Teaching...

Graduate classes. I can't believe I am getting to teach graduate classes. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that professors with PhDs would welcome me as a colleague and allow me to teach as their equal. I have always had in my mind that professors with PhDs uphold the intellectual integrity of their PhDs to be higher and valued more than a teacher as a practitioner. I have been mistaken. I have found it affirming to have such collegial relationship with my professors. Not one based solely on professional/pupil but one in which practitioner and academic share the spotlight in helping students navigate the complexities of educational policies in India and worldwide.

Above is a slide we produced together for the class on Educational Governance and Decentralisation merging our thinking.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

John's World...Jeeva Hop Garden

Image
The day has finally come.  I had been thinking about this for almost a year.  Of course it's beer related.  HOPS... Hops grown here in India.  Our friend Arjun had suggested spending his time at his family's foundation Jeevarathni.  Jeevarathni  is an organization working to improve the lives of economically and emotionally deprived children, specially abled children and the aged living in poverty and injustice.  We brainstormed some ideas to help the foundation and came up with a hop garden. For those of you who don't know or have not gone through the Sam Adams Brewery Tour a few hundred times, hops are essentially what gives beer its flavor.  There are close to one hundred hop varieties now in existence.  Combine those hops at different stages in the brewing process and you will have a unique beer unto-itself.   For various reasons, India has never really had a significant amount of hop production.  The weat...
Read more

John’s world...habits

Image
One of the things I’m most interested in dicovering when I travel abroad are the habits I engage in after the trip.  Some are short lived.  Some involve a gadget I bring back.  Some become an integral part of who I am.  Years ago I was in Mexico and I noticed the friends I was staying with would drink their water out of a clay pot.  They told me  that it keeps the water naturally cool and removed toxins (like many things apparently do).  So of course I brought a giant clay pot with me back to the United States.  The habit was short lived.  I drank water out of the pot for two weeks and regifted it to someone as a wedding present.  I called it a wedding pot even (I’m terrible and if I gave you that pot please post that I’m a bad person in the comment section). I had coffee for the first time in Spain.  I prop my foot on the bar at a pub like a proper local in Britain would posture themselves.  Habits that have lasted....
Read more

Farmhouse Retreat

Image
My class on Education Policy and Decentralisation took a field trip to a village. One of the students, Sanjeet, was kind enough to offer his farmhouse for all of us to stay at the night before. Sanjeet has an amazing story which I will save for another post. Briefly though, for 20 years or so he worked in the corporate world and decided to leave his job and enter in the MA program at Azim Premji University. His family runs a school in a village outside Bangalore and he wanted to learn more about education in India and put his talents to good use in the social sector. There was about 15 of us including my Professor, Dr. Paik. This class is more like a community and how they interact with each other, with me, and our Professor is a case study in itself. Right from day 1 of the class, I felt the warmth, kindness, and enthusiasm from each one of them. The farmhouse adventure is a testament to their true generosity and compassion. We left the campus around 5:30pm on this bus th...
Read more