| learningnet-india.org The complete educational resource |
 |
| Home | |
| What's New | |
| Profiles | |
| Activities | |
| Announcements | |
| Publications | |
| Articles | |
| Resources | |
|
|
|
Introduction
The Learning Network is a network of individuals and groups exploring various alternatives towards holistic learning. The network helps learn about new perspectives and strengthens existing efforts. It also seeks different ways to solve problems in existing systems. It is a resource for interested groups, educators, and parents seeking meaningful approaches to education.
The Learning Network was conceived in Sept 2002. Since then there have been two annual conferences in 2003 and 2004. This report provides summary of the activities, network responsibilities and financial summary for the period from Sept 2002 - February 2004.
Administrative Teams & Acknowledgements
The following volunteer teams have worked on various aspects of the Learning Network –
- Shanmuga, Jayashree Janardhan, Anita Balasubramanian and Ravi Aluganti -- finding new areas of work and identifying new members to expand the network.
- Jayashree Janardhan, Anita Balasubramanian and Ravi Aluganti – coordinating the first annual Learning Network conference in Bangalore in Jan 2003.
- Reshma Madhusudan and Sriranjani Sridhar -- compiling and editing “Revive” (LN conference magazine).
- Ravi Aluganti -- printing Revive and making beautiful hand-made file folders for both conferences.
- Jayashree Janardhan, Anita Balasubramanian, Sriranjani Sridhar, Reshma Madhusudan, Shanmuga, Sunder Kumar Iyer and Srikanth Voorakaranam -- transcribing, editing and mailing the conference proceedings for the two annual conferences and mini-conferences.
- Jayashree Janardhan, Gaurav Sarup, Madhuvanesh Parthasarathy, Reshma Madhusudan and Sriranjani Sridhar -- for creating and maintaining the website.
- Reshma Madhusudan, Anita Balasubramanian, Ravi Aluganti and Raghavan M.R -- compiling, editing, printing and mailing the newsletters.
- Anita Balasubramanian and Jayashree Janardhan -- organizing the training workshops (on arts and crafts and conflict resolution) and mini-conference on conflict resolution.
- Viveka Tribal Center for Learning for organizing the Science workshops.
- Ravi Aluganti, Shanmuga and Pushpa Achanta -- facilitating the North Andhra Pradesh Learning Network mini-conference.
- Reshma Madhusudan, Raghavan M.R. and Anita Balasubramanian -- coordinating the annual conference in Feb 2004, Chennai.
- Ravi and Shanmuga for designing the logo for The Learning Network with computer help from Ram Susarla in Hyderabad.
- L. Devarajan for helping get clay for the arts and crafts workshops as well as the national conference.
- MORE for managing accounts for expenses related to identifying potential members.
- Avehi-Abacus for handling accounts of the conflict resolution mini-conference.
- Bharathi Trust for managing conference 2004 accounts.
- The Seattle chapter of Asha for Education for Education for providing financial support to the Arts and Craft Workshops, travel for identifying members for the network and annual conferences in 2003 and 2004.
- Chicago chapter of Asha for Education for supporting the arts and craft workshop follow-up visits.
- Stanford chapter of Asha for Education for supporting the conflict resolution meeting and workshop.
The first annual conference for the Learning Network happened in Jan 2003 in Bangalore. The conference was titled “Alternatives in Education”. This conference was the formal initiation of the Learning Network. The proceedings of the January 2003 conference were brought out in May 2003. The proceedings were also mailed out to those who participated in the conference and any interested groups and individuals. The proceedings can also be accessed at the website http://www.learningnet-india.org
Virtual Resource - Learning Network Website
The website http://www.learningnet-india.org was launched in August 2003. The website currently provides information on organizational profiles, events being organized by the Learning Network, articles, newsletters and various resources for learning available with groups and individuals in India. The content of the website is constantly being updated and we hope that the website will serve as a virtual resource center for those looking for information on various aspects of education. The web team seeks articles and content from various network members.
