Tamilnadu For their souls dwell in the which the curriculum farmers have therefore become an urgent focus of work at • Shivaji Kaganekar, Belgaum, house of tomorrow, which practically bans all talk of soil, Karnataka you cannot visit, not even in land, crops? Why don’t children Taleemnet. • Arvind Gupta, Maharashtra your dreams. of the urban classes get any This in a country where training in growing their own agriculture was a great tradi- This is a great group, with You may strive to be like food? tion and so sustainably prac- vastly experienced and commit- them, but seek not to make Medicine deals with people ted individuals, most of whom tised it lasted several millenia them like you. who are suffering or ill. without harming the soil or the have themselves kept their Engineering, as we know it, is life in it. children out of schools because For life goes not backward often completely contrary to of the way in which these nor tarries with yesterday. living systems. Computers? Touched by the demand of institutions distort young Well, ever heard of a computer organic farmers that something minds. You are the bows from which that could grow a crop of rice? be done about this alarming your children as living arrows Gopalkrishnan and Agriculture deals with life, situation, Taleemnet, the are sent forth. with living things. It deals with Natural Farming Institute and Vijayaleksmi Sarang have living soils, microbes, insects, the Organic Farming taken their work seriously. They The archer sees the mark have, with the assistance of plants, seeds, soil fauna Association of India (OFAI) upon the path of the infinite, OFAI, travelled to several including termites, initiated a workgroup of organic and He bends you with His earthworms, snakes, frogs, a farmers led by persons who institutions dealing with rural education, including alternative might that His arrows may go whole community of living swift and far. things. schools and held many So how come most of our discussions. They have now Let your bending in the Important note: generated a report which has children are actually put into archer’s hand be for been sent to over a hundred schools where they see no life? The materials referred to individuals concerned with the gladness; The only time they encounter in this section can be life is when they reach a problem. The report is also For even as he loves the downloaded from posted on the NFI website (a science class and are asked to www.multiversitylibrary.com. arrow that flies, so He loves kill frogs or dissect cockroaches. constituent of the One can also access them also the bow that is stable. They are asked to sit for www.multiworld.org website). at www.unesco.org/educa- fourteen years on hard wooden tion/literacy. ‘Vernacular Those who would like to be From The Prophet benches made from the flesh of kept abreast of this work should educators,’ ‘...For they have by Khalil Gibran once living trees, now dead email or write Taleemnet at the their own thoughts’ and wood. They read their text from Goa office. If they are keen to pages also made from dead ‘Multiversity’ are books attend the workshop (most trees or bamboo. All living that can also be ordered at likely scheduled for July 2007 creatures really are banished modest prices from Other in Tamilnadu), they should from normal classrooms, urban India Bookstore, Next to inform the office about that as or rural. New Mapusa Clinic, well. Mapusa 403 507 Goa, India 10
Alt-Ed-India--Taleemnet Postal Learning Source Book project Samdhong Rinpoche brings Resource and Library of Other India Press changes to Tibetan education The tribe of home educators and self The Learning Source Book is being Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche, the austere but learners has seen a steady growth in India envisaged as a resource book to assist blunt speaking Buddhist monk who has in recent times. The inadequacy of the parents and the educator community to find been re-elected for a second term (by direct school system and substandard, solutions to the predicament faced by most vote) as the Prime Minister of Tibet’s uninspiring curricula have both driven with regards to educating children, It is Government in Exile, has been making parents to take the plunge of taking the hoped that the readers will find answers dedicated attempts to re-orient the education of their children in their own and gain the strength to chart a path that thinking and practice behind Tibetan hands. The children at Gurukula will ultimately help children work towards schooling. Ahmedabad are all school walkouts their own aspirations and dreams. pursuing their own individual interests in Prof. Rinpoche, who is one of Towards understanding this, in 2003 Multiversity’s Advisory Council members, depth. Oovi of Red Stone Farm, Panchgani, and 2004 the Taleemnet team undertook and Shivram Narayanan of Vasco, (featured has been inviting Multiversity people like long journeys through parts of India Claude Alvares and Ramu Manivannam for in Kamiriithu issues I and III) are self meeting people, visiting schools/centers, learners pursuing their interests in weeklong discussions with their teachers interviewing several educators, parents, and principals, with a view to encouraging teaching, and origami and music home learners, non schoolers, walkouts. In respectively. Gauri of Calicut got wise very dramatic