Last posts on education

Data, Nourishment Capacity of

2008-09-20T13:05:00+02:00

Surprises are things that you not only didn't know, but that contradict things you thought you knew. And so they're the most valuable sort of fact you can get. They're like a food that's not merely healthy, but counteracts the unhealthy effects of things you've already eaten.

-- Paul Graham

Measles and critical thinking

2008-08-30T18:55:00+02:00

Measles is on the rise again in the United States thanks to celebs and M.G.'s (the respected "Master of Google" degree) pushing the belief -- to desperate parents in desperate situations -- that vaccines cause autism. Read about it here and here.Put really simply: this is why science education and critical thinking skills are so important.

SigmaForex`s White Label

2008-08-25T23:45:50+02:00

Forex White Label ProgramAs your partner, our goal is to support you through the planning and launch phases and beyond to ensure a mutually successful and long-term business relationshipEstablish your brand in the Forex Brokerage industry.Our Forex White Label program is for individuals and institutions that want to establish a brand name and a presence in the Forex industry.As a white label partner, you will be provided with a platform branded with your name and logo as well as content for your introducing broker website.Also Sigma white label partner program enables banks and brokers to satisfy their customersâ€™ demand for online trading tools.Our trading solutions enable you to harness and develop already existing customer trading relationships and extract greater returns from them whilst streamlining internal trading operations and rendering them as efficient as possible.You will also enjoy our 24-hour market, full service of back office support, and other administrative and support functions.

SET UP YOUR GOALS IN SIGMAFOREX

2008-08-15T03:46:09+02:00

Are you a goal setter or a goal quitter? When you set out to do something, do you persist until you succeed or do you get discouraged and quit along the way? One of the most important habits to develop is the habit of finishing what you started. My son recently graduated from high school. At his graduation ceremony, the principal stood up and congratulated everyone for completing 12 years of education. He also pointed out that during the last year of school, 48 percent of the students in the graduating class had dropped out. They came so close, but they did not persist until the very end. Most people in life are rainbow chasers; they set new goals almost daily. Most of the time their new goals have nothing to do with yesterday’s, last week’s, or even last month’s goals. As a result, they never move forward in any one direction. You need to believe there is a reward at the end of every journey you embark on, a “pot of gold” at the end of each rainbow, or you will give up and never achieve your goal.Setting goals helps you create a road map in life, outlining where you are going. Without that road map you can easily get off track without even knowing it and not know how to get back on. If you do not create goals as you learn to trade, you will not have any recognizable milestones of achievement. Any great achievement will be accompanied by setbacks, but beginning with a clear goal in mind will keep you on track to reach your goals even after you hit a detour. Traders who set goals and persist until they succeed reach their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. A trader’s pot of gold is described as executing your trades correctly 100 percent of the time. That does not mean you will make money 100 percent of the time, rather, that you consistently make more money than you lose. Persisting to achieve your realistic goals is nothing more than discipline in action.Find Out More In SigmaForex

Five Gadgets No Student Should Ever Need at School

2008-08-14T08:35:00+02:00

With the cost of a higher education growing every year, you wouldn't want to see a minute of school time wasted on frivolous activities. There will be plenty of time for TV watching and game playing during school breaks. In that spirit, unrealistic as it may be, we suggest some gadgets that might be counter productive at academia. 1. High End LaptopA high end laptop like the MacBook Air or Voodoo Envy gaming laptop is almost guaranteed to be lost, stolen, dropped, damaged, or have beer spilled on it. Game machine just means easier to play games on instead of studying, why even introduce the temptation? 2. Desktop Gaming MachineIt might make more sense to leave the over-clocked, tweaked out, game machine at home and send your student off to school with a less expensive laptop. There won’t be the temptation to game the nights away instead of hitting the books and you won’t have to worry about the machine getting stolen. 3. TIVOSure, someone might be able to add a few minutes to their day by fast forwarding through the commercials but we say the less TV, the more studying. Don’t get us wrong Tivos are great products we just don’t think they belong in dorm rooms. 4. Game ConsoleMaybe they got through high school dividing time between studying and game playing but college is serious and we say leave the PS3 or Xbox at home, at least for the first semester. The only exception might be Nintendo’s Wii since you can get exercise with it and even socialize while using it. 5. SegwayOkay, so it’s long shot that you could even afford one of these but we just wanted to put a plug in for some human-powered form of transportation, namely, a bicycle.

Does abstinence education work?

2008-07-29T18:18:23+02:00

Does Abstinence education work?

There are many positive effects of abstinence education. Abstinence education helps to reduce STDs, decrease teenage pregnancy, improve emotional health, improve socio economic background and increase the probability of a stable marriage. The evidence that abstinence education works is robust and plentiful. The national abstinence education association has identified 10 studies that show the effectiveness of those working in this field.[1] These studies show that abstinence education is effective with students and contributes towards a decrease in unwanted teenage pregnancy.

Some of the studies criticising abstinence education, such as the Mathematica study, were flawed in their methodology and tainted with ideology. Abstinence for some is seen as an ineffective, intolerant construction of radical right that uses fear and shame to promote religious ideology. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some members of the sexual revolution generation of the 1960s, most likely those who frolicked around in the grass at Woodstock, have failed to notice that some sexually transmitted diseases are deadly and others can leave you permanently infertile.

Abstinence education helps to improve academic results. A national longitudinal survey of adolescent health showed that delayed teenage sex activity had a considerable influence on college attendance and graduation. The graduation rate was 42.5% for abstinent teens (teens who did not have sex before 18) compared to 22.6% for sexually active teens. This is a truly astonishing statistic!

To learn about saving sex until marriage is to be helped on the pathway towards a successful marriage. Marriage breakdown costs the government billions of pounds every year. The high costs are due to anti poverty, criminal justice and education programs, through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose productivity has been negatively affected through childhood poverty and family fragmentation. One study estimated that marriage breakdown in the USA cost taxpayers $112 billion a year. It identified national, state and local costs which accounted for more than $1 trillion in the last decade.[2]

To tell young people that they are unable to control their sexual urges is to treat them like animals. This is patronising, ideologically based and devalues young people. There is a basis of betrayal in believing young people are going to do it anyway. If you expect more out of young people you will get more out of them. Condoms encourage and reinforce behaviour under different risk conditions rather than encourage a change of behaviour towards abstinence and faithful monogamy.[3] This lulls teenagers into a false sense of security as condoms do not provide sufficient protection against most STDs. In the words of Jerry Springer, “Teenagers have no business having sex at all.” It is my hope that chastity is making some kind of comeback and that it is spreading through popular culture. It’s now going to be cool to be a virgin.

[1] www.abstinenceassociation.org/docs/NAEA_Abstinence_Works_041207.pdf

[2] www.americanvalues.org

[3] Summary position statement on the condom for disease prevention, Taxpayer Action Committee.

