Reality Based Education

Kant declared that somehow thinking is above life, is above existence: "we think, therefore we exist," instead of "we exist, therefore we think". I don't know whether he was negative or stupid or whatever but, for me, that was one of the problems that I had to unlearn from my mother. Because her thinking and her life were so much a part of each other that you could not even separate them.- Munir Fasheh

Alternative Curriculum Schools that encourage Reality Based Education

The first half of the day is devoted to studies and the rest to skill training in carpentry, pottery, masonry, permaculture, herbal medicines, book binding and tailoring. It must also be one of the few places training children in Bhagotam, a local folk art form. Only children above nine years are admitted, many dropouts from government schools. There are no fees to be paid in this school, run by the Deccan Development Society (DDS), a non-government organisation working in this area (to conserve traditional crops and agro-bio-diversity), for the last 15 years. Before 1998, most children had never been to any school, according to the school administrator, Bhimsen Murthy. Even now, only 10 per cent may have attended school earlier. Many worked as labourers or helped their parents with housework, grazing or farming. So far, 63 students have appeared for their SSC examinations and over 40 have passed either in the first or the second attempt. A children's committee is involved in decision-making and every day, the general assembly is devoted to various subjects. The student's skills and knowledge are analysed during the admission test and, till the fourth level, no government textbooks are used. The teachers prepare the curriculum themselves and the children are taught formal subjects like the languages, mathematics, science and the social sciences from the fourth level only.- Education for a lifetime, MEENA MENON., Hindu, 13/01/2002, /eldoc/n30_/education_for_lifetime.html

The Tamil Nadu legislature has adopted the Compulsory Education Act. Complaints have been aired in this context about the nature of the instruction imparted by the state's Tamil medium schools: complaints of excessive reliance on textbooks, of the use of a version of Tamil that alienates lower caste pupils.
Another dimension that is lost due to the rigid conception of 'good' Tamil is the cultural capital accumulated in dialects.
By correcting the speech of the children belonging different com-munities, we dispossess them of  their cultural capital.
A poignant example of the sort of loss was observed by me in a Chennai school where there were a number of children
from fishing communities. When their teacher introduced the word 'champanki', these first standard children insisted it was a variety of fish. The teacher, who was an upper caste vegetarian, did not agree. The powers vested in her by the state and society ensured that her contention - that it was a flower - prevailed. -  'Learn Thoroughly': Primary Schooling in Tamil Nadu, Aruna R, Economic & Political Weekly, 01/05/1999, /eldoc/n00_/01may99EPW.pdf

To walk the Nagahills with Kelechütsü is to understand a mind and a community that is extraordinarily attuned to the environment in which they thrive, and which has as its fundament the concept that we know and call sustainability. That, when linked to the catch-all word 'development', such a concept is the subject of innumerable working papers, seminars and conclaves, and otherwise provides brigades of 'development professionals' a livelihood is seen as hugely amusing by Kelechütsü and his friends, but their amusement is also tempered by a distant alarm, for they are all too aware of the might and reach of the development industry.
...One experiences a sense of wonder at the education that has nurtured such talents. Yet the youthful practitioners of such arts wear their prodigious learning lightly, with humility, and unselfishly share what they know with their communities. Theirs has been (they add to it every day, for the 'lifelong learning' that is now the fashion in the West is in fact a well-worn consciousness here) a privileged education – free to learn as and what they will; to associate that learning with their village and clan, family and friends; without fear of grading and examinations, admissions and certificates; with the freedom to experiment with a curriculum that evolves and reshapes itself every day.