reform of the existing Tibetan 2005 we organized a meeting of path educational system. young and refused to continue with school breaking educators working within after class I. Her younger sister Dhani has communities and in 2006 published the In line with the new policies adopted by not shown any curiosity to see what the learning wisdom of twelve vernacular the Tibetan Parliament, the education inside of a school looks like. Sakhi, 13, from educators (both report and book are department has opened models schools Nasik has taken a break from school this available from OIB and at the taleemnet where many of the more liberalised year to explore her own interests. section in our website as downloads methods of assisting children learn are It is apparent form these instances that www.multiworld.org/taleemnet). being used. The model school has been set children are exploring their own ways of This process of learning for ourselves up to follow the principles of natural learning. Millions yet are trying to ride two has brought to light the fact that people of learning. boats. They go through Herculean tasks everyday of attending a full fledged day India have truly moved away from The Tibetans have also become avid school and pursue their interest in art, depending on the Govt. and the viewers of the spate of nai-taleem films music, dance, theatre thereafter till late organized institutions and have taken that are now stocked in the film libraries of hours at night. There are on the other the responsibility of educating their Shikshantar and Taleemnet (see story below). The administration finds that these hand youngsters, especially sports children in their own hands (even enthusiasts, who register with a school but films are extremely useful in introducing though in most cases they may still new ideas of what the schools of the future are traveling through most of the year continue to send their children to school). participating in various tournaments. should be to their present groups of Since most seasons end in January, they From the remotest of villages to the teachers, old and new. spend the two months of February and largest metropolis, learning has moved to March on academics and sail through the spaces outside the mainstream school, be it end of year examinations brilliantly. the popular neighborhood teacher or the carefully designed and professionally Films for those who want a Support for home educating parents handled tuition, art, music, craft centres or different kind of school (mostly in India) is available on the the final blow coming in from the fast internet at http://www.alternativeedu- growing community of home educators, post Shikshantar and Taleemnet have a ready cationindia.net. Clive Elwell, who taught school and gap year programmes. stock of films on alternative schools and for a time at Blue Mountains School, Ooty alternative learning institutions and and CFL, Bangalore is the moderator of the In this background, Taleemnet has now practices. These are available for public mailing and discussion group, alt-ed- recommenced work on publishing ‘A viewing, as part of education programmes [email protected]. The site and group Learning Source book’, which will be a or for conventional schools who wish to are primarily for parents of home learners hand book on learning experiences and introduce more humane and productive in India, but others interested in learning resources available for parents learning methods in their institutions. meaningful education and alternatives are and educators. More details on this project, also part of the group. The site has quite a write to [email protected] The Nai Taleem Film Festival 2006– lot of information about alternative 2007 has been put together to inspire a education and schools in India. So if you are larger vision of learning that includes an undecided parent, a home educator or dignity, imagination, healthy community just keen to learn yourself, this is a good Some interesting websites and deep wisdom for today’s world. site to visit and an excellent mailing group Although discussions on ‘quality education’ to join. and weblinks are taking place in many corners of the world, for the most part children and Alt-Ed-India and Taleemnet are jointly Here is a list of web links that will be families remain trapped in consumeristic offering a facility of postal library service and indoctrinating frameworks of factory- for parents of home schoolers interested in of interest to home-educators, schooling. We are told over and over again using David Horsburgh’s books some of teachers, schools and institutions that there are no alternatives. which are out of print and others difficult to working with children: obtain in the open market. This is operated This film festival hopes to elevate from the Taleemnet office at Goa, which is conversations on human learning by part of the Multiversity project. 