Rub a dub dub

2008-07-13T14:00:00+02:00

An ancient family story describes a domestic science lesson (that's what they were called then). A teacher told an unenthusiastic child to 'put some elbow grease into it!' Some time later she was found searching high and low in a cupboard in a desperate attempt to find the stuff.

Call me a reactionary fuddy duddy if you want, but here are some juicy hand-picked factoids about effort from today's media.

In spite of all the campaigning to get kids to propel themselves to school, at many well-to-do London primary schools all pupils still arrive by car – most in gas-guzzling Chelsea tractors. The physics 'A' level now covers half the syllabus it did 10 or 20 years ago. As a result, British students no longer win the world 'Physics Olympiad'.

54% of state school teachers won't send their brightest pupils to Oxbridge because a degree at some of the best colleges in the land 'wouldn't be right for our pupils'. And only 1% of children's television shown in the UK is made here: the rest is bland cartoons and unchallenging sitcoms about 'American teenage obsessions like dating'. Age-specific educational programmes and programmes like Grange Hill that tackle British issues and values just don't get made any more.

And then there's cleaning products... Have you noticed how they almost always promise 'no need to rub'? That'd be too much effort. Gullible media-softened saps that we are, we put our blind faith in the miracle product. Once we let the genie out of the bottle, it will solve all our problems for us. Then with a warm glow and a clear conscience we swoosh the stuff down the drain, with no thought for the environmental consequences.

Harrumph. Diaphania shuffles off to Tunbridge Wells making disgusted noises...

High school math versus phys ed ...

2008-07-02T21:07:09+02:00

During the summer, I teach SAT prep for the high school kiddies. When I told a class that the SAT is a reasoning test and that content-wise, there's nothing above Sequential I Math, they laughed and told me that there has been no such thing as Sequential I for years. There are now two Regents exams -- Math A and Math B -- in place of the three that I had to take when I was in high school. What this means: the required terms of math / required terms of gym ratio in most New York State high schools is now more ridiculous than ever.To this day, I live in fear that someday the Dept. of Ed is going to come after me for the term of high school gym I'm "technically" missing and threaten to revoke all of my degrees unless I go back and pass one gym class. Of course, I'm nearly 100% sure that that won't -- and can't happen -- but the concept could rake in some cash as a Drew Barrymore movie, no? ;)

Online Tuition Benefits

2008-05-29T10:09:22+02:00

Tuitions are very necessary for today’s kids as class teachers who dedicate themselves to teaching and that too providing personal attention to each and every kid are becoming very rare. The teachers should not be blamed alone for this situation as the population is growing day by day that schools have more number of students in each class to meet the demands. The children’s doubts may not be cleared in the class room or at home either due to lack of guidance or lack of time or lack of effort taken by the parents and the class teachers that they are sent to private tuitions in order to get that extra attention to shine well in the studies or any other thing of interest.Tuitions are not only available for academic subjects but are also available for various vocational courses like swimming, dancing, music, guitar, karate, skating and so on. Tuitions create a great environment for the kids they are filled with children or persons who have the same goal or ambition making them more focused than the class room sessions where wholesome development is aimed at. Tuitions are considered as a boon for many working parents as they provide a breather for them in educating their children.I recently visited the website - http://www.hometutiononline.comexcellent resources for those willing to sign up for home tuition online anywhere in the world.

Online Degree Advantages

2008-04-30T15:16:14+02:00

Hello everybody!! I am forced to write this blog on online university degrees as one of my friends and I had an argument over the authenticity of online degrees and its recognition in the job market and among the ones who have got a regular degree. Online degrees some how are considered inferior to that of the regular degrees, but it is not true.Although I did my basic degree from a regular college, my financial condition did not allow me to pursue higher studies. I did not have any option other than to go for work, and when I started working, I happened to get married, which meant additional responsibility and no time for studies through a regular college. The urge to study was always there in me, then I happened to bump on the website http://www.counselorinternet.info while searching for an online course through a popular search engine that I got convinced to do a course online. The main reason was that there was no limitation to the subject of study online as any degree was possible from an arts and science course to a professional course such as law, medicine, doctorate and MBA. The advantage is that when a course did online, a person can carry on with the routine job and study during their convenient time, cost wise also one can save a lot. That is, it is affordable to everyone. As far as recognition is concerned, there is no difference from a regular course except for the fact that there is a difference of location of study. The diploma and degree are the same and has the same value.

”Freedom Writers” reminded me of Joyce

2008-01-19T13:55:00+01:00

The film was about a woman who taught English at Long Beach High School. The school became decayed after integration program. Non-white students occupied the school and then good white students had gone. Most of the students had problems in their families.

A young teacher, Gruwell played by Hillary Swank taught her students how to live with confidence. It is based on a true story.

The main theme of the story is "Express yourself and learn how to live."

Learn how to live in the ghetto like Anne Frank did.

I know a woman who were a high school teacher. I think she was already retired. I remember she came over to help me with my life in US. She was so kind to me.

She said the message she gives her students was "There is no fair." The family she was born was very poor. She worked so hard to get a teacher's credential. Her father was half-Native American. She told me the stories of her father's experience.

I understand these words as I grow up. This is what a teenager should know before entering the grown-up society.

We want to complain but things don't change so easily just like the song "Waiting on the world to change."

But there should be a way out. The world is not perfect but can change better little by little. Don't do wrong things by your emotion.

Even after I left the U.S., we exchanged the emails each other from time to time.

I was sometimes very rude to her because I had been so childish. I miss her so much. What is she doing now?

I hope I can see her again. Her name is Joyce Becker. She told me she was awarded a "Teacher of the Year" Award in California several years ago. She graduated from UC Berkeley. She was a teacher in San Diego.

Primrose Road, M.A., Ph.D., D.D.S, M.S.C.A.E., W.T.F.

2008-01-14T02:30:00+01:00

Fighting a Brecht-and-Deleuze-induced headache, I took two Advil and went to the Chinese restaurant up the block to get some chicken fried rice. While waiting fifteen minutes for my rice, I paged through a copy of The Learning Annex's latest catalog, noting every seminar led by someone with the letters "Ph.D." after his or her name. On a related note, can we please grind up the Law of Attraction, bake it in a pie, and serve it to its mother for dinner?Of the six "Ph.D."s in the catalog, two are legit. One woman teaches Law of Attraction-style thinking, but she has a dissertation listed in Dissertation Abstracts International. Another, despite being endorsed by Oprah, has a Ph.D. from an Ivy League school, with a dissertation on a non-woo topic. The other four (I'm being nice and not including names):1) A Ph.D. in "energy medicine." Two biographies online tell us where he's taught, but not where he obtained his degree.2) A Ph.D. candidate at an unaccredited distance education school of "esoteric and hypnotherapy studies." According to her bio, she attended one accredited university, though it doesn't say anything about her having graduated or earned a degree. The second institution listed does not appear to exist anywhere outside of the woman's own biography. 3) A "former psychology professor" who doesn't tell us where she formerly professed. She also isn't forthcoming on where she earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, which would explain why there are no hits on her very distinctive name in Dissertation Abstracts International. 4) A "metaphysicist" who calls herself "Dr. ______ ________, Ph.D.," though her site mentions nothing about her having earned a degree. There are zero hits on her name in Dissertation Abstracts International. Word of advice: people with accredited, legitimate advanced degrees tend to be forthcoming about where they earned those degrees.