Newsletters
Two newsletters were brought out during the course of the year – in August 2003 and December 2003. The newsletters contained profiles of new network members, details of various network activities, announcements of events being organized and articles. The newsletters were printed, mailed and distributed to over 100 interested individuals and groups. Electronic versions of the newsletter is available on http://www.learningnet-india.org.
Workshops
Science Workshop
Viveka Tribal Center for Learning, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) organized a two-day science workshop in April 2003, for teaching through observation and experimentation. The objective of the workshop was to promote science through hands on activities, relate science to daily life, and make science teaching more effective at the primary, middle & high school level. 24 people from about 10 different groups participated in this workshop. There were many activities like demonstrations of various simple experiments to show the properties of a magnet, Bernoulli's Principle, various properties of heat, internal combustion and the working of a motorcar. The participants also built models of atoms, saw the night sky and planets through the telescope, modeled houses and engaged themselves in various games. More details can be found on the website and newsletter.
Arts and craft Workshops
Ravi Aluganti of Akshara, Madanapalle, and Chitra Krishnamurthy from Bangalore conducted four 3-day workshops for teachers on arts and crafts in schools in May, June and July 2003. One workshop was conducted at Bangalore, two at Chennai and one at Timbaktu Collective. Each workshop had an attendance of around 17-20 teachers, with a combined attendance of 74 teachers from 16 groups from Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Pondicherry.
The workshop had discussions on the importance and need for arts and craft in schools, the history of arts and craft, what art is, how, why and when art evolved, various activities that can be introduced to children, how these activities can be used to teach other academic subjects, classroom approaches while introducing these activities, age group for introducing activities, materials needed etc. The activities introduced included clay work, sewing, needle work, paper work, making some simple toys and painting. More details can be found on the website and newsletter.
Follow-up visits
Twelve of the sixteen groups that participated at the Arts and Craft Workshops expressed an interest in follow-up visits and workshop by Chitra Krishnamurthy and Ravi Aluganti. Subsequently, Chitra and Ravi have visited 4 of these groups and conducted follow-up workshops at 2 of them. In the coming months, they will be visiting the remaining groups.
Resolving Conflicts - The role of schools (Mini-conference)
The Learning Network and Avehi-Abacus jointly organized a mini-conference at Delhi on Nov 8-9, 2003, to look at ways in which schools and teachers can help identify and resolve conflict. Participating groups included Pravah, Ankur, and Nirantar from Delhi and Avehi-Abacus from Mumbai. Monica Wahi who has worked extensively in Gujarat since the 2002 riots shared her experiences as well.
Summary of these discussions with contact information of the groups can be found at http://www.learningnet-india.org. As a follow-up of this meeting a conflict resolution workshop was held in Chennai in February 2004.
Workshop on Diversity and Conflict Resolution
A 2-day workshop on diversity and resolving conflicts was organized at Chennai on Feb 23-24, 2004. The theme of the workshop was to understand conflicts and provide tools to resolve them – specifically with children. The workshop was lead by Ankur and Pravah, two groups from Delhi who have vast experience working with children and schools on issues of conflict. On the first day Sharmila and Shikha from Ankur led a discussion on a theoretical framework for understanding conflicts that children observe and experience in the various domains of family, schools and the society at large. On the second day, Ishtiaque from Pravah, introduced the participants to the “Theater of Oppressed” methodology developed by Agusto Boal to resolve systemic conflicts. 16 people from diverse backgrounds (teachers, social workers, field workers) participated in the workshop. A summary report of the workshop will be available shortly on the website.
Learning Network- North Andhra Pradesh Meeting
A meeting of individuals and groups interested in the Learning Network was organized in Hyderabad on Aug 30, 2003. Participants included Ananda Bharathi, Paccha Saale, Haritha Ecological Institute, SAKTI, Mr. Suresh of Manchi Pustakam, Mr. Sajaya of Likhita Press. They all shared their work experiences and discussed possible collaborative activities. This was the first regional level meeting of the Network and the language of communication was Telugu. More details can be found on the website and newsletter.