1. Learning Network, India: remembering nai taleem. It seeks to bring Membership of the library is Rs 300/- www.learningnet-india.org insights and practical experiments back and a postal service advance of Rs.300/- is into our conscious minds and everyday collected along with the membership. The 2. Educare: www.swaraj.org/ conversations. The collection of films (over library works as follows: Rs.300/- is the shikshantar/newresources.html 12 hours) brings forth different spaces, non-refundable deposit. The service processes and experiments of deep learning advance is credited to your name and used 3. Home learning: happening in all parts of the world. towards xerox and postage of books you www.alternativeeducationindia.net wish to receive. You may receive books The collection includes feature films worth Rs. 300/ in photocopy costs and 4. Books for children: (such as Children of Heaven and Rabbit- Proof Fence), independent shorts and postage. For more books the service www.vivekafoundation.org advance would have to be re-remitted. documentary films (on experiments such as Kanavu and Democratic Schools). The postal library has been started with 5. Learning Resources: books contributed by Clive Elwell, Neti www.fingertips.sutradhar.org The Nai Taleem Film Festival invites Shrinivasan and the Taleemnet team. people of all ages come together, to consider 6. Journal of the Krishnamurti The postal library leaves its doors open anew who we are, how we learn best, what to membership. Also, anyone on a visit to Schools: www.journal.kfionline.org kind of society we seek, and what future we Goa is most welcome to visit the office and hope for. It has been already hosted in 30 browse through our resource centre. 7. Education across the border: different communities around India, and www.sef.org.pk another 10 around the world (in halls, For details, contact Taleemnet or Alt-Ed community centers, offices and living India (http://www.alternativeeducation 8. Gobartimes: www.gobartimes.org/ rooms). Write to Shikshantar for a set of india.net/). Visit the Taleemnet online at films from the 2006-2007 Festival or for the www.multiworld.org/taleemnet for more latest word on the upcoming 2007-2008 details and periodic updates. Festival
a broad non-sectarian and Shivaji Kaganikar spiritual sense. My people are herdsmen We try to cultivate a sense of engaged in sheep rearing. We wonder, an appreciation of the are poor with negligible literacy beautiful and the healthy. At levels. Thanks to my parents I the same time, we actively was destined to have an cultivate cooperation, sharing education at the local village and respect for the other and school. towards nature and material I wished to train to be a things, to foster a just and primary or middle school balanced way of life. teacher. However this would be Jane suggests that it is relevant only if there were difficult to prescribe a definitive schools. In the remote areas of method or a set of methods for the country and around my alternative education. If town there were no schools at education is to be vital and all. What good would my meaningful it has to be organic, training be as teacher, if there and open to change. The basis is were no schools? The situation not so much a prescribed looked so hopeless that I Children of Sarang find a natural classroom for their fantasies method but a relationship, decided to go my own way. where individuals can I chose a village with no constantly respond to literates and decided to live and themselves, to others and to work among its people. I had their environment. Each child is the support of people involved so specific and unique that we in the Sarvodaya movement and have to evolve ways to deal in my own village there lived a with each one of them. Gandhian freedom fighter, Shri Sadashiv Rao Bhosle, an ex- Lila ‘Tai’ Patil, Srujan MLA who had started work in about 35 schools and was a Anand Vidyalaya, tremendous support for my Kolhapur aspirations. A teacher to the core, Lila Patil I was also associated with has been forging boldly ahead Jana Jagaran, a local mission- with her experiments in ary group. In ten years, Jana primary education. Lila is Jagaran had started night unique in many ways. Her schools in thirty-five villages teaching methods, her and was able to achieve 40% convictions, her insights, her literacy. One question however rapport with the students and kept playing in my mind: how Vidya Patwardhan (Aksharnandan) with Rama (Vidyodaya) her faith in education as a would this work of literacy help means of social transformation uplift the social status of these is plain to see as one gets villages. How would this work acquainted with her work. bring about positive changes in this society? While working in She has been meticulously these areas I gained valuable documenting her experiments in insight into how the education primary education in Marathi, system works. her native language and the language of her students. She is My interactions with chil- an acclaimed writer in Marathi dren gradually revealed to me and has penned more than that school and education per se dozen books, all devoted to her were grossly overrated and in favorite theme: primary fact inadequate to deal with the education. Writes Lilatai: realities of life. Even if there are government schools, teachers, ‘Children learn in the mother and children go to school, there tongue because language is an is no learning of any conse- indication of freedom, thought quence happening in the school. and expression. If one loses one’s language, in a way freedom is For example, I decided to lost. start teaching math to some of the children of standard eighth, ‘In education circles everybody Kanavu pioneers, K.J. Baby and Shirley at their unusual learning centre talks about motivating the child. ninth and tenth. I would choose for the tribal