Home Schooling: Some Thoughts

During this pandemic, many are toying with idea of homeschooling so thought of jotting down my own idea of home schooling. Here are some of my ideas of homeschooling, you may modify them as per your beliefs:

1. engage kids in drawing /painting, Internet offers many ways 
2. ask kids to enolve themselves in paper kraft, etc.
3. teach them prayers/mantras/shlokas and their meaning
4. discuss spirituality with kids so they become human, not just salary-earning robots
5. Watch Ramayan/Mahabharat with kids and discuss it with kids, they will lean humanity, spirituality, history
6. get kids to practice yoga, pranayam and meditation daily. This is going to be the most important skills for professionals in this new world
7. Watch Historical TV series/Movies, kids will learn history, no need to force them to read books,
8. read stories and then recite to kids every day
9. involve kids in every house chore that you do at home, so they become independent.
10. behave with them as you want them to behave with you, kids don't leant being taught, they learn by observing
11. leave them free some times every day/week and let them do what they wish to do
12. encourage them to learn a new language , internet helps in it
13. let them make mistakes, don't ever shout at them for mistake , instead help them understand why they made mistakes, what they can learn from them, how they should avoid same mistakes again. Making mistakes is way to grow...
14. take kids on tour, not to malls, but to museum, historical places,
15. watch great YouTube videos on science, technology, etc. Based on kids' interests....
16. Most important of all, as parent envolve yourself in each of these acts, don't just tell kids to do this/that and you watch your favorite TV or gossip. Parenting is job where we have to forget ourselves.
17. Above all, have a discipline for kids, not in haphzard manner. Discipline is the most important.
18. Homeschooling is success only if parents are fully commtted to it. And parents themselves have to be student and be willing to learn...

These are only few ideas, please add more....

Eduflation: Curse of India

Too many educated chasing too little jobs is eduflation.

With too many colleges mushrooming across and hardly any providing quality education, colleges churn up unqualified engineers, managers and graduates. Corporates can't employ them for obvious reasons. This whole system creates following problems:

1. undeserving degree holders flooding the job market, skewing unemployment market.
2. unfullfilled low level jobs which could have employed these youngs but since 'graduates' are over qualified so they wont do low level work.
3. Corporates not getting qualified employees.
4. Country and society suffering inspite of spending time, money and human resource.

This is the Eduflation.

Engineering colleges don't make engineers, management colleges don't make managers/salesman, other graduate colleges only produce degree holders. No skills are imparted in any college except few top notch colleges. Looks like whole higher education system is just crap.

Companies have to train again the recruits after uneducating them. Such a waste of resources.

What is needed is a different kind of schools/colleges where basic life education is given in schools and then on youngs go to skills specific training schools where only particular skills is given in dedicated manners only in few months e.g. schools for coding, salemanship, welding, car repair, etc. etc. Such skills could be given in upto 6 months, not more. They should be directly attached to actual work, not just theory. These training schools should be open to any age group.

Then there could be high quality higher education schools where there could be multiple ways to get into and there should ways for experienced people to get into, based on their experience and not only on degree....

A different level of education is needed today in this world, not the industrial level factory education to reduce Eduflation.

Here are some unanswered questions for Modi govt.

Here are some points where govt. seems to be not working which are very low hanging but high value fruits. This non-action looks puzzling and illintentioned.

1. Why not govt is not remove govt control from the temples from across India, instead they are taking more temples over like recently in Uttarakhand.
2. Govt not trying to rectify history?
3. Govt. not improving the quality of primary education?
4. Govt. has not control on the media which is doling out fake news regularly
5. There is no progress on corruption cases like 2G, CWG, etc.
6. There is no media strategy locally and globally for India
7. too many glitches in GST implementation and they have not been able to resolve them in 3 years
8. Govt not putting tab on school fee by private schools
9. There seems no concrete policy for economy and always uncoordinated decisions.
10. unnecessary support to minority ministry of which there is no need
11. unwarranted support to muslims in scholarship, tuition support
12. too much appeasement policy towards muslims and continues to encourage their wrong doings
13. no concrete policy decision towards vedic education/gurukul system
14. no strong actions on anti-india intellectuals, NGOs, 
15. no actions on JNU, AMU, JU academic institutions  despite so many evidence for anti-india activities in those institutes
16. Pakistan policy- too many and too regular killings of armymen but still there is no return to Pakistan except some hyperbole.
17. freedom to play provided to UrbanNaxals,
18. there are many headline hunting reforms for agriculture but no impact on ground for small farmers.
19. 
    