WELCOME HOME

2007-12-15T19:35:00+01:00

HAPPY (NEW) YR. 2008

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Thank you for smoking

2007-11-20T18:25:00+01:00

I wouldn't say it is a movie about cigarette. If it was the case, it would end with some foreseeable classic nauseating moral scene about how smoking is bad for you and why you should stop. No. Thank you for smoking is an entertaining and intelligent movie about education, freedom of choice... and the power of speech. In a few words, it is the story of a talented tobacco lobbyist (Aaron Eckhart) that is torn between his job and the education he has to give to his son (Cameron Bright). But the character is clever and manages to stay uncorrupted and coherent in everything he does. The movie is great and really funny. Some would say it is controversial, but I did find the scenes involving the "merchants of death" squad hilarious [our guy regularly has lunch with two other lobbyists for weapons and alcohol to share strategies on how to convert people].I loved this movie, and the end is very good, but I have to admit as my fiancé pointed out, that it has the worse sex scene ever. Katie Holmes may be pretty, she's definitely not a good actress. But the perfect rythm of the movie makes you forgive and forget that detail. One more time, Thank you for smoking is a sound intelligent movie. And despite a subtle critic of the society, it really makes you proud of being human.

Fantasy Congress

2007-11-13T05:20:00+01:00

Last year a pal I play hoops with cajoled me into joining his fantasy NFL league. It was fun to study the rosters. I’ve always been fascinated by people’s names. Somehow football players’ names are particularly fascinating, maybe because they’re so prominently displayed on the gigantic billboards that are their backs.

So naturally, knowing very little about the current crop of individual players, I chose a team based entirely on the players’ names. I could have made a whole league of such teams. An entire team of Toms playing an entire team of Cedrics and Derricks? An entire team of people with last names that are professions (Miller, Baker, Cook, Porter, etc.) versus an entire team of people with names longer than 10 letters? Or a team of all players with sexually ambiguous names (Marion, Lesley, Randy, etc.) I wonder who would win? Well, despite all the fun I could have had, I created one team with players who had tough names. Rough tough names. Like Mack Strong. Or Alge Crumpler.

I actually did all right for awhile. And way under the salary cap, I might add. Until I, uh, took my eye off the ball and several of my players were out for weeks with injuries unbeknownst to me. I played a few weeks with no quarterback, I think.

But I can see how the fantasy league concept is a fun one. Especially for the attentive.

And there's a league for everyone. You can play fantasy Congress too. Fantasy Congress: Where people play politics. I haven't played, mainly because returning from reality after fiddling around in a land of fantasy politics would be just too devastating. But if you want to play, you have until Thanksgiving to draft for the fall season!

Instructions are simple:

Draft your team of Members of Congress (MCs).
Earn points as your MCs legislate effectively.
Manage by trading, benching, or picking up free MCs.
Win by getting the most points by the end of the season and go down in political history.

Good concept! The site encourages teachers to use it, which seems like a good way to get kids involved in thinking about what's going on in the halls of the legislature beyond the posturing and speechifying we see most of. (What am I saying, "kids," really for anyone to get past the weapons of mass distraction constantly used against us.) Good luck!

Sweden bans religion in all schools

2007-10-19T09:40:00+02:00

According to an article in the Guardian today, the Swedish have decided to ban all religion in all schools in Sweden, even the Religious ones. From now on it must not be taught as if it were actually true. We should do the same in Scotland.

Getting an education in France

2007-10-01T12:30:00+02:00

Hello.... are there any forward thinkers out there in the French Education System?????

Each day I am greeted with some new edict that seems to be beyond my comprehension.

Last week, only a few weeks into the start of the new school year, the new director of a Lyonnaise college/Lycee has put into action some really wonderful ideas - absolutely condusive to making going to school a wonderful experience - never to be forgotten!

Maybe this is an edict straight from the new Department of Education National - who are apparantly out to modernise and improve the current system - good luck!

School is open between 7:30 to 8:00 am for those starting classes at 8:00 am (more about this one later...)

If you arrive late - bad luck - you can stand out in the rain and freezing cold (no shelter provided anywhere near the school) and WAIT until the school re-opens its doors at 8:50am......

Bad luck if your train or bus is late (SNCF/TER don't really have a great record - and we haven't even started with the strikes yet this year....!).

The SNCF office actually has a section which provides late notes for students using its services so that they don't get reprimanded for tardiness....very forward thinking, don't you think?

Bad luck if you have a cold, bad luck if it's dark....

Last year there was an alarming increase in attacks on students coming to and leaving school - new security measures where put in place, many meetings were held with the Police and school administration and angry parents.....

and now...???

The kids can just hang around or go wander around and we can just wait for another attack.. very forward thinking!

The school has areas within the school where kids who are not in class can sit - undercover, dry and safe - but why oh why should they be available to students in the morning??? I've got no idea have you?

Another novel idea is that kids who arrive late in lycee are not allowed to enter their classroom - they have to miss the entire class. Bad luck if your train or bus is late. Bad luck if you have been sitting in traffic for an hour and a half trying to get your kids to school. Bad luck if you have a valid excuse. Bad luck if you had an exam that morning....

Of course, you could leave earlier to try to get to school on time - but then - you will have to wait outside in the rain/snow/wind and freezing cold if you get to school in 10 minutes - afterall, the doors are not open between 8:00 and 8:50!

What a dilema... it seems that the system continues on its weary path of being negative instead of positive - this is the way it works here in French education!

Now... starting early - good idea to counter the problem of not enough physical space in the school - stagger school hours.. but wait..... no, the kids still have to do a WHOLE day at school - that is, they finish at 16:30 for college and much later for Lycee..... even if you start at 8:00 or 7:30am!!! Then, don't give them lunch until 13:40pm.

The teachers don't understand why the kids are inattentive, sleepy and fidgety......????

I think that these working conditions are actually illegal out in Public enterprise! Maybe someone for the work ethics department should do a Time and Motion study? That would be interesting. But knowing the French love of paperwork and redtape - we wouldn't hear about the results for a very, very long time, if at all!

There's my big moan for the week!

Hope that there will be something happier to report soon....

NY Times Magazine: ”The New Affirmative Action”

2007-09-30T17:20:00+02:00

In today's New York Times Magazine (The College Issue), David Leonhardt takes into account the intersection of the categories of low-income students and minority students, and indeed points out that

"many of the beneficiaries of the preferences end up being upper-middle-class minority students, since they tend to have better test scores than poor minorities."

Even with affirmative action in place, universities tend to favor students from middle- to upper-middle-class families.