children of Wynad What does this mean? – Does it a village and visit it twice a mean: to encourage, to stimulate? week to teach math. The were not interested to solve it Some one said that one should situation was such that even if themselves but wanted to be Jane Sahi, Sita School, allow the world to enter the the boys were in standard eight spoon-fed with ready-made classroom and the child would we would have to begin with Bengaluru solutions. It was this kind of learn on its own. simple addition, subtraction, indifference to learning on the Says Jane: At Sita School we try multiplication and division and ‘We noticed children are by part of children themselves that to create an environment which only then move forward. I nature creative intellectually, made me conclude that learning stimulates the child not just thought to give them a good reflective and responsive to the in Indian villages should be a intellectually, but also grounding in math. But with outside world. It looks like self-initiated, self-motivated emotionally, creatively and time, even this exercise began schools are meant to kill all these endeavour. socially. to fail. The children would come and shut off this natural inclina- to me and ask for the math We try to draw on the feeling tion.’ problems to be solved. They and imagination of the child in The Multiworld Network’s Newsletter 13
K J Baby and Shirley, Kanavu, Kerala K.B. Kulkarni, The line between fact and Chitramandir fiction is hazy for K.J. Baby who ‘KB Sir,’ as he was fondly first dreamt his ideal world, known, passed away at 87, then fictionalized it in a novel on March 11, 2007 at and later made the dream Belgaum. KB was honoured possible in real life. with the Sahitya Academy Kanavu, meaning ‘dream’, is award in 1974. His best a self-sustaining, self-sufficient contribution is the tribal commune initiated by K J generation of artists, Baby and his wife Shirley in a writers and poets he village named Nadavayal in inspired in Karnataka, Wayanad District, Kerala. Maharashtra and Goa during the sixty odd years The resident commune that he left the doors of comprises about 50 persons. Chitramandir open to children, teachers, elders and artistic, intellectual, young growing families living Learning within the bosom of nature with Jane Sahi scientific, logical and on the banks of Narasipuzha. philosophic dialogue. Nehru centre, Mumbai held a week Firmly believing that mod- long exhibition of his work ern education would in no way emancipate the tribals, Baby in January this year. and Shirley made no attempt to He wrote: ‘Art is like a persuade the tribal children to language; it must be learnt go to school, but gave them before composing a poem in Kanavu – their own milieu to that language. But in art grow, learn and relate. schools in India today, they are teaching the students to Gopalkrishnan and compose poetry without Vijayaleksmi knowing the language.…the Sarang, main obstacle to art Kerala education, or for that matter to any kind of education is Vijayalekshmi: Instead of that teachers try to teach educating their own children, pupils what they think is parents today invest and right or wrong. In the depend on outside agencies like existing pattern of schools for their children’s education, children are not education. It is not then Shivaji Kaganikar in a discussion with Dileep Kamat, his close associate allowed to think for surprising that criminals have themselves. university degrees! Most people in many of the experiments in rural learning who occupy public office have Discipline is not separate criminal and corrupt from one’s personality and connections. If these are our this must slowly be made to representatives, it speaks for grow into you so that yoga, the larger society. Even noble a phase of deep involved professions like medicine and activity, develops. It is a judiciary today operate on kind of meditation, where kickbacks. the artist and the work become one. They are no Gopalakrishnan: School is longer separate entities. where children learn to lie, This period is important, as compete and copy and this is it is a phase of high carried on manifold into adult productivity when the life. Only a minority is living a waves on the mind become life of values, but the vast silent and only the work/ majority is pushing one another the art/the creation to indulge in nefarious and remains. This gives undesirable activities. happiness. Education and If we take a particle of water, learning must be a thing of it should show the quality and happiness. nature of water. Similarly, even the smallest units of society The Vidyodaya school nurtured by Ram and Rama gathers for its assem- should be democratic in nature. bly. Families are the micro particles So the curriculum should ‘Vikasana is the result of my of society. The offices and institu- include everything related with teacher training experience Vidyodaya, Gudalur tions are the molecules. So real life. That is the kind of school with David Horsburgh. David When we had only our two democracy should start from the and curriculum we have in mind. family and classrooms. Other- started training teachers in children to educate, lessons. on 1975. I was one of them. The wise, even after another thousand The Sarang’s are online at some days meant reading a purpose of the training was to years we will not be a truly www.saranghills.org