Contrast this world with another. Early last year (2004) a young tribal girl in the district of Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, had this to say about the 'education' she was expected to go through: “I go to school as often as I can. I get bored when I go, and they shout at me. They don’t teach me about anything around me.” Tribal societies both – one in the Nagahills, the other the guardians of the dense central Indian forest tract of Dandakaranya – and in their own ways, exposing the hypocrisies of our education systems. The young Nagas will privately critique the systems posing as education just as Gadchiroli's tribals do, but the 'right' to 'compulsory education' steamrollers on, uncaring of cultures, contexts and futures. 'Compulsory education' is the legitimisation of an absurd terminology – do we talk about compulsory eating or compulsory sleeping? If it is a truly natural need, where is the need for compulsion? - The first and last learners, Rahul Goswami, www.infochangeindia.com, 07/02/2005, /eldoc/n30_/alt_edu.html

Since the education system spends vast quantities of time debating syllabi and course content, it is necessary to examine the results of ail these deliberations. What are the values being promoted for the vast numbers of rural youth, many of whom are first-generation learners? What role are they going to play in their society after undergoing years of formal education? The attitudes being promoted through the educational system can be dramatically illustrated by English Course Reader. English is seen as important for two reasons. First, it is seen as a language of the rulers, past and present. Therefore those who learn English want to imbibe the cultural values of the ruling classes. Second, it opens up job opportunities. Comprehension levels are low, which makes it necessary to use simplistic language and statements. The language is consequently more indicative of genuine attitudes.
R.P. Bhatnagar who has compiled the textbook in English (Course Reader) for the 11th and 12th classes, Rajasthan Board, has thought it a matter of pride to mention that it will foster both linguistic and cultural values of the students. He states:
Section A is intended to instil confidence in the students and therefore contains relatively easier textual material, well within the reach of an average student, both linguistically and culturally.
The first lesson is called "Picnic Cancelled". surely 'picnic' is a concept which is both urban and Aiiated with a class which enjoys leisure and sharply divides work from enjoyment. The lesson begins with a description of the Sharmas and the Bhatias. Mrs. Sharma is watering the garden—yet another urban symbol of feudal or modern wealth. There are no gardens in rural areas. Even the rural rich do not have gardens. While teaching this lesson to some students who lived in the neighbourhood, it became clear that the concept of a garden was totally alien to them. For those who have not travelled far it is difficult even to visualise it.
When Mrs Sharma informs her husband about the intended picnic, he promptly says, "In that case I'll  get the gardener to water the trees. It is alien enough to have a garden, but the concept of the gardener is totally urban and upperclass. Land in rural areas is used for productive purposes.
- Class and caste in the Classroom, ARUNA ROY and NIKHIL DEY, Mainstream, 23/01/1995, /eldoc/n00_/23jan95mai1.pdf

Attend the parents-teacher meet at H D Kote, and one comes to know what is so right about these schools. The teachers report to education committees of Kuruba and Yerava tribal elders in haadis (hamlets). Teachers are hired with the consent of education committees. Government-hired teachers also work in these schools but it’s the community-hired teachers who form the backbone of the process.

From revolution to education
In the early 1990s, deed and Sreekant agitated against relocation of tribal communities from the park during the World-Bank-funded India eco-development projects. This gained them the respect of the tribal communities, and a reputation in the administration for being very vocal advocates of tribal self-rule. “But we soon realised that mere talk about self-rule was not going to bring revolution to our doorstep. To take over governance, tribals had to be educated in a manner that they understood what self-governance would be about. That decision laid the foundation of our programme,” says Sreekant.

As the schools began, deed began to create a curriculum based on tribal lifestyle and ethos. It began work on textbooks that would incorporate their language as well as their context. The forest and life inside it became central to education. “For us, to build a school was not to construct a building. Regular schools forget that there are learning spaces beyond stifling classrooms. We want to make use of all such spaces. For tribals, this means making their hudloos (houses), their haadi and their forest a place of learning for children and their parents to be treated as reservoir of knowledge and not ignorant illiterates,” says Sreekant. Realising that degrees and certificates would not fetch jobs in and around the forests, the students are provided vocational training. Tribals do not want to become literate but cheap daily wage labour. “If children have to leave their house to earn a living after their education, I do not think the education is worth it,” says Nanjundaiah, who helps in the education programme though his Nisarga Foundation, a H D Kote-based ngo.

Singing songs written by their elders, Kuruba children today learn mathematics and science. The idiom is familiar and the metaphors their own, so understanding is easy. Jayaba, an alumnus of a programme school and a co-author of school textbook, understands this well. “Education is not a burden for these children because now it does not tell them that their culture is primitive, instead it instills pride in them,” he says.

