"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh PalHow do the dynamics of a school spill over into the seemingly unconnected events at home, in the community, the nation, the world? Do they?
How often do we, as parents or teachers, act like our own parents/teachers? How often do we as students, experience a disconnect between what we are taught to do and what is implicitly expected of us? How much of those influences do we carry with us, as we start families and choose careers? Surely the ambitious CEO as well as the lackadaisical vagabond both went to some school that shaped them – in no small way? What were the teachers of today like – as school goers? What made them turn into teachers? How do parents experience the schools that they send their children to? What can happen if there is an attempt to create a dialogue between teachers and other teachers, teachers and parents, students and teachers?
Are such things even possible?
This is a set of ten stories based largely on events that actually unfolded but do not serve to depict entirely accurate portrayals of what transpired – ‘fictionalised fact’. The intent is not so much to produce memoirs as it is to set the reader off on an exploratory journey. The stories are followed by rich discussions between groups of principals, parents, students, teachers, teacher educators and pre-service teachers, as they reflect on the questions raised by these stories.
Neeraja Raghavan, Vineeta Sood and Kamala Anilkumar are teacher educators working with THINKING TEACHER, www.thinkingteacher.in and this is a THINKING TEACHER publication.
Neeraja Raghavan, Vineeta Sood and Kamala Anilkumar
Neeraja Raghavan is Founder Director of Thinking Teacher, and author of several books and research papers, the most recent being The Reflective Teacher, co-authored with Vineeta Sood (Orient Blackswan, 2015). She holds a doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University, and has more than two decades of teaching and research experience, with a couple of years as Vice Principal/Principal of schools. She has taught in both mainstream and alternative schools. Her current focus is on teacher development through action research and reflective practice. She enjoys reading philosophy, writing poetry, listening to music and sketching.
Vineeta Sood is a practising transactional analyst in education, and Associate Director at Thinking Teacher and Founder Director, at Anubhav: Co-creating Learning for Change. Being an unschooling/homeschooling parent herself, she supports un/homeschoolers in India and abroad. Having worked with some alternative schools over the years, her main concern is with the human aspect of education. She designs and conducts programmes which have the potential to enable children, adolescents, young adults, educators and parents to participate creatively and with self-awareness in the journey of growing, learning, educating and parenting. She finds joy in reading, writing, painting and travelling.
Kamala Anilkumar is presently Senior Resource Person at Thinking Teacher, a freelance translator and co-author of workbooks on personal safety. She holds a postgraduate diploma in the Montessori method of teaching and bachelor’s degrees in science and education. Of her nearly three decades of teaching experience, 22 were spent in The School, Krishnamurti Foundation India (KFI), Chennai. She is deeply concerned about personal safety of children including child sexual abuse and has therefore been engaged in creating awareness about prevention of child sexual abuse in schools through workshops.