story at bed time, writing and democratic people. That means prepare individuals with the drawing in the afternoons and democracy should start from the right skills who in turn would so on. The choice of activity family itself. The relationship Vikasana, Bengaluru start their own small schools in depended on the children’s between the members of the Vikasana means a blossoming., villages. energy levels, receptivity and family should be democratic. The an unfolding. When Malathi readiness for work. This work should be balanced. ‘Our in-depth training was started Vikasana, she intended for a year. It was very rigorous. changed with others joining in. We may talk about democracy precisely this: to provide a space David started from scratch, We could not continue the but in practice the father is the where the village children could slowly and carefully going previous arrangement of any dictator in the family, teacher is enjoy their childhood and through each aspect: time class and unstructured the king of the classroom and simultaneously allow their curriculum, methodology, activity. I had to develop a head master is the emperor of the talents to blossom and develop. learning aids documentation, structure to engage them for the school. How can there be democ- reflection, assessment, arts, day and also provide for racy? This is not education. It is Malathi has devoted her life academic pursuits based on to teaching and working with crafts, drama, music, mere literacy. Education is construction.’ their age, grade and ability. And something more meaningful and rural children ever since. She there a school was born. We related with real life. observes: named it Vidyodaya. 14 Educating differently... Some voices from the Valpoi (Goa) meeting of pathbreaking educators. The complete material can be downloaded from www.multiversitylibrary.com or ordered from Other India Bookstore (search for the title, ‘...for they have their own thoughts’ at the site).
Every act of knowing is made Bhuvan Pathak, Kasauni up of a field that is known, a What I learnt as a child was mind that knows, and the rela- because the entire village was my tionship between the two. Even learning space: the mountains, the most prized institutions of rivers, farms, trees, animals, and education today which focus on people. I try to emulate this excellence, look only at the field through the Jeevan shalas that to be known, and strive to put we have started. In the Jeevan maximum pressure on the mind shala the entire village is the to absorb information and intel- child’s learning space. lectual skills. Unconcerned I do not believe that any whether minds are getting learning for life can happen twisted or cracking up, whether confined within a classroom society is filling up with venom- seated in a three square feet area ous emotions, the mills of educa- for hours on end. Subjecting tion grind on. children to this I think is the gravest anti child rights act. The Will there be a change? How way I live today is not because of will conflict end? If it cannot end what I learnt in school, but at once in the whole of society, outside its four walls. should the process not begin somewhere on a small scale? And should not the school get inter- Gurveen Kaur, Centre for ested in the mind that knows, in Learning, Hyderabad “We do education differently.” Group picture of pathbreaking educators the relationship behind the Responsibility for the children assembled at Valpoi, Goa. knower and the known, and in and the protection that they need the ultimate ending of that as they grow is on us. Each child relationship where the knower is aged as a place for exploration is a unique being. Each child has the known; the singer, the song; Ravi Gulati, Manzil and innovation, but always able the dancer, the dance; the philoso- to be unconditionally accepted as Manzil’s work is about attempt- an individual with limitations to submit to the benchmark of pher, the thought; the meditator, ing to create opportunities for ‘ordinary life’; a place where the and strong points. the silence; the lover, the beloved; children and youth to experience farmer and the artisan stand on the devotee, lost in the deity? We must have centres where in their formative years a space equal terms with the professor we learn to relate with the where learning can be fun, where and the scientist. children without forgetting that fair and sensible rules tempered K B Jinan, Kerala we are adults. Where is it that I with compassion rather than a When I lived with tribal commu- should provoke and when must I dictatorial, hierarchical setup run Mona Patrao, Panchgani nities in the northeast and in exercise restraint so as not hinder the affairs of any community, The combination of working a Orissa, I observed how the the child? where ‘learner’ and ‘teacher’ are small organic farm for about children of these communities not fixed positions but roles that three decades, facilitating the learn without being schooled. I With regard to responsibility I each one of us takes at different land as a hub for learning along found that rural, tribal children would like to start with an times and where both roles are with initiating an experimental are basically left to explore the unconditional acceptance of every equally respected, where ques- gurukul/home school, has pro- world on their own. And this is child given all the