“It is such pride that shall make these children demand their rights where ever they go. In higher schools in cities or if they go out for work, they will not forget their context but enrich it,” says Sreekant.  - Schooled in self-rule, NITIN SETHI, Down To Earth, 31/08/2004,  /eldoc/n30_/31aug04dte1.html

Mangoes have always been the most popular illustrations in primary school mathematics textbooks. But they have been replaced by apples, peaches, hazelnuts and cherries in the brand new NCERT textbook for class one. Worse still is the replacement of the Indian bullock cart with an American model. Serious note must be taken of these changes since illustrations play an important pedagogic role in school textbooks.

A second look at the book leaves one feeling a little uneasy, an uneasiness that grows as one turns the pages. After all what is the function of illustrations in a children's book? Surely they must be different from that of advertisement copy? And here we are talking of not just any children's book, but the first book of a child going to school.

 perhaps the uneasy feeling on looking at the NCERT textbook emerges from the large gap that separates the illustrations of this book from the experiential reality of not just the average Indian child, but just any child living in India. Even a cursory look at the book gives the impression that the illustrations were copied from some American comic/textbook, although there is no acknowledgement anywhere. The dependence on foreign illustrations is all pervasive and not restricted to any understandable small proportion. From the pink cherubic face of the anchoring child, to the faces of the comic-strip characters of Flintstones or the animals or the furniture or the dolls, all are steeped in the social meanings of  another culture. There is no harm in learning of other cultures. After all we know that we all together inhabit this planet earth and we learn and grow by sharing from each other. But should that happen to the exclusion of all that is known in our own culture, in our own surroundings?
By copying these American illustrations the NCERT is going against what educationists everywhere in the world including in the US have to say about illustrations for children's books. In fact one wonders why the NCERT has not followed some of the US recommendations about the need for authentic portrayal in depicting other cultures and in writing about the experiences of one's own people.3 There has always been a bias in our textbooks in representing the diversity of our country and a tendency to use caricatures. In one sense, this is an unbiased book because it  would be alien to all the children who are expected to use it. I think it is very important not to dismiss illustrations as something purely peripheral.

On the contrary it has a deep foundational function. I remember vividly the faces of the children when one day we brought a neem branch to the classroom and made a drawing of the leaves. There was a sense of adventure to the whole enterprise. To put on paper, that something which is till then only out there and similarly to recognise on paper that something which one has only seen around oneself is the birth of a new dimension. Yet our real culture, the lived culture of people is an inexhaustible resource waiting to be used by educationists. That everyday culture of our people includes eating mangoes, eating on leaves and many more normal little things. It includes passing money for tickets in the blue line buses of Delhi and sharing food on long-distance trains. By learning to relate to this experiential reality of our people we can discover many valuable meanings closer to our collective interests.- Where Have the Mangoes Gone?, USHA MENON, Economic & Political Weekly, 03/05/2003, /eldoc/n00_/03may03EPW.pdf

The thing that I remember very clearly from my first visit to the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK) project in the BR Hills is that every time I passed the Sampige (Champak) tree outside my room there were, at least, two or three children up on the tree. I remember thinking 'Why are they always up there? Are they plucking something or are they hiding or playing?'
Now, over two years later, I realise that the children were simply living out their natural lives of which the trees, the forests, the hills are such an intrinsic part. For these are children of Soligas a semi-nomadic tribe which has been living for hundreds of years, in the serene deciduous forests of the Biligiri Ranga hills located some 200 kms south of Bangalore. 'Soliga' means one who has come from within a bamboo. The Soligas believe that their ancestors originated from the bamboo.