"The colleges apparently put even more stock in the polish that comes with affluence — the well-edited essay, the summer trip to Guatemala, the Arabic language lessons. In any case, the poor lose."

Then, Leonhardt alludes to what may be the most problematic aspect of college admissions: even in the era of affirmative action, they rely on outmoded forms of intelligence testing:

"Intelligence, indisputably, is in part genetic; and every intelligence test shows a gap between black Americans and others. For a long time, scientific research wasn’t very good at explaining this gap. But it has gotten better lately. For one thing, the gap between white and black adults has narrowed significantly since 1970, according to work by the noted researchers William Dickens and James Flynn. Four decades is too short a time period for the gene pool to change, but it’s not too short for environment to improve. Most intriguing, Roland Fryer and Steven D. Levitt, two economists (the latter is one of this magazine’s Freakonomics columnists), have found there to be essentially no gap between 1-year-old white and black children of the same socioeconomic status."

It seems that "socioeconomic status" is the key here: despite the many adjustments ETS has made to the SAT in the past few decades, the idea underlying the test and standardized tests like it (even if most of us no longer subscribe to this kind of thinking) is that low-income students should be kept out of the ol' Ivory Tower. Even today, students who have attended well-funded schools, can afford a $1500 test prep course, and even have a working knowledge of Latin have an automatic advantage on tests like the SAT. Affirmative action, as it currently stands, seems to be based far more on politics and "good ideas" than it does on actual research in educational psychology. Meanwhile, the SAT and GRE are based on 1920s and 1930s testing methods designed to keep out low-income students (and there is, of course, a sizable intersection between "low-income" and "minority" in this country). In my view, an alternative to overly-politicized, not-really-student-centered affirmative action policies would be a radical rethinking of admissions testing. While SAT administrators have taken a step in the right direction by eliminating analogy questions (which often took the form of the infamous RUNNER:MARATHON::OARSMAN:REGATTA one), I believe that we would benefit from an alternative test (one that would eventually eat the SAT alive, perhaps) based on unbiased educational psychology research.[In the interest of full disclosure, I teach test prep classes to supplement my adjunct-o-riffic income. And I've seen firsthand what a difference a few thousand dollars and a few extra hours of leisure time can make in terms of students' SAT, GRE, and LSAT success.]

Saturn's in your eighth house, buddy

2007-09-04T18:55:00+02:00

A Ministry of Education-approved trade college for astrologers has opened in the Ukraine. But before you dismiss this as residual Eastern Bloc wackiness, note that we have a fully functional, non diploma mill college of astrology right here in the United States. Though unaccredited, Kepler seems to offer its A.A. and B.A. students a relatively rigorous liberal arts curriculum, requiring courses in classical languages (Latin and Ancient Greek), literature, history, and psychology comparable to those offered at the country's better community colleges. Students are required to do two years of coursework for the associate's and four years for the bachelor's. Since 2001, when the school was approved to issue degrees (but still not accredited), there have been debates as to whether the school should be accredited.I'd like to go with the "well, at least it's not a diploma mill" argument, but it's difficult to get past the fact that the school is offering degrees in a pseudoscience. The majority of students in my 200-level poetry class this term are earning bachelors' degrees in biology, mechanical engineering, or architecture; what does it mean for them that in two years, the "B.A." or "B.S." on their resumes could be, accreditation-wise, the same "B.A." or "B.S." on a Kepler graduate's resume? Employers and passers-by aren't always going to be able to recognize the difference. I have in the last year spoken to a number of people who, perhaps or perhaps not surprisingly, believed that unaccredited online institutions were a godsend for people lacking the time and money to invest in an advanced degree. They claimed that there was no fundamental distinction between my Ph.D. (which, when I earn it in 2009, will have four-and-a-half years of coursework, a master's thesis, six months of studying for comprehensive exams, articles, conference presentations, and a dissertation behind it) and a Ph.D. obtained from an unaccredited institution with $5000, 6 months of classes, and a fifty-page research paper. In fact, there seem to be two levels to the diploma mill problem: (1) government workers and educators who have knowingly used diploma mill degrees to "earn" promotions, and pop-psychology authors who knowingly pad their credentials with false doctorates; and (2) those learners who honestly don't know that six months of classes and a fifty-page research paper does not a dissertation make.So I wonder, in light of the diploma-mill issues that don't quite apply to the US's very own astrology college but nonetheless affect decisions regarding accreditation, is it reasonable or ethical to confer accreditation on a liberal arts college of pseudoscience?

A career in the battlefield

2007-07-16T09:40:00+02:00

July 16, 2007War is a difficult word to deal with much more experience it. And the word military is always associated with it.There is great misery and pain on the victims, as well as their families. And it is the children, women and the youth who suffer the horrors of wars.But ironic as it may, millions of people benefit by risking their lives in the battlefield. And by pursuing a military career after acquiring enough military education as a guide for mapping out a career path, the youth dreams of having decent and comfortable lives in the future.Yes, pursuing a military career after joining a military school promises lucrative job opportunities and a bright future. A military career does not mean living a hard life under a very difficult environment. It offers diverse opportunities that would help them develop a good sense of discipline, obedience and respect for others. He also grows to become self-reliant and responsible for his actions while serving his country and protecting his fellow citizens.They say wars are launched in order to attain peace. In waging war, the best soldiers of the air force, navy and the army are molded.But being successful in one’s military career does not mean going to bloody battles. There are a lot of options open to those who have finished a military education.In highly-advanced countries, different types of military schools exist. There is a military school for kids or a military school for teens that hones the children and the youth to achieve the values of leadership, honor and respect, as well as physical health.In the past, military education is limited only for children of the rich and famous, or society’s elite. They mostly become officers of the military while lower positions are reserved for commoners.The military even gained negative sentiments during the Vietnam War. But this had significantly changed as societies modernized.In Latin America, escuela militar promises a bright future for the youth. They undergo a moral-ethical training develop a sense of spirituality. They are also taught to commit their young minds and bodies for the good of all – that is developing a high level of solidarity among the people.As previously stated, one can be a part of the Air Force, Navy or the Army. Choosing a field of specialization must be decided in the early part of one’s career.In the military, there are a lot of options to choose from. One can aim to become an Operations Commander, a Pilot, a Navigator or an Intelligence Officer in the Air Force; a Navy SEAL in the navy. In the army, one can join its Commissioning Programs. There are still many career options to choose from in the fields of Engineering, Logistics and Special Warfare. Lawyers and priests can join the Air Force, too which also applies in the navy and the army.Having a military education does not completely mean going to war. It means job opportunities and a career equivalent to the corporate world.

What Should Kids Be Taught?

2007-03-09T02:30:00+01:00

From Scott Adams' blog:

"From a marketing perspective, there’s a brilliant new game show on TV called Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? The host, Jeff Foxworthy, asks adults questions from topics covered in grade school. The adult can rely on a 5th grader for help up to three times.