limitations and tioning is encouraged, where pelled and strengthened my not a bad thing at all. also the potential they can action is valued, where there’s conviction and interest in experi- A rural child begins to feed achieve. One of the problems of total transparency in functioning, ential learning. itself by the age of two and the schooling system is that it is where open channels of communi- Besides the above initiative, I partakes of most activities making a deliberate attempt to cation are emphasized, where continue to offer farm life as an around the home by the age of leave out, to screen. It often taking initiative is encouraged, integral part of learning: running four. To the modern mind, doing comes in the way of children where independent thinking and residential camps and workshops things at home is labour, but to achieving their unique potential. honesty are important in actions on ecology and sustainable living the rural child it is part of grow- The school can be a place which and not just good for preaching, for schools; mapping and facilitat- ing up. Learning and playing are can be very problematic. etc. ing existing school curriculum to not two separate activities. move to experiential and holistic As a result, while growing up Existing more as an extension learning. Amina Kanjee, Pakistan of the family than as an institu- naturally, the rural, tribal kid From experience I believe that tion, with its underlying holism, acquires all the basic knowledge one cannot make people learn. At friendship and trust, Manzil Manas Mukul Das, Apna needed for its survival. Cultivat- most one can provide opportuni- plays an important part in the Vidyalaya ing, animal breeding and rearing, ties for learning. Experiential lives of the neighbourhood chil- constructing, repairing, tool learning seems a little challeng- All the motivation to excel, in making, even basic medication, dren and youth, providing teachers and in students, is ing in the confined school system. mentorship, guidance, counsel- these are all part of everyday generated in school through However I really want to explore ling, a space for open discussions, living and learning. Only this is the possibilities of making school competition. The means, fair or not termed education by our and an active involvement in foul, hardly matter. Schools a place where meaningful and useful, self-reflective work. modern urban system. What authentic learning occurs. generally are a reflection of passes off as education incapaci- whatever is going on in society. I believe that knowledge is tates, shuns “doing” and makes Tenzin Rigzin, Sarnath The emotions that prevail in one a passive thinker. there within the child in the schools are identical with those brain. A human being uses only For almost a decade now I have that prevail in society: the killer I have come to the conclusion 5% of his brain. The teachers can been interested in alternative instinct, ambition, hatred, jeal- that there is lack of free thinking create strong links that will help education. My particular areas of ousy, rivalry, anxiety, and tension. in children because of the strong the child to make the connections interest are: value education and The division of society between conditioning from family, school between the knowledge when it is ideological and philosophical the rich and the poor has given and society. Through our so-called scattered. So it is just the bridge issues related to education. birth to schools for the rich and education, we are culturally that will help the child to link the I am also closely involved with schools for the poor, making the uprooted and our world views are internal knowledge to the outside Vidya Ashram, which is a new situation much worse. Values are totally altered. More important, world. If a teacher acts like a initiative that seeks to explore never learnt from a formal our intuitive abilities get de- bridge in the child’s life then he fundamental philosophical and curriculum. They are imbibed stroyed and distorted. I have or she can support the child to ideological issues related to from a school’s informal social found that people, who have not learn in its own way. education. Vidya Ashram seeks to atmosphere created by the been taught to draw or paint, do initiate debates on ‘Knowledge in network of relationships which it better. They express themselves Society’ and to bring about a binds everyone and everything to naturally and every line, stroke, dialogue between different each other in the school. hue and tone has its own rule, knowledge traditions. It is envis- design and justification. The Multiworld Network’s Newsletter 15