 As Dr Sudarshan stresses, "It is important to understand that educating Soliga children should not mean 'mamstreaming' them or 'inflicting development' on them. For the Soliga way of life links them, intrinsically and sustainably, to their environment. This should not be destroyed. Educating them should equip them to survive the 'mainstream'."
Traditional education The Soliga child's earliest 'school' is the forest where s/he learns to collect honey, amla and hundreds of medicinal herbs. Folklores, songs, dance and religious practices provide training in linguistics and culture. A Soliga child's knowledge of flora and fauna is astounding. A twelve-year-old Soliga child can identify as many as 260 plants and trees. As for 'physical education', climbing trees, swimming, trekking in the forest are skills that every Soliga teenager has acquired... The children pray to the tribal deity, Jadeswami.
The medium of education is Kannada. However, the children speak the Soliga dialect, Soliganudi. Therefore the state prescribed text-books, all in Kannnada, have been re-written by VGKK, with the help of some of the ex-students and the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore (using the Kannada script) into Soliganudi. Published with the help of the DPEP, these books have been accepted by the state education board as regular textbooks.
The first and most obvious unique feature of the school is that it is the only one of its kind in the state - i.e. a school 'custom-made' to suit the distinct needs and characteristics of tribal children, at the same time ensuring that they do not remain isolated and oblivious to the life (and its ensuing influences) outside their hamlets and forests. Nevertheless, the school's uniqueness extends well beyond this to make Outside the girls' dormitory: 50 of them live in the hostel the school and what it imparts to its students, completely relevant and useful to the Soliga way of life amidst the modern- day realities that surround them. The school achieves this unique blend in educating tribal children by:
• Introducing the experiential learning concept. Environmental studies are given a major thrust.
•Drawing upon the Soliga traditional knowledge. The tribe's rich traditional knowledge about trees, herbs, plants -
the overall bio-diversity of the region has been studied and documented by VGKK. This is used by the teachers and made part of the syllabus, requiring a high level of creativity and innovative skills from the teachers. By linking Soliga traditional beliefs and knowledge to present-day science, the teachers have succeeded in helping the children make sense of their environment even as they assimilate this knowledge. No traditional belief or practice is discounted as mumbo-jumbo but is harnessed as a base to build further knowledge.

So far, none of them have been "lured" by the city and its deceptive development offerings. Instead each of them has a livelihood that is either in conserving the forest sustainably, initiating sustainable and profitable harvesting of its produce, research and documentation of traditional knowledge of the forest and its rich resources or through involvement in the health, education aspects of the Soliga life. Besides, they also use the skills and strengths they have developed through their school education to assert their rights to land, to the forest and its produce.
Experts, professionals, economists, social workers whose passionate efforts are directed at 'mainstreaming' the indigenous
tribal people, have hijacked development concepts the world over. Meeting Madegowda, Putta and others like them and getting a glimpse into the unique way they have easily blended their traditional skills, knowledge with "modern" education, makes one re-think about ideas considered "mainstream". The Soligas and other tribes have lived in their forests for thousands of years. It is the "modern", "educated", "civilized" people who are doing their best to snatch away their forests, homes, livelihoods and then are speaking of working for tribal "good", "welfare" "development". And the onslaught of development has been so forceful that the survival of the tribal is at risk as never before.- The bamboo children, Shoba Raja, Humanscape, 11/01/2002, /eldoc/n00_/11jan02HUS2.pdf

EC materials produced for Information, Education and Communication in areas such as health, literacy, forestry and agriculture, have failed to meet their objectives. Government and NGOs spend large amounts of money on producing EC materials which communicate messages to target audiences, often to nonliterateruralbased communities.
Studying the local people's own visual sketches has helped to shed light on more appropriate ways to designing EC materials. Knowledge in rural Rajasthan has traditionally been disseminated through informal exchanges like song, verse, puppetry folk drama and folkart. Simple wall motifs and paintings are common in most Rajasthani villages. These art forms tell their own stories as understood in the local area. Everyone in the village can read these local art forms which markfestivals, announce births or celebrate marriages. Traditional illustration styles vary from region to region, and affect the way that people understand other visuals.