Chinese Corona Virus: And it's aftermath

World is completely shaken by the Chinese virus. Not a single country or territory is left untouched by this in the world. Every single person is talking about it. Every news sites is writing GBs worth of news every day, anyone you talk to is talking about only Corona.
Almost every country has imposed some level of lock down, somewhere entire countries are locked down. At this moment, it seems to be going out of hands for majority of govts. around the world. The world economy has completely come to a screeching halt suddenly.
Today individuals and govts are not thinking of growth, job and riches but only about saving lives.
This has also exposed how the world is vulnerable both economically and health-wise. And how connected we are to each other however far we may be physically in the world.
This has also exposed starkly our greed, our pursuit of materialistic goals, pleasures, naked exploits of the nature, leaving family, emotions, and community and pursuing materialistic success.
Once this all is gone, world has returned to normalcy, every individual and especially govts and policy makers will have to seriously think about the direction in which the world is going. Is pursuing materialism really worth it? This should be a question on the mind of everyone. Should we judge our growth only in terms of GDP numbers?

Cleanup Work Done by Modi: reference Swarajya Magazine

List of Clean up work done by Modi govt. in last term:

1. Physical
1. Swatch Bharat
2. Toilet Building
3. ODF
4. Subsidized Gas Connection for pure air
5. Electic Vehicle
6. Solar Power
7. Ganga Cleanup
8. Ayushman Bharat
9. world class infrastructure: air (UDAN) , water, rail and road
10. Make In India
11. greater freedom and push to ISRO, space projects
12. defence production at home
2. Financial
1. Demonatization
2. Electoral Bonds
3. GST
4. RERA
5. IBC
6. DBT
7. Jan Dhan
8. Shell Compmanies Closure
9. Fugitive Economic Offender bill
10. bank recapitalization with more than Rs 3 Lakh crore
11. banking reforms and bank consolidation
12. NPA resolution and tightening underwriting standards for stopping crony loans
13. doing away with Nepotism and forcing big businesses to sell to pay up
14. Monitory Policy Committee and keeping inflation under Control
15. bringining fiscal deficit under 3% of GDP
16. macro and micro economic stability
17. increased tax compliances by individuals and businesses
18. strengthening benami, black money laws
19. house for every family
20. cash monitory support to farmers
3. Policy 
1. Online Auction of natural resources
2. Single platform for govt. procurement
3. Sacking of beaureaucrates
4. Lateral joining of talents
5. removal of unnecessary laws
6. steps towards modern welfare state
7. cheap medical insurance to poor families
8. Start up, MUDRA ,etc for enterpreneurship
9. skill India for human capital improvement
10. Institete of immenence, higher quality research and huge jump in no of higher educational institutes IIT, IIM, AIIMS, NIT, etc.
11. Atal tinkering labs across schools

'Gifting' of Part of Kashmir to Pakistan and chacha Nehru

I was showing the below map to my kids and showed them that PoK & Azad Kashmir are actually Indian territories but have been 'gifted' to Pakistan by our belowed chacha Nehru. My kids were shocked and their next question was then why we call Nehru a freedom fighter? I had to go mum, had no answer.

Election For New India

The biggest festival of democracy anywhere and anytime in the world is about to begin. This keeps growing everytime it's celebtrated in India. Since 1947, it has been becoming better and more mature proving the confidence our founding fathers put in it barring a few maladies like way too much of appeasement by the most so called secular political parties of a particular community. This has really been endangering the very idea of democracy where every community, every group should be considered equal but to get extra votes parties have been resorting to apeasement for too long.
Last general election was the first which was really fought on the issue of development for all. And these 5 years really proved that this agenda can work wonders for parties as well as contry. Again the election are going to be fought on the same issue and citizens, the eligible 900 million voters must vote based on issue of development and not based on religion so that country progress fairly and the citizen gets quality of life. The last 5 years does prove that it's possible.
All opposition parties this time are facing existential threats because the electorates have decisively rejected the politics of apeasement and they want only issue of development and confidence.

