essays
A melody, a harmony, a rhythm, and a poem. A Veena called Northstar. A sequence of chapters forms a book, a sequence of classes forms a school day, a sequence of units makes a curriculum, and a sequence of musical notes makes a melody. And when there are underlying notes
education
A lullaby to put us to sleep, so that we may dream. A song called a Northstar. The gesture of sleeping - where does it occur? Head bouncing on the window of a bus; hands folded on a bench and the head resting on it, a class perhaps; a baby
essays
It is perhaps wise to turn to Friedrich Schleiermacher (a German theologian and philosopher) occasionally. He is one of the founders of pedagogy as a discipline. Pedagogy, as it is used and understood in common parlance, is merely the “technic” of teaching. The content of these technics is prescribed by
architecture
It was drizzling lightly that day. I have walked on this unpaved path many times before. But it was the dampness and the silence that made me stop at a particular bend in the pathway. It is completely covered with trees from above. This spot made me feel something that
education
My understanding of education primarily rests in exploring phenomenological experiences. What does it mean to reveal the experiential reality of children and adults? Pedagogy, the way I understand and explore it in the phenomenological sense, reveals this inner topology that I can view, if I am patient and listening. Of
education
At the beginning of the new school year two years ago, I wrote, "And we start again. Once more. A new school year. So many new walkers joining our caravan and some choosing another road. I have no destination in mind, because I cannot choose for anyone. I know
education
I borrow the phrase "Centres of Condensation" Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space. Our institutions, Northstar and Raga, are thought of as, firstly, 'centres'. Taken in isolation and in the prevalent context, the word 'centre' has no gravitas, no weight. It is as
education
What instrumentalism, economic ends and modernity have taken away from the original conception of school can never be fully comprehended or felt. I meet parents who are eager to know how much we do in the school: how many subjects, how many sports games, how many languages, how many activities,
education
In 2012, I was travelling to one of my favourite places in India - Shimla. Viceregal Lodge in Shimla is a beautiful building, housing the Indian Institute of Advanced Study. There is a small book store in the campus. While rummaging through antiquated books, I chanced upon Education and Humanism
northstar
Ist mir mîn leben getroumet, oder ist es war? Have I dreamt my life, or was it a true one? -Walther von der Vogelweide Rhythm of Learning, Rhythm of Life. Why did I write this for [Northstar](https://www.northstar.edu.in)? More often than not, my thoughts are not
education
I wrote this sometime back. Resharing on the occasion of Teachers' Day in India. What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms – in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem
philosophy
As an educator, one of the key ideas that I explore is *thinking*. One of the goals to start Noesis, my philosophy class at The Northstar School, was to learn and teach the process of thinking with students and educators. I used to say that learning the *process of thinking*