Many EC materials produced by organisations to disseminate knowledge to rural people are misunderstood Comparisons between local people's artistic efforts with those of urban artists show that a different visual language is being used by the two distinct groups. This healthmessage was pasted onawall, inavillageof Udaipur district. Rodhibai saw the poster. She saw that in the first visual there is a pot behind two bamboo sticks. Thereare house flies on the mouth of the pot. In the second visual the pot has a lid and there is a longhandled ladle next to it. Rodhi Bai is not literate. Symbols like ticks and crosses have no meaning at all. Trying to understand them, she guesses at what the symbollooks like most in real life. In this poster showing different stages for planting saplings, individual frames or boxes were seen as fields. The arrows linking the visuals were interpreted as irrigation pipes. Where as reading from left to right is ingrained in people who are literate, non-literate farmers read whichever visual they find attractive, or whichever catches their eye first.
Conventions such as symbols, sequencing of visuals through frames from left to right, top to bottom or clockwise, drawing a faraway object small, are all learned. Artists take for granted that these conventions are understood, and have no idea of the confusion that can actually take place.

Communication in rural  development has become an  uncreative process of  producing inappropriate  materials inisolation from the target audience. It is easy for the educated to blame miscommunication on the villagers. This reinforces  misconceptions that the urban educated have all the knowledge, while the rural people are ignorant. In fact, in the examples above it is the other way round. Artists' and policy-makers' own ignorance of how non-literate people perceive visuals is what causes the misrommunication. The result is that IEC materials reach only the least needy Those who are already the most marginalised are excluded further from information on development. This often implies the women. In Rajasthan, female literacy rates are particularly low and women are less exposed than men to urban culture, which the men are more exposed to when they migrate to urban centres for work As an alternative starting point, urban artists need to reexamine their role in communicatin when working with non-literate and rural groups. They need to take on the role of facilitator and act as a catalyst in encouraging people's own visual expression, finding common visual languages and deriving final visuals from the local people's ownsketches.
...It is time for communication to cease being a one-way process from the urban to the rural, and for artists and policy-maker s to be ready to accept past mistakes. - EDUCATION DOMINATION?, Lakshmi Murthy, Humanscape, 01/08/1996, /eldoc/n00_/01aug96HUS.pdf

The development of a syllabus that integrates a holistic world-view with a realistic and problem-solving approach to teaching science is essential. It will enable us to instill in young, receptive minds the ability to work towards solutions logically and construct for themselves an integrated vision of their environment. Parisar Asha, an NGO involved in coordinating the Environmental Studies Approach to Learning (ESAL) in several schools in Mumbai, Goa, Pune and other parts of Maharashtra aims to do just this. The organisation's goal is to help replace rote-learning and its attendant evils through a realityoriented, problem-solving approach to learning by using the environment (natural and man-made) as a learning resource. It also endeavours to focus attention on attitudes and values that grow from the respect for the interdependence between humankind and the environment.

Gloria de Souza, director and founder of Parisar Asha, believes that NGOs can play a collaborative role between the policy makers and the schools. Parisar Asha has been active in trying to develop worksheets and learning materials that supplement the information in the textbooks of all subjects. They hope to be able to supplement and reinforce learning methods that are integrated and fruitful and to go beyond the syllabus to provide students with information relevant to their everyday experience. They also endeavour to create non-traditional material for ecological sensitisation in certain clusters of inner-city schools. As Priti de Souza, a secondary school teacher says, "Children have the desire to learn subjects from a realistic perspective. We have to teach them how academic facts can be applied to real-life situations." She highlights the lack of ability in students to integrate concepts of temperature and pressure, as taught in the science curriculum, with similar concepts, such as pressure belts in geography.

The growing concern over the erosion of values in society has emphasised the need for adjustments in the curriculum that allow education to become a tool for the cultivation of social and ethical values. In this context, it is important to design literature for children that imparts values that draw upon our nation's rich cultural heritage, based on a synthesis science and philosophy. Values fostered through education should be oriented towards national unity and social integration. We must rethink and redefine our march toward development.
 