"For example, Foxworthy asked what constellation the Big Dipper is in (Ursa Major). Another question asked which bone in the human body is the largest (the femur). All of the 5th graders allegedly knew the answers.

"Clearly, our kids are being taught a lot of useless crap."

At least learning the constellations might get kids outdoors, looking at the vast dark sky above them. That seems good.

But to take Adams' point: What is the purpose of learning information that will become simply trivia when we are adults?

I can imagine several purposes for public education that might include learning these kinds of facts, some of which might be:

simply learning how to learn, and nurturing an innate hunger for learning (sort of ala Rousseau), rather than emphasising recall of the actual details of astronomy, biology, history, trigonometry, etc.;

helping kids figure out what really interests them, where their passions lie, by exposing them to a wide variety of disciplines, so they can focus on those disciplines as a vocation or avocation -- Still, there's a lot that's not taught in K-12 that would make a great career, like veterinary science, mortuary science, theology, most engineering, architecture, etc.; and even more hobbies that you don't learn about in school;

learning facts about science, social sciences, math, language, etc., simply to become well-rounded in the liberal arts and thereby better members (citizens, guardians, rulers, governors) of the world, city-state, or polis, ala Plato and Aristotle;

transmitting what are seen by one generation as useful facts and skills to the next generation (who may not see them as such)

Adams names the things he thinks kids would be better served by learning: public speaking, risk assessment, bullshit detecting, social skills, decision-making, managing your own body, and influencing people. These are mostly skills rather than facts. Of course, there are a gazillion comments on this at the blog.

It's true that those things come in handy in adult life, but they seem really boring topics on which to spend 12 years watching Power Point slides and role-playing. Give me the constellations and bones of the human body any day.

Update (Friday): Profile of eccentric 75-year-old physics teacher.

Debate on English education in elementary school

2007-02-16T12:32:00+01:00

Mr. Ibaki, the Minister of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), has been creating a stir with his opposition to English education in elementary school. I work as a translator, and naturally am proficient in English. I started learning in the 4^th grade in elementary school, from a private tutor who was Japanese. After that, I studied at English conversation schools with native speakers, and I learned not only the English necessary to pass tests in school but I also became conversationally fluent. After I graduated from high school, I went to America to study at a university for five years, and thanks to my previous English education and current “real-life” English education, I earned my Bachelor’s degree.

Based on these experiences, I both agree and disagree with Minister Ibaki’s opinion.

First of all, with regard to why I agree with Minister Ibaki, it is because when we talk about language, language is not just about communicating information. While we talk, we think about various things, and when we say that we are polishing up our speaking skills, we are also polishing up how we think. The sentence construction of English and Japanese are very different. In particular, when one becomes used to expressing the conclusion at the beginning, Japanese becomes a very difficult language in which to speak. In addition to being able to find the right words, it is also important to have the ability to consider exactly what it is you want to say.

In translating work, this definitely becomes an obstacle. Without completely considering the flow of the entire sentence, it is impossible to translate that sentence. Being stuck between the two languages, left without the power to think, even understanding the main point that you want to communicate becomes difficult. To take the example of this author, when I was in junior high school, in addition to excelling at English the other subject I excelled at was Japanese. I believe that because I became very good at reading comprehension in Japanese, it helped my progress in learning English.

That is to say, rather than language being something that one learns, language is something that one becomes accustomed to. From that point of view, the younger one is, the better one is able to adapt. Setting aside the merits and demerits of English, English is becoming the common global language. If one learns it well, it is clearly to that person’s advantage. If one is raised in an environment in which one does not feel uncomfortable around English, then after that things will be much easier.

Particularly with pronunciation, it is much better for children to learn at an early age when they have no preconceptions. Because the pronunciation of the Japanese language is one of the simplest in the world, it creates many difficulties. For example, the differences between L and R, V and B, and Th and S do not exist in Japanese and are therefore hard to grasp, and by the time one is an adult the fixed habits interfere and it becomes difficult to hear the difference.

However, I do not believe that Japanese education and English education should progress simultaneously. Before learning how to speak as if it were one’s mother tongue, one should learn the native language properly and build up reading comprehension and critical thinking. Whether it is the native language or a foreign language, without the ability to comprehend, one can neither speak nor listen.

Written by Masagata.

Translated by a MIT graduate.

செந்தழல்ரவிக்கு நன்றி

2007-01-08T10:45:00+01:00

"நன்றி நன்றி !!! மகாலட்சுமி கல்விக்கு உதவியாச்சுங்க !!!"

-செந்தழல் ரவி.

அன்ன சத்திரம் ஆயிரம் கட்டுதல்,ஆலயம் பதினாயிரம் செய்தல்,அன்ன யாவிலும் புண்ணியம் மிக்கது ஆங்கோர் ஏழைக்கு எழுத்தறிவித்தல்.

செந்தழல் ரவிக்கும் உதவிய பதிவர்களுக்கும் நன்றி!

Classroom Democracy, Part V: Bibliography

2006-12-18T04:35:00+01:00

I was going through some papers and posts, preparing for the next installment of The Wary Guerrilla, when I realized I had not posted a bibliography for my Classroom Democracy series. Throughout the series I cite chapters and journal articles but never state where I got them from. Thus, without further ado, my long occulted sources:

Bruning, R. (1995). The College Classroom from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology. Handbook of College Teaching: Theory and Applications.Dawson, J.D. (1996) Relations of mutual trust and objects of common interest. In J.K. Roth (Ed.) Inspiring Teaching: Carnegie Professors of the Year Speak. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc. (pp. 44-53). Halonen, J.S. (2002). Classroom presence. In S. Davis & W.Buskist (Eds.). The teaching of psychology: Essays in honor of William J. McKeachie and Charles Brewer. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. (pp. 41-55). Ley, K. and Young, D. (1998). Self-Regulation Behaviors in Underprepared (Developmental) and Regular Admission College Students. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 1998, Vol. 23, 42-64.Roth, J.K. (1996). What teaching teaches me: How the Holocaust informs my philosophy of education. In J.K. Roth (Ed.) Inspiring Teaching: Carnegie Professors of the Year Speak. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc. (pp. 199-210). Royse, D. (2001). The mental groundwork. In D. Royse (Ed.). Teaching Tips for College and University Instructors: A Practical Guide. Needham Heights, MA.: Allyn & Bacon. (pp. 1-24).Ruiz, T.F.(1996). Teaching as subversion. In J.K. Roth (Ed.) Inspiring Teaching: Carnegie Professors of the Year Speak. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc.(pp. 158-165).Smith, K. (2006). "Representational Altruism: The Wary Cooperator as Authoritative Decision Maker," American Journal of Political Science, October 2006, Vol. 50 No. 4, pp 1013-1022.Smith, K. et al. (2004). Evolutionary Theory and Political Leadership: Why Certain People Do Not Trust Decision-Makers. Presented at the 2004 Midwest Political Science Association Conference in Chicago, 2004, 1-42.

