Conversation with Educators in India – Part 3 - Schools and Stories

A School called Life

I was at the Ed Leadership Conference in Lucknow in 2013. During Lunch on the second day, I got to interact with a principal of a school that was called ‘Zindagi’ (life) and two young entrepreneurs in the education field based out of Mumbai. We spoke about spirituality, our experiences in the education and also discussed alternate models of education. At the end of the day, I approach some of the speakers and thank them for their talks. I also get to meet other educators. 

Conversations with Parents – Part 1– The Dilemma

I am in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan. A training session will start at 10 am.  Over hundred students from a masters program in business are expected to attend the talk.

The talk was about falling in love with learning, finding your passion and working on it from a young age.  I had to deliver the talk in a mixture of Hindi and English. Most of the students at the university came from the rural towns and villages around Mewar. But this made them no different from the students in urban cities. 

During the session, I realized how many of them were so intelligent in a variety of different ways. But it must be so hard for them, to work through a system that respected only a few types of intelligences. How do we get our parents support for the field we are interested in? Let us try finding out.

Kota – Part 3 – Life in Kota from a Student Perspective

Photo - Pradeep Gaur (Mint). Read Article Here

I was in Kota for two days. After a training session with an institute on the first day, I had the evening and the whole next day free. So I decided to walk around the streets of Kota. I wanted to understand how this city created an ambience for Engineering Education.

The plan was to visit all the headquarters of the top coaching institutes in Kota, speak to a few students and just observe the student lifestyle in this factory for Indian engineers. I tried speaking to as many students as possible. It seemed like shopkeepers and local businesses also supported this culture and did everything to let the students focus on their learning. These were some the things I noticed and some of the insights I recorded, after exploring the city for over five hours:-