ARTICLES, POEMS, PLAYS, BOOKS and SPEECHES
Unlearning to learn – “We have a captive mind which is coerced into conformity. We have been made to forget. Our vision is blinkered. It is extremely difficult to “learn from the people””.
The parrot’s training – Tagore – A small and beautiful satire on.
Here I Stand (Speech) – Valedictorian (Erica Goldson) speaks on Schooling in her Graduation Speech
Oh, the places your EGO will take you (Poem) – A beautiful poem on what your Ego does to you by Scott Kalechstein Grace
The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes (Speech) – Severn Suzuki was only 12 years old when she gave this talk in UN Earth Summit in 1992. It was not silence that she was seeking.
The Animal School (Short Story) – A take on today’s Education (Schooling) system. A wonderful story about a school that animals created for themselves.
The Basket Maker (Play) – A beautiful play by Tom Pruiksma – a story of a basket maker, his wife, and the little baskets they make, each basket telling a different story, sharing different colors.
I bought my own chocolate (Story) – A beautiful story of how someone learnt to buy a chocolate. “I smiled back and asked how much I need to pay and she said that I have already paid for it. We both smiled at each other and my heart explained me what it meant.”
Liberating education from chains of imperialism – What was our education system like? Why were certain myths so vigorously propagated?
My school – Tagore – “I believe that the object of education is the freedom of mind which can only be achieved through the path of freedom–though freedom has its risk and responsibility as life itself has.”
Divasvapna (Small Book) – Thus the experiment began… A 54 pager, an year long experiment, a must read for anyone who is interested in Education. “As a reader of Divasvapna one is blown off in a gust of joy and curiosity, leaving behind the sadness born out of one’s knowledge of India’s colorless, dust-wrapped primary schools.”
The Beautiful Tree (Detailed Book) – For anyone who is interested in learning about what Indian Education system was like before the British… – a learning space for every 400 people in India!! 100,000 schools in Kalinga area alone!!
School is Dead (Detailed Book) – A book on Schools by Everett Reimer.
Confessions of a recovering environmentalist (by Paul Kingsnorth) – He writes about what environment means to him, about how the new trend of running towards the renewable sources of energy would not lead us anywhere.
Remember Who I really Am – A parable (The little Soul and the Sun) by Neale Donald Walsch). A story worth reading and enjoying.
Bhaskar Save, Gandhi of Natural Farming – Masanobu Fukuoka, the legendary Japanese natural farmer, visited his farm in 1997, and described it as “the best in the world, even better than my own farm!” It is a veritable food forest and a net supplier of water, energy and fertility to the local eco-system, rather than a net consumer.
Between City and the Forest – Suprabha Seshan, from ‘Notes from the Sanctuary’, very beautifully compares life in city to life in forest and how it manages to see us things totally differently.
A Little Grove (Aligro) 