The onus of implementing programmes and lending them credibility rests ultimately on us adults as role models. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi," We must be the change we want to see in the world." The Centre for Human Ecology (CHE), an independent NGO, conducts a highly successful programme in a school in Mumbai, that goes beyond classroom learning. The content of these programmes is centred on an interdisciplinary plane, touching the natural, social and techno-scientific aspects of learning on a broad spectrum. The programme's hands-on approach covers activities such as recycling of school waste paper, garbage separation and composting of organic waste, developing low-cost and nutritive diets, and educating fellow students about the environment. CHE also organises environmental study camps in tribal areas, where the students and tribals learn from an information exchange.
The students demonstrate to the tribals the methods of composting, wasteland development and impart information on health and nutrition, while the tribals share with them their knowledge of local medicinal plants.

The authors of the science syllabus should incorporate the example set by such alternative methods of education, to make the study of science in schools more relevant to our everyday existence and incorporate a holistic and ecologically sound world-view into the curriculum.- The Road Not Taken, Priya Shah, Humanscape, 01/07/1996 /eldoc/l54_/road_not_taken.html

Shyam Bahadur Namra, a stalwart supporter of Jaya Prakash Narayan, led the 'Sampooran Kranti' movement and also where Namra's wife Anuradha, started a unique educational experiment in 1977. Without any institutional support he developed a process which links organic farming with non-formal education (NFE). The curricula was designed around seasonal agricultural activities, including production, planning and marketing. Says Namra, "India's educational system is inseparably linked with social and political systems. It has failed to benefit the Adivasis and Dalits, who have been further pauperised in the post-194 7 period.

...There are no set books or other teaching material. Improvisation and creativity are hallmarks of the programme. Says Anuradha, 'The lessons imparted are techniques of agricultural production, scientific knowledge of biological processes in nature, wage calculation, weight and volume measurement and a minimum ability to read and write. More knowledgeable student activists guide new learners in farming, helping them to acquire skill and knowledge. Informal discussions on health and hygiene are conducted and importance of preventive healthcare over curative measures are stressed. Benefits of fruits and herbs are explained in treating minor ailments. At recess, reading, writing and calculations are done. The curriculum changes as the learning of the participant progresses."

The learning goals of Shram Niketan have as their aim, to provide wider understanding of local conditions in a holistic perspective to the children from marginal, small and medium-sized farming communities. The children from landless labourers are directed towards understanding wage and quality calculations and price mechanisms in the market.
Acknowledging his debt to Namra and Anuradha, Bijju says, "Shram Niketan gave us literacy and changed our way of life. Earlier, we were kept in the dark. After our training, there has been a rapid transformation. Now we think and ask questions before adopting anything, including any new method on our 'kheti' (land).

Post the non-formal education experiment, Namra developed a set of two primers, Akshar Se Maitri and Bala Babli Ki Kahani. In these, Namra continues to emphasise development skills and political consciousness in the broadest sense, rather than seeing the model as melting into the national mainstream, which is the priority of most governmental NFE programmes. Both books, particularly Akshar Se Maitri help children explore their creative potential, through exercises and games, interspersed with Namra's excellent poetry. Bala Babli... handles sensitively, the issue of different social expectations for, and experiences of, boys and girls. The primers are used as readers in South Bihar's east and west Singhbhum districts...- Lessons From The land, Tarun Bose, Humanscape, 01/07/1996,  /eldoc/n00_/01jul96HUS11.pdf
 

While industrial activity was praised, there was no mention of the ill effects of  unbridled industrialisation. "The material is presented in such a way that it interprets pollution as being spread only by small factories," it said. As the textbook's target group is from economically backward classes, the author stated that this perceived "class bias" was crucial. "It seems that the syllabus had been compiled keeping in mind the upper class, which creates an inferiority complex among children." The depiction of women was also found wanting, as the textbooks are dominated by masculine images. Even when women are shown, they are shown to play a supplementary role. In one of the images, the study said, "women are shown watching TV, while the men are reading newspapers or letters or talking on the telephone." The study also found that the textbooks, in most cases, gave only "partial reality." An example of this is depicting dams as instruments of national progress. No mention is made of the displacement or other related issues. According to the study, the only examples of "complete reality" were descriptions of "festivals of Delhi" and "places of historical interest and sightseeing."