Classroom Democracy, a tdaxp series1. A Parliament of Scholars2. A Defense of Republics3. The Life of Constitutions4. The Evolution of Learning5. Bibliography

Student Differences and Deliberative Learning

2006-12-10T18:40:00+01:00

Because of maddening and inferiority problems with my blog hosting service, a comment I wrote to Mark of ZenPundit did not go through. Mark had a question on deliberative learning over at my series, Classrooms Evolved, and as Mark was kind enough to link to those posts, I do not feel good letting him wait until blogspirit gets its act together. (That could, literally, take forever.)

My reply is below:

I've tried classroom democracy on community college students, gene. ed students in a survey course, and political science / international studies students in an introductory course. I think all three of these tries went better than a piagetian attempt or lecture-based attempts.Students differed on motivation. Community college students and major students tended towards mastery orientation, with the major students taking the democracy itself as a system to master while community college students used it to help them master their technical skill. Thus the major students devised and implemented clever alternatives to the sort of democracy I layed out, while the community college students used it as a way to select tutors who would help other students in exchange for reduced assignments.Gen. ed. students were generally performance oriented. Several times there were "coups" with a President or Prime Minister declaring his term extended -- students were focused mostly on grades and so such coups were popular (as they provided more continuity than elections in course structure).Thus the directional nature of the classroom I describe in this series. I expect that by embedding the democracy within a curriculum you would have a more durable system for gen. ed. students, while still allowing major students the ability to play with the system if they want to.I plan on handing out an edited version of this philosophy to students on the first day next semester. This system is designed for practical implementation.

Phil's question over at "Open Thread" is also still hanging, but Catholicgauze and Sean seem to have that covered. (I don't have the original text of my comment anymore, so I hope it stops being AWOL soon!)

Christmas Fayre and Silver Band

2006-11-28T21:30:50+01:00

Dates for your Christmas Diary ( Part 1)

As we head towards December 1st on Friday the build up to Christmas is about to begin. First news that on Wednesday afternoon after school the 'Friends of Cefn Fforest' committee have a meeting and would welcome any parent ( or grandparent for that matter) who is willing to help out at events not only over Christmas but throughout the Year. ( The Friends are currently organising the Christmas Fayre and Raffle, along with a Christmas Disco which will take place before the end of term ( date to follow).

On Friday 1st December we will once again welcome the Oakdale Silver Band who will be playing Christmas Carols on the Infant Playground from around 3pm until the Christmas Fayre ( in the Infant Hall) begins at around 3.40pm. All parents, brothers, sisters, friends and relatives are welcome to join the staff and pupils of the school as we welcome in the Festive Season with some traditional singing.

Why not make an afternoon of it by moving from the yard into the Infant Hall for the Annual Christmas Fayre, where there will be stalls, fun and games for a further hour after school.

What a Brilliant Way to start CHRISTMAS 2006

** On Tuesday 5th December our Year 3 pupils will be walking down the Blackwood Miners Institute after lunch to watch an afternoon performance of The Snowman ( This sounds like another wonderful opportunity for our children)- hter will be a nominal fee of £1 for the performance. ** letters will be out to Year 3 pupils on Wednesday 29th November**

The next Diary Dates will give you dates and times for school performances, concerts, disco and parties.... so keep watching.

Learning Evolved, Part IV: Bibliography

2006-10-16T17:05:00+02:00

The last part of this series is for future reference, and for you to verify the sources I have used. The format is more-or-less APA style, but I make no claims for stylistic competence.

The A's:Alford, J. & Hibbing, J. (2004) .The Origin of Politics: An Evolutionary Theory of Political Behavior. Perspectives on Politics, 2(4), 707-723Alford, J., Funk, C., & Hibbing, J. (2005) Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted? American Political Science Review, 99(2), 154-168.Alford, J., & Hibbing, J. (2006). The Neural Basis of Representative Democracy. Paper presented at the Hendricks Conference on Biology, Evolution, and Political Behavior.The B's through Z's are below the fold:

Classroom Democracy, Part IV: The Evolution of Learning

2006-10-08T03:30:00+02:00

We must liberate Political Science from the Barbarians. Political scientists rarely apply the tools of political science to the problem of teaching political science. Instead, our poor field is oppressed by interlopers from psychology or economics. Students are naturally curious, the psychologists tell us, and so we should merely facilitate their natural desire to learn the materials. Or the Economists trot out their Rational Man, and tell us that our students are his clones: the student's must be forced to study by altering the utility function by punishing behaviors we dislike and rewarding the behaviors we enjoy. Everywhere these foreigner followers of the SSSM god teach us to ignore our ancient traditions and follow their strange ways.

The Classroom: A People-Powered Polis

No more! It is time for the colonized to become the colonizers! Our hammer and sickles and evolutionary analysis and wary cooperation theory. Let us rise up and seize the commanding heights our own field's future!Political science is the study of social conflict and interpersonal interaction. Current research into genetic factors imply that certain traits are in-born, and I propose that these can be exploited for pedagogical ends. Humans are loss-avoiding, in-group-supporting, out-group-competing, cheater-punishing machines, and it is time we apply these facts to education. (I realize that the direction of this paper is separate from the week's focus on international relations and comparative politics, but I believe it is no less useful.)

Classroom Democracy, Part III: The Life of Constitutions

2006-10-05T21:10:00+02:00

An agile Constitution can be changed, so that the weaknesses can be fixed and not become avenues for anti-democratic forces. This is as true for the constitutions in Classroom Democracies as the constitutions in Federal Republics. Of my classes last semester, one added a Supreme Court, one established a Lebanon-style division of offices, and one abolished the Assembly.

The Classroom: A People-Powered Polis

1. The Supreme CourtClassroom Democracy builds rational academic behavior by exposing students to multiple perspectives through peer interaction. Different options, such as whether to spend a day watching a movie or studying for an exam, are considered by the students. Regular elections rewards students who have good study skills to share, and allows them to act as mentors for students who are not so knowledgeable. Democracy is very Vygotskian, as it relies on dialog and zones of proximal development.However, social interaction can be stressful. It requires students to consciously weight alternatives, which is mentally more taxing than trusting an authority figure. When the teacher is dedicated to democracy, the students cannot revert easily to their role of passive receptacles of knowledge. One class, however, succeeded in doing just that...

Classroom Democracy, Part II: A Defense of Republics

2006-10-01T20:15:00+02:00

One reason Classroom Democracy succeeds is the powerful human drive for socialization. "Students have a more enjoyable and profitable learning experience when they feel connected to each other," (Royse 6), and hands-on role-playing (11) such as classroom democracy enable this. Classroom democracy succeeds because it is founded on social interaction, and "the most successful programs for developing critical thought have been those involving social interaction" (Bruning 4).