Reading to Internalize

"Go to bed smarter than when you woke up." Charlie Munger

Just reading a book for the sack of reading and finishing it is not much value except you can boast of having aread a book.

Until what you read becomes part of your wisdom, not just knowledge, that reading is of not much use. You will not be in position to use that knowledge, that information you got from reading the book.

So in order to make the reading useful, you have got to have a strategy to read a book.

There is no doubt that reading makes you smarter, every page you read leaves you smarter, even if you dont remember anything from that reading. But that reading has definitely left some impression on your mind and probably on the subconscious mind.

Warren Buffett claims to read 80% of his daily time, he reads around 500 pages each single day. 

No doubt he is a billionaire today. 

When you read a lot, read variety, it builds upon itself over period, you generate your own knowledge and wisdom.

But a wrong reading habit can leave you exhausted, devoid of much knowledge and frustrated at the end. Because 

even though you are reading a lot but you are not gaining in wisdom proportionately. 

This is because your reading technique is not correct.

The way a wrong batting/bowling technique can ruin the career of an International cricketer, similarly incorrect

reading technique can damage you.

Here is the Farnam Street Guide to How to Read a Book

1. while reading , take notes, underline, synthesize, ask questions,
2. relate concept from other things you have read
3. write in the margin of the books, what are your thought reaction reading any paragraph
4. after couple of week, pick up the book, write down the gist of what you underlined
5. 
   

7 Reasons why everyone should, at least, possess "The Habit of Reading"

I had not read even a single word outside my academic reading until I finished my graduation. So after the graduation the fate pushed me into a corner and only the dark was there all around, no clarity in life. I started reading during that time and changed my life for better for ever. 

It's been 20 years since then I have moved beyond those dark days but the habit of reading has stayed with me. And it has done tremendous help to me. Here are the 10 ways reading has helped me.

1. whenever I needed a mentor in my life for taking any major decision at any stage, it's reading that came to my rescue.
2. Reading can seriously damage your ignorance, it can liberate you profoundly. I did for me.
3. You can visit around the earth, around space, your inner self, and magic world, stilling all in your sofa only through. I knew most through reading only.
4. Reading led to my financial independence as I learnt to manage money.
5. Making best friends with top minds of past and present reading the thoughts of great minds of the present and past. I could approach any great man, dead or alive, for advice through reading.
6. Reading gave me understanding that the life is beyond just the job and mundane day to day activities. Reading helped me discover myself.
7. Jim Rohn says Formal Education can make you living but self-education can make you a fortune. Self-education can only come from Reading, no other way.

Reading helps you discover yourself, it introduces you to yourself. Once you know yourself, the world becomes the most beautiful place, each moment you live becomes heavenly. 

If one has only this habit he will someday find himself through this habit and then he will be able to discover himself. Otherwise, most of us are just wandering on this earth without a purpose, only in search of materialistic goals. 

Websites for free English novels

There are 19,000 free ebooks in the Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalogue. 

http://www.gutenberg.org/ 

http://www.bibliomania.com/ 

http://www.readprint.com/ 

http://www.readbookonline.net/ 

http://www.fictionpress.com/ 

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ 

http://www.free-ebooks.net/ 

http://manybooks.net/ 

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/catalogs/bysubject-top.html 

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ 

http://www.baen.com/library/ 

http://www.ebooks3.com/ 

http://www.bookyards.com/ 

http://www.free-online-novels.com/ 

http://www.starry.com/novel/authors.htm 

http://www.bygosh.com/thebestnovels.htm 

http://www.bookspot.com/ask/ 

http://www.online-literature.com/ 

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ 

http://www.infomotions.com/alex/ 

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/ 

http://www.literature.org/ 

The Celebration of Women Writers. 

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/writers.html#B_Section 

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/subjects/subjects-women.html 

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