A member of an advisory committee was willing to be more generous — "children could be told about alcoholism, unemployment and poverty, but not about violence and bloodshed which would be too much for them." During the process of finalisation of the material, there were discussions with several school teachers but no interaction with its real target the children.- DEVIRUPA MITRA STATESMAN , 08 NOVEMBER 2001 A32

Situated near Machnoor, Andhra Pradesh, and run by a non-government organisation, the green school is different from the formal education system. Strongly linked to the rural community, it is a world which has meaning for its students Spread over 15 acres near Machnoor village, 15 km from Zaheerabad (in Medak district, Andhra Pradesh), Pacha Saale, or green school, is very different from the formal education system. The important one being that it is a school where children have fun learning about things which matter to them and which will be useful to them later in life.
The first half of the day is devoted to studies and the rest to skill training in carpentry, pottery, masonry, permaculture, herbal medicines, book binding and tailoring. It must also be one of the few places training children in Bhagotam, a local folk art form. Only children above nine years are admitted, many dropouts from government schools.
The school also has strong links with the community with rural women on its board who take part in framing the curriculum and who contribute their own understanding of farming and agricultural practices, folk art, culture and history.
At the village level, committees monitor the attendance of children and also interact with the school on a regular basis. It is no wonder then that many children who opt for formal schooling often leave it and return to Pacha Saale. It is a world that has more meaning for them than the badly-run straitjacketed confines of government schools. - Education for a lifetime, THE HINDU, 13 JAN 2002, N30 ED1 /eldoc/n30_/education_for_lifetime.html

1. A Dialogue on Knowledge in Society, Indigen Research Foundation, 01/01/2004, R.P60.9

2. Public Report on Basic Education in India, Oxford University Press, 01/01/1999, N21.P.1, Edu phil, Quality, GS, Reality Edu,  Inside the Class Room Ch 6 pg 68-82

3. Voices From Mewar - Featuring the work of: Baavji Chatur Singhji Maharaj shri Dayal chandra Soni Shrimati Choser Devi, Shikshantar, 01/04/2002, R.N00.37

4. National Policy on Education 1986 - Programme of Action 1992, Government of India, R.N00.33 Ch 13- Delinking Degrees from Jobs and Manpower Planning- pg 74- 75

5.  Detextualizing Knowledge, KB Jinan, 2003, Abhivyakti-Taleemnet Meet Valpoi, Goa 2005


Books:

1.“Bridging People’s Math and Formal Numeracy” Part 7 pg 241-258 - Reading Beyond the Alphabet - Innovations in Lifelong Literacy, Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd, 01/01/2003, B.N31.K1

2. “Learning in Villages Today: Remainders or Reminders?” Anuradha Joshi pg 67-78
- Unfolding Learning Societies: Deepending the Dialogues, Jain, Manish, Shikshantar Andolan, 01/04/2001, B.N00.J5

3. - “Agramee: Real Life Education for Tribal Children” Vimala Ramachandran and Sapna Agarwal, Ch 8 p.g. 296-334
Getting Children Back to School - Case Studies in Primary Education, Ramachandran, Vimala, Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd. 01/01/2003, B.N21.R2

4. - “The Oral dimension in Indian Tradition”
- Characterizing Literacy - A Study of Western and Indian Literacy Experiences, Narasimhan, R, Sage Publications, 01/01/2004, B.N30.N3

5. Paths of Unlearning, Jain, Manisha, Shikshantar Andolan, 01/02/2003, B.N00.J6

6. Thoughts on Education, Vinobha, Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, Ch 2 Learning and Living,  B.N00.B15

Websites:
http://www.multiworld.org/taleemnet/outside%20school/mahesh.htm

Audiotapes:

1. Indigenous Games, nature’s way to sensitize the senses, KB Jinan, International Democratic Education Conference, 4-13 December 2005, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, Tape 3 (4), N24
2. Detextualizing experience/knowledge, KB Jinan, International Democratic Education Conference, 4-13 December 2005, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, Tape 3 (3), N24
3.  Taleemnet and Abhivyakti’s- ‘Path Breakers in Education’ Meeting, 10-13 February 2005, Valpoi, Goa, Tape 8 (6) N24