Today we visited Purnapramati School in Bangalore, a primary school. Purnapramati is a Sanskrit word meaning “purna” complete; “pra” deep; and “mati” knowledge and wisdom. The school is an experimental school where the teachers and administrators have integrated classic learning with an innovative approach. For example, students take Sanskrit lessons but also take science and electives. There are about 60 students at the school and most of the teachers have a master’s degree. Some interesting ideas at this school:
While we observed at the school, the children interacted with us quite a lot! The students began by playing Khokho (a running and chasing game). I uploaded a few pictures of the kids playing this game to the left. A few of the teachers played too! We observed the Morning Assembly where the students said their prayers and sang some songs. I then had the chance to sit in on a Sanskrit class (I will upload the video to Facebook so you can hear the language). Many classes were completely student-driven; for example in math each student was working on a different workbook and different concepts (see picture to the left). After getting back to the hotel and eating lunch, Dr. Ashwin Mahesh spoke to us about the trends in Indian education right now. Some startling facts include:
Today and yesterday I have already begun to answer my essential question about teaching about protagonists who value individualism in a collective society. So far it seems like the collectivism in the Indian culture really values family and taking care of the people in your neighborhood. We can see this from today’s lecture since the main goal of education is not to make one person intelligent, but to educate everyone so everyone can problem solve the problems going on in India right now. |
2 Comments
Mom
7/18/2014 05:46:43 am
Do you know why: Less than 20% of students who go to college are employable after graduating.
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7/19/2014 01:20:00 pm
I really enjoy your photographs. Thank you for sharing!
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AuthorHi! My name is Janna Nobleza and I'm a high school English teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. This blog records my TGC India preparation, journey, and reflections. Archives
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