The Classroom: A People-Powered Polis

The innovative nature of classroom democracy makes this doubly true, as its unusual processes challenge "established orthodoxies" (Ruiz 159) and force students to be aware of how they learn and how they want to learn. Socialization encourages students to develop "self-regulation [to] use personal (self) processes to strategically monitor and control his or her behavior and the environment" (Lee and Young 32). Whatever we would wish, many college students do not develop study skills because they are never given any control of their learning in a classroom environment. Classroom democracy allows students to develop self-regulation in a Vygostkian, zones-of-proximal-development, style by working with more established learners in deciding how to learn.

Music Education

2006-09-24T22:45:19+02:00

Sometimes, music education refers to the process and the activities undertaken to create awareness among people about music and its utility. Mostly, music education is still treated as a special education only. This situation needs to be changed, and music education has to be given due recognition.

Career Education Programs

2006-09-24T22:41:11+02:00

Career education is a systematic program for students and adult learners who seek higher education to develop expertise in specific jobs. Career education helps increase knowledge of self, choices of occupation, training opportunities, job search skills and decision-making strategies. Many schools and colleges in the United States provide courses on career education that can help to mold a student’s future.

Baby's Education

2006-09-24T22:30:22+02:00

You baby may be only a few months old and it has its whole life in front it. But even now you should be considering the future, even now you should be planning for your child’s future education, especially college education.

Education Elsewhere

2006-08-22T10:10:00+02:00

Below is an extract from a newsletter covering a recent Tauck safari in Tanzania. There is a link to photos at the end of the newsletter.

From the crest of a 1,200-foot hillside, I'm looking down at the Great Rift Valley, a geological wonder that stretches from the Middle East to Mozambique, in southeastern Africa. The valley is 4,000 miles long and 30 to 40 miles wide and is visible from the surface of the moon.

For 35 million years, the Arabian tectonic plate that includes easternmost Africa and the African tectonic plate that includes the rest of the continent have been drifting apart, forming this valley (which continues to widen) and resulting in the volcanic activity that created Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Meru and others. If the plate movement continues for a few million years more, East Africa will separate from the rest of the continent and form a new landmass.

On our drive from Tarangire, we stopped at a Maasai elementary school. The Maasai are among the largest and best known of Tanzania's 120 tribes, famous for their colorful clothes and their resistance to all things modern.

The school was in dire need of virtually everything, and Tauck had suggested we bring supplies such as pens, pencils and paper. We placed our gifts in a pile in the dirt parking lot as the teachers came out to greet us. There were half a dozen concrete buildings housing nearly 300 children in first through seventh grades, with only five teachers.

There is no electricity anywhere on campus, so no lights and no bells. There are no books--lessons are written on the blackboard and scribbled into the single notebook each student possesses. There is no school bus, and the parents of the children do not own cars, so the children walk to school and back each day, rain or shine, as much as 10 miles each way. Some leave for school in the dark every morning and reach home after dark in the evening.

Many of the students have no food to bring with them, so every day the school prepares porridge made from corn in a concrete shelter, enough to feed everyone. The sight of that meal helped us appreciate the struggle that these kids must endure to obtain an education.

In Tanzania, children speak their tribal language at home, but in elementary school, they must learn (and are taught in) the national language, Swahili. They learn English as a subject until the seventh grade, and those that manage to stay past that age are taught in English from that point on.

Due in part to their nomadic lifestyle, only a minority of the Maasai have attended public school, so it is difficult to convince them to send their children there. The annual cost of public school--about $20--is also a barrier to many. By the seventh grade, the number of girls in class falls sharply, as most are forced into marriage by that age--generally to a man who is older by at least a generation.

We toured the school and visited a class of fourth graders. Judging by all the wide eyes staring back at us, we must have looked as strange as giraffes (no, stranger) clomping into the room with our cameras and watches and sunglasses and safari clothes.

The children sang to us in English and showed us their notebooks, and we congratulated them on their fine work with words they could not understand. We asked them their names and showed them where we lived on the world map, and gradually, their shyness began to melt away.

We took their pictures, and they crowded around our cameras to see their own images. Most seemed shocked to see themselves. My wife showed one curious young boy how to use her camera, then showed him the picture he had taken, which set off a stampede of giggling, 10-year-old photographers.

There were many peals of laughter in that damp, concrete bunker on one day in June, and hardly a dry eye in our safari truck as we pulled back onto the highway.

Later that night, on the hard floors of tiny huts made of grass, mud and cow dung, the children of the Maasai would tell the story of the funny white people (wazungu) who had come to call.

To view photos click on the link below:

Safari photos

Maharshi Karve

2006-08-04T10:33:22+02:00

MAHARSHI KARVE – BOOKS ON HIS LIFE AND TIMES By VIKRAM WAMAN KARVE I have before me three books on Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve : (i) His autobiography titled ‘Looking Back’ published in 1936. (ii) Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar published in 1958 by Popular Prakashan Bombay (Mumbai) (iii) Maharshi Karve – His 105 Years published on 18 April 1963 ( His 106th birth anniversary) by Hingne Stree Shiksan Samstha Poona (Pune) Allow me to tell you, Dear Reader, a bit about these books which describe the life and times of Maharshi Karve and tell us about the monumental pioneering work of one of the foremost social and educational reformers of India. It would be apt to start with his autobiography, and let Maharshi Karve describe his life and work from his own point of view in his simple yet fascinating style. I am placing below a Book Review of his autobiography (which I had reviewed a few months ago) for your perusal: Book Review of The Autobiography of Maharshi Karve : “Looking Back” by Dhondo Keshav Karve (1936) (Reviewed by Vikram Waman Karve) The Book: Looking Back The Author: Dhondo Keshav Karve First Published in 1936 Dear Reader, you must be wondering why I am reviewing an autobiography written in 1936. Well, till recently I stayed on Maharshi Karve Road in Mumbai. I share the same surname as the author. Also, I happen to be the great grandson of Maharshi Karve. But, beyond that, compared to him I am a nobody – not even a pygmy. Maharshi Karve clearly knew his goal, persisted ceaselessly throughout his life with missionary zeal and transformed the destiny of the Indian Woman. The first university for women in India - The SNDT University and educational institutions for women covering the entire spectrum ranging from pre-primary schools to post-graduate, engineering, vocational and professional colleges bear eloquent testimony to his indomitable spirit, untiring perseverance and determined efforts. In his preface, Frederick J Gould, renowned rationalist and lecturer on Ethics, writes that “the narrative is a parable of his career” – a most apt description of the autobiography. The author tells his life-story in a simple straightforward manner, with remarkable candour and humility; resulting in a narrative which is friendly, interesting and readable. Autobiographies are sometimes voluminous tomes, but this a small book, 200 pages, and a very easy comfortable enjoyable read that makes it almost unputdownable. Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve writes a crisp, flowing narrative of his life, interspersed with his views and anecdotes, in simple, straightforward style which facilitates the reader to visualize through the author’s eyes the places, period, people and events pertaining to his life and times and the trials and tribulations he faced and struggled to conquer. Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve was born on 18th of April 1858. In the first few chapters he writes about Murud, his native place in Konkan, Maharashtra, his ancestry and his early life– the description is so vivid that you can clearly “see” through the author’s eye. His struggle to appear in the public service examination (walking 110 miles in torrential rain and difficult terrain to Satara), and his shattering disappointment at not being allowed to appear because “he looked too young”, make poignant reading. “Many undreamt of things have happened in my life and given a different turn to my career” he writes, and then goes on to describe his high school and, later, college education at The Wilson College Bombay (Mumbai) narrating various incidents that convinced him of the role of destiny and serendipity in shaping his life and career as a teacher and then Professor of Mathematics. He married at the age of fourteen but began his marital life at the age of twenty! This was the custom of those days. Let’s read the author’s own words on his domestic life: “… I was married at the age of fourteen and my wife was then eight. Her family lived very near to ours and we knew each other very well and had often played together. However after marriage we had to forget our old relation as playmates and to behave as strangers, often looking toward each other but never standing together to exchange words…. We had to communicate with each other through my sister…… My marital life began under the parental roof at Murud when I was twenty…” Their domestic bliss was short lived as his wife died after a few years leaving behind a son… “Thus ended the first part of my domestic life”… he concludes in crisp style. An incident highlighting the plight of a widow left an indelible impression on him and germinated in him the idea of widow remarriage. He married Godubai, who was widowed when she was only eight years old, was a sister of his friend Mr. Joshi, and now twenty three was studying at Pandita Ramabai’s Sharada Sadan as its first widow student. Let’s read in the author’s own words how he asked for her hand in marriage to her father – “I told him…..I had made up my mind to marry a widow. He sat silent for a minute and then hinted that there was no need to go in search of such a bride”. He describes in detail the ostracism he faced from some orthodox quarters and systematically enunciates his life work - his organization of the Widow Marriage Association, Hindu Widows Home, Mahila Vidyalaya, Nishkama Karma Math, and other institutions, culminating in the birth of the first Indian Women’s University (SNDT University). The trials and tribulations he faced in his life-work of emancipation of education of women (widows in particular) and how he overcame them by his persistent steadfast endeavours and indomitable spirit makes illuminating reading and underlines the fact that Dr. DK Karve was no arm-chair social reformer but a person devoted to achieve his dreams on the ground in reality. These chapters form the meat of the book and make compelling reading. His dedication and meticulousness is evident in the appendices where he has given datewise details of his engagements and subscriptions down to the paisa for his educational institutions from various places he visited around the world to propagate their cause. He then describes his world tour, at the ripe age of 71, to meet eminent educationists to propagate the cause of the Women’s University, his later domestic life and ends with a few of his views and ideas for posterity. At the end of the book, concluding his autobiography, he writes: “Here ends the story of my life. I hope this simple story will serve some useful purpose”. He wrote this in 1936. He lived on till the 9th of November 1962, achieving so much more on the way, was conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters ( D.Litt.) by the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in 1942 followed by Universities of Poona in 1951, SNDT in 1955, and Bombay(LL.D.) in 1957. Maharshi Karve received the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the nation’s highest honour the “Bharat Ratna” in 1958, a fitting tribute on his centenary at the age of 100. Epilogue I (the reviewer) was born in 1956, and have fleeting memories of Maharshi Karve, during our visits to Hingne Stree Sikshan Samstha in 1961-62, as a small boy of 5 or 6 can. My mother tells me that I featured in a Films Division documentary on him during his centenary celebrations in 1958 (I must have been barely two, maybe one and a half years old) and there is a photograph of him and his great grand children in which I feature. It is from some old timers and other people and mainly from books that I learn of his pioneering work in transforming the destiny of the Indian Woman and I thought I should share this. I have written this book review with the hope that some of us, particularly the students and alumni of SNDT University, Cummins College of Engineering for Women, SOFT, Karve Institute of Social Sciences and other educational institutions who owe their very genesis and existence to Maharshi Karve, read about his stellar pioneering work and draw inspiration from his autobiography. As I have mentioned earlier, two other good books pertaining to the life of Maharshi Karve which I have read are: Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar, Popular Prakashan (1958) and Maharshi Karve – His 105 years, Hingne Stree Shikshan Samstha (1963). The biography ‘Maharshi Karve by Ganesh L. Chandavarkar’ was commissioned and published by the Dr. DK Karve Centenary Celebrations Committee on 18th April 1958 the birth-centenary of Dr. DK Karve (Thousands attended the main function on 18th April 1958 at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai which was addressed by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister). The author, GL Chandavarkar, then Principal of Ram Mohan English school, has extensively researched the life of Dr. DK Karve, by personal interaction with the great man himself, reminiscences of his Professors, colleagues and students, and his two writings Looking back and Atma-Vritta. The author acknowledges with humility: “This is the story of the life of a simple man who has risen to greatness without being aware of it in the least. It is being told by one who can make no claim to being a writer” and then lucidly narrates the story of Maharshi Karve’s life in four parts comprising twenty four chapters in simple narrative style. Part I, comprising eight chapters, covers the early life of Dhondo Keshav Karve, from his birth to the defining moment in his life - his remarriage to Godubai who was widowed at the age of eight, within three months of her marriage, even before she knew what it was to be a wife. The first chapter vividly depicts the life and culture of Murud and Konkan in a brilliantly picturesque manner and is a fascinating read. The narrative then moves in a systematic manner encompassing the salient aspects of Maharshi Karve’s life till his birth centenary in 1958. The biographer comprehensively cover Maharshi Karve’s marital and work life, but does not throw much light on his relationships with his four illustrious sons, who were well-known in their own respective fields of work. The author avoids pontification and writes in friendly storytelling style which makes the book very interesting and readable, making it suitable for the young and old alike. I feel an epilogue covering the remaining years of his life would make the biography more complete. There is a reference index at the end and I found this book to be quite a definitive biography which could serve as a source for knowledge and inspiration to readers interested in the life and work of Maharshi Karve. The 233 page book was published by Popular Book Depot Mumbai in 1958 and I picked up a copy priced at rupees forty at the International Book Service at Deccan Gymkhana in Pune a few years ago. Maharshi Karve – His 105 Years, published on his 106th birth anniversary, is a pictorial album depicting the life and activities of Maharshi Karve. In today’s parlance it may be called a ‘coffee table’ book, but it is a memorable reference book of lasting souvenir value which is a must for every library. The chronologically arranged sketches, photographs and captions tell Maharshi Karve’s life-story in a seamless manner. There are photographs of historical, heritage and sentimental value highlighting important milestones in his life and work. (If you want to see my picture, turn to page 98 and have a look at the small boy holding Maharshi Karve’s hands and looking at the camera. I may have been just one and a half years old then and barely able to stand!). This book is indeed a ‘collector’s item’ and was priced at a princely sum of rupees ten at the time of publication. If you wish to learn more about Maharshi Karve and draw inspiration from his life and work, do read these three books. And please do let me know if you come across literature on Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve. VIKRAM WAMAN KARVE vikramkarve@sify.com

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