Holistic knowing is a result of out of school because life and intuition. Intuition is possible living are the best teachers. only in an experiential process where the whole being is in- volved. And only in a natural Neema Vaishnana, Laxmi learning process does experience Ashram, Uttaranchal itself become the context for Laxmi Ashram has a kind of learning. Authentic living is cyclical routine which helps one learning. Modern education has understand relationships. There shifted the centre of knowledge is a cowshed, a place for from nature to human, from weaving, knitting, spinning, a collective to ego, from heart to kitchen garden, and a intellect/mind, from intuition to community space. Apart from reason, from experience to infor- these it is a place where people mation from holistic to compartmental. from eight years to seventy live together. What is the kind of As a consequence, the effects relationship one can have with of modern education on the persons of different ages, individual are experiences, interests, compartmentalisation, alienation, inclinations, responsibilities intellectualization, and duties? What is one’s conceptualisation, etc. relation to this in the context of The worst pollution has been one’s self? I saw a the one caused by words, concepts Flanked by a bamboo grove, Lilatai inaugurates the Goa meeting connectedness to life and the and books. Knowledge evolved out living. This was the education of experience is meaningful and is that the arrangement provided. within the context of living. But If this arrangement was not the concepts created from ab- available to me I would consider straction are endless and most often meaningless. Deeper and my education to be incomplete. authentic experience can evolve School education is not deeper knowledge. education at all. From what I have understood, education is Rajani Garud, Hubli an arrangement for a person to understand herself and our I feel angered by the word meth- endeavours should be a medium odology because it cuts creativity. Every group has different abili- towards meeting this end. This ties and they have to be taught arrangement is already differently. Alternative education available in nature. Our real is not about an alternative understanding does not come methodology. Alternative educa- from school but from this tion is not a methodology but it is natural arrangement. an alternative way of learning. We had several differences with Raghu Babu, Sajana parents and teachers because of I joined the Sajana school. I was this disparity in thinking. there for the period of one year. The general impression that Here I started with agriculture. people have is: theatre is a Gurveen Kaur, who runs an alternative school in Hyderabad, addresses the medium of entertainment. Be- group, while (below) Manav Mukul Das and Hema listen on to Aspi Shroff. We had 12 acres of land. The cause theatre can grip a person’s children used to work two or attention and influence his three hours a day. This curricu- thinking and action, I think lum linked the children with theatre carries with it a social nature. By observing and work- responsibility. In fact, all cultural ing with the nature the children arts carry a social responsibility. learnt a lot of things. The Using theatre to educate can be children had to maintain an very exciting especially since information sheet, from the children love drama, role playing starting of the season till the and the world of stories. end. The student had to note down the number of hours they Chandrasekhar Devanna, put in to water the crops, how Vetapalem, AP much yield was obtained etc. In most schools children experi- On one acre of land we had ence life as boring. The perception grown creepers, on two acres of life is moulded, streamlined ladyfingers, and on the remain- based on designs provided by ing land we planted maize. experts. For example school The children got the opportu- makes people depend on experts nity to learn about the plants and social engineers to solve their while watering, observing, life issues. This is the biggest loss cutting etc. The children went to to the human personality. It has the fields to collect data, inter- created a consumerist society view the farmer or the labourer that cannot think beyond a confined vision and life has to be there. lived for pleasure. Learning as a There were no prescribed whole is an alien concept to textbooks, no fixed curriculum conditioned minds. School has nor syllabus. The teachers used deprived children of spontaneous to teach according to the interest play, thus depriving children of of the children and designed their psychological and philo- worksheets accordingly. The sophical growth. work of each student bound The major aspect of schooling together became his own unique is that it is a convenient tool for note cum text book. the society. The ideas of western schooling have invaded the whole world. We have lost our percep- tions and our ability to see some indigenous leaning opportunities and approaches. Now the discus- sions are about whether some- thing good is still left in school- ing. People are living and growing Out-of-schoolers, Vivek Coelho and Sakhi, were part of the discussions 16 ‘I just wanted out!’ David Hogg
‘The road to hell is paved with good inten- I was yet incapable of formulating coher- tions,’ goes the old adage. My childhood was ently. There was a damming of a flooded the epitome of good intentions. Good paren- mix of thoughts and emotions till finally the tal and societal intentions! And yet, the dam burst. idiom applies because, my life till the age of In February 1971 I took an appointment twenty became a living hell despite an with the Dean of the Canterbury Law entire absence of mala-fide on anyone’s part. School and announced I was leaving. I ‘Education’ did it! recall the Dean’s puzzled and simple re- sponse: ‘Well, I suppose you know what you What went wrong? are doing Mr. Hogg.’ Till the age of five or six my life, as I recall it, was heaven. I was brought up in I did not know; I hadn’t a clue. I just the idyllic greenness that is New Zealand. wanted out! Education in NZ in the 1950s was not So I walked out of the system and simul- dissimilar to the education imparted today taneously I walked in ... into India! On in Indian village schools. It was drudgery to October 26th 1971, I arrived in India and the core: rote learning, mindless repetitions hell disappeared like a dream does on and the inevitable tests and exams. Life waking. Thus began my real education for: descended on a slope from freedom to in the background, even in the midst of the physical, emotional and mental chains, and subcontinent’s social and economic chaos all reportedly ‘for my own good.’ The per- and self-evident human hardships, a tangi- fidious exam regime grew in intensity as the ble air of wisdom existed. I began to delve years went by culminating (during that into the wealth of this ancient civilisation difficult time of puberty) in the most feared and soon a series of powerful experiences of all ordeals: school certificate! began integrating all those disparate ele- ments of thought, will, emotion and physical To my mind the only really useful percep- awareness with the deeper underlying tion Freud ever had was that exams are the motive of existence. root of most anxiety dreams in males and that those who suffered most from these ability indicated that I should opt for a This adventure in consciousness led me dreams were the ones who never failed an lucrative career in law or accountancy. to an entire identification with all beings, exam! Such was my case. The torment and There was but a murmur of dissent from me living and apparently non-living and I came confusion mounted. There were no answers for I had no allies and still no capacity to to understand that this fact of unitary to the many perplexing questions that arose understand let alone articulate my proclivi- existence was the very foundation of any in my mind. ties. So the gray walls of mind and its civilised living. Thus I came to see what development became grayer as I succumbed had so disturbed me during my ‘education’ This apart, academically also, to state an to the relentless pressure of the university for; it had been a process of division and example: Geography was taught to us as an entrance exam regime. separation, not integration. exercise in regurgitation of disconnected I survived the maiming ‘education’ facts. So California, the golden state of University and Law School soon mani- inflicted upon me. Fortunately I grew up in world agriculture, was studied as an exam- fested as I dumbly shuffled along the educa- a society that allowed me the freedom to opt ple of miracle agriculture. Quantity was the tion production line. Increasingly stifled in out. I resolved to make my ‘career’ a reflec- measure of success. a society seemingly devoid of introspection or a deeper sense of purpose I withdrew into tion of those life-changing experiences India This was the factory syllabus and cram- a shell and yearned for answers to questions had so benevolently bestowed on me. ming was the order of the day. Grades were dispensed based on retentive memory. The coming global society, if it is to be based on gnosis must first address this And then at the age of fifteen, something trauma it inflicts on its children. The wonderful happened! shackles must be dismantled, society de- In the midst of this scenario our class schooled. was introduced to a new teacher trainee: Mr. Tom Reeves, a young man in his twen- Presently, David is a Biodynamic Agricul- ties. He was sent by the Ministry of Educa- ture Consultant. He regularly conducts tion on deputation to our school for a period workshops on Biodynamic Agriculture and of two weeks in order to experiment in the can be reached at: presentation of a new way of teaching geography called: exploring the interrela- Nandavan Estate tionship between geographic phenomena. Pethuparai Perumalmalai So off we went on field trips to study kodaikanal – 624 104 river flow, erosion and dendritic drainage Tamil Nadu patterns in the Southern Alps. Next, on the email:[email protected] seacoast, we meticulously measured sand and water transitions and their relationship with moon phases and tides. This revealed to our young minds the fact that our moon About Kamiriithu was somehow connected to our daily lives – Kamiriithu will appear six times a year. The now that was interesting! For two intense newsletter has been printed by Multiworld, Goa, weeks we explored interrelationships and India. It is designed for private circulation and connections. Then as suddenly as he came is also posted on the Net at www.multiworld.org. Tom Reeves was gone and we were back to It is published from: the facts business. But, in this brief period The Multiworld Network, something had opened in my mind and the G-8, St Britto’s Apartments, concept of learning and education changed Feira Alta, Mapusa 403 507 Goa, India. forever. email: [email protected] Soon after, I applied to leave school and registered for a diploma course in the (Details of subscribing to Kamiriithu are nearby agricultural university. Since my provided on page 2.) family came from farming ‘stock’, my par- ents were quite content with my inclination. This was not to be. My parents were summoned by the high school principal and he announced to them that he had no intention of allowing me to ‘waste my life’ in agriculture. My academic David Hogg