Expanding the Learning Network
The Network initially started with a base in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. One of the network’s goals is to gradually identify and grow in other parts of the country. Different Learning Network volunteers have been traveling to learn about and find individuals and groups to expand the Learning Network. During the second year, we've focused on more members in Andhra Pradesh, New Delhi, Rajasthan and Gujarat. There has been a favorable response from progressive groups and individuals, most of whom have long been feeling the need for such a network. The changing demography of the network's membership was already visible at the Chennai National Conference with new groups from different areas participating for the first time.
Second Annual Conference, Chennai, Feb 2004
The national annual conference of the Learning Network was held successfully at Chennai from February 19-22, 2004. More than 80 individuals and groups from the states of Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharastra, Kerala, Pondicherry, West Bengal, New Delhi and Rajasthan participated in the conference. This year in addition to group presentations, we had topical presentations on issues of common concern and interest. We also tried out workshops and activities for active participation of all attendees. The various activities covered a range of topics from workshops on arts, conflict resolution, natural learning process, calligraphy, early number sense, story telling, traditional performing arts in classroom to village library movements.
The enthusiasm and the interest to learn and share were very evident at the conference. Some of the highlights of the conference are mentioned below. The participants had captivating sessions on calligraphy, arts, painting and drawing till late in the evening lead by Dr.Henry from Madanapalle. There were detailed discussions on early number sense lead by Usha Menon and Glenn Doman method lead by Aruna and Raghavan. Geeta Ramanujam’s storytelling session was a wonderful experience for everybody present. She tied in emotions, feelings, geography, generation gap, concepts of life-cycle and migration through the story. Devika explored the need for integrated arts in the class room and demonstrated how teachers can use dance to open up the class room environment. The presentation on natural learning by Jinan emphasized the need for learning from nature using our senses. Rohit Dhankar explored the importance of developing skills of reasoning and analysis in children to develop a society based on values of democracy and pluralism. Sessions on Conflict Resolution by Sharmila from Ankur, Simantini from Avehi Abacus and Ishtiaque from Pravah highlighted the need to address the conflicts that children observe and experience in their everyday lives and shared ways in which they have attempted to do the same.
The conference successfully provided a space to share, understand and discuss many alternative perspectives in education in detail. The conference proceedings are currently being transcribed and compiled and will be available soon.
The second volume of Revive-the educational resource directory was released at the conference. Revive-2 contains articles contributed by Learning Network members and profiles and contacts of member groups and individuals. This is electronically available at http://www.learningnet-india.org.
Financial Summary 2003-2004
| Item | Cost (in Rs.) |
| Expenditure | |
| Conference 2003 | 49,218 |
| Brochures, Proceedings | 6,650 |
| Website Expenditure | 5,400 |
| Arts and Craft Workshop | 45,558 |
| Andhra Travel Expenses | 6,624 |
| Conflict Resolution Meeting | 3,982 |
| Gujarat and Rajasthan Travel | 4,126 |
| Arts and Craft Follow-up | 664 |
| Conference 2004 | 48,265 |
| Conflict Resolution Workshop | 10,641 |
| Newsletters | 795 |
| Total | 1,81,923 |
| Income | |
| Asha-Seattle (Conference 2003) | 62,695 |
| Conference 2003 Registration | 4,850 |
| Asha-Seattle (A&C Workshop) | 35,409 |
| A&C Registration | 5,500 |
| Donation for A&C Venue | 4,000 |
| Asha-Seattle (Travel) | 17,828 |
| Asha-Stanford (Conflict Res) | 15,803 |
| Asha-Chicago (A&C Follow-up) | 15,471 |
| Asha-Seattle (Conference 2004) | 53,833 |
| Conference 2004 Registration | 18,940 |
| Conflict Resolution Registration | 2,800 |
| Website Donation | 5,400 |
| Total | 2,42,529 |
| Balance | 60,656 |
Back