Aasra promotion on youtube and karmayog

please check out this link guys n gals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIkb-L-DD1I

this ne was sponsored by karmayog

Mark Twain's quote about the educational system

God , first made idiots. This was for practice:)


...and then he made school boards/varsities!

Mark Twain


mark_twainUS humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 – 1910)

1. A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
2. Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
3. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
4. Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
5. By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity — another man’s I mean.
6. Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.
7. Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
8. Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
9. I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
10. I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
11. I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
12. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
13. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
14. If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.
15. In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.
16. It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
17. It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
18. It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
19. It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
20. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
21. Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
22. Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
23. The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
24. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
25. The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
26. The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
27. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
28. Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
29. We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.
30. When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.
31. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.
32. The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.
33. It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
34. The report of my death was an exaggeration.
35. Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
36. Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
37. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
38. A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
39. I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.

Source: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Mark_Twain/1

Answer Sheets are not secret documents, RTI chief/ New developments in the educational reforms sector

It's been a hectic few weeks of positive developments in the education field especially where the board exams are concerned. The HRD Minsiter has already set in motion several steps to abolish the CBSE board exams. Schools have begun evolving into better and comprehensive educational zones as a result. It took just a few weeks for the curriculum and modus of education to change in the CBSE schools. Students who were presurrised to do projects beyond their capabilities and give tests and exams at every level have found that the pressure has begun to ease a little. More and more recreational subjects have been introduced and the number of projects to be evaluated on has decreased. Students are already beginning to feel the stress level go down...

In a welcome change has taken place... the previous stand of the boards -of not entertaining applications by students to see their answer sheets, has been struck down by the Pune Information commissioner(RTI) . The Chief Mr Vjay Kuvalekar has asked the state boards to amend their policy within a stipulated time so that studenst will be allowed to inspect their answer sheets at the earliest. It is definitely a development of great import. The previous stand violated the fundamental rights of a student. This welcome change was brought about by a petition filed by HSc student Abhijit Joshi with the HSc board which the board promptly rejected saying that the answer sheets were confidential documents. But Joshi was not one to give up. He filed an RTI application with the Information Commissioner chief heard both sides and came to the conclusion that answer sheets could not be equated as confidential documents and therefore had to be shown to the student on request.Kuvalekar pointed out that answer sheets were not covered under section 8 of the RTI act. It's is not possible for the viewing of answer sheets to affect the soveriegnty and integrity of India(which can be the only reason for documents being kept secret). I think this move will be welcomed by all aggrieved students and parents who felt their children might have fared better than the marks received from the board. Hopefully the board will come to it's senses and do the needful.


Yet anther development is the Shiv Sena's opposition to the ATKT for students who have failed the board exams. This seems to be a clearly politically motivated move to capture the votes of the naysayers. It must be understood that students have to go through immense trauma when they fail such exams denoted as integral to the future, by society. There is no way that quality of education will be affected by this move. In fact it will only improve the quality when students feel less stressed and more able to inculcate the teachings the education system dishes out as part of it's curriculum. There are so many students getting depressed and attemting suicide because falure in these board exams gets them ostracised from their near and dear ones, they feel alienated and unsupported and their sense of well-being is majorly affected because the people who they have come to depend on make them feel worthless. Are these students lives not precious? Or is it better to sacrifice their lives, hopes and ambitions on the altar of educational quality?????




The emotional and academic pressures of high school and college life, while manageable and even exciting for most students, can be simply overwhelming for others. Such students may not yet have attained the level of maturity necessary to develop adequate coping skills, or they may be struggling with relatively long-standing emotional difficulties that are exacerbated by the transition to having to give board exams and the move to college.

For Faculty , staff and peer group

As a helper, due to your position, status, and visibility on campus, students experiencing emotional distress may turn to you for help. Or, because of your role, you may find yourself confronted by a disturbed or disturbing student who needs assistance. The way in which you respond in these situations could have a significant impact on the student's ability to deal constructively with his or her emotional conflicts.

Consultation

At AASRA we offer consultation services to faculty, staff and others on a full range of student development issues. In your attempt to help a student, you may benefit from input from a counseling professional.


AASRA caregivers can suggest possible approaches to take, intervene directly with students, or provide you with support. Please call our offices at 91-22-27546667 for assistance.

Your Role as Faculty, Administrators, and Staff

Because of your position, students may turn to you frequently to obtain advice and support. Although you are not expected to provide counseling, it is helpful for you to understand the critical role you can play in:

* responding to student problems & concerns.
* identifying signs that indicate a student is in need of help.
* making a referral to student development professionals.

regarding Reena's comments on the Michael Jackson saga

Well Reena,I disagree with what you have said about MJ. It must be understood that MJ was created by the media... granted he had talent and he had people to show him how best to use it, but without the media he wouldn't have achieved the kind of fame/infamy he eventually did. He begame a large than life character because of the media and as long as it was good press he was willing to lap it up. The minute his transgressions began to show up on the visual space, he began to cry foul. That is not to say that he was guilty or not guilty.He could pay off his accusers because he had the fame which gave him the money to do so. If he was an ordinary/ common man, no one would have cared about what he had done and the newspapers might have just relegated the news to a one-time crime reports insert.take the case of Shiny Ahuja- now if he was just an ordinary army officer's son (with a loving wife and family) who was also doing it with his maid, there might not have been so much attention, irrespective of whether he raped her or not. Notoriety is the price a celebrity pays for his/her desire to hog the limelight. That's the way the cookie crumbles for them and they really can't grumble about it after the fact. If they wanted to live the live of a commoner then they should have stayed away from professions that attract media attention. The world is fair, we make the decisions and sometimes we are unfair to ourselves. People who can' t live blameless lives should either brazen it out or stay away from the limelight!

johnson

Failed HSC and SSC students to be allowed ATKT

This is the best news I've heard since the possible scrapping of board exams even though I am not a student anymore - at least not of the formal education system. It's really been a bouquet of riches unleashed by the HRD ministry and I must sing paeans to Mr Kapil Sibal. He's a brave man no doubt!
There's surely going to be a flurry of opposition from educational institutions and parents.Ever since the exam system was introduced, educational institutions and most parents( I'd not like to paint the liberal ones with the same brush) used it as a lever to motivate. threaten, cajole and force their children into achieving their(parents) own unfulfilled dreams and desires. And at what cost? The rising graph of youth( 15-35age group)suicides speaks for itself. It's been sheer hell for these students who had to strain beyond their god given talents to prove to the world and their relatives that they are capable of doing 'well' in the accepted systemised way! No one bothered to understand that children have different talents and these are the talents that need to be natured by the education system, not ones thrust on them by societal expectations. So the so called 'weak in studies' had to not only join classes for which their parents paid a fortune, they also had to work twice as hard to score a bearable(read pass marks)score. Why this travesty has been going on for years without anyone being the wiser , is anybody's guess. It has a lot to do with corruption, power and sheer lack of will on the part of the ministry and society at large or else the system would have been reformed much earlier.
The Atkt system is bound to cause a great deal of confusion before it settles down and integrates itself into the minds and hearts of the powers that be. kids who have been at the recieving end of the system so far will find it beneficial and kids and parents who have been able to beat the system and achieve sterling results will find themselves cheated of their aims and ambitions. It must be understood that change is never easy, even if it is for the better. Only sustained effort can make change a positive phenomenon. The HRD ministry has it's work cut out for itself to convince the naysayers about the efficacy of this newbie and I am glad that Mr Kapil Sibal is more than likely to be able to face up to the challenge! At least he seems to be up to it...
I for one am all for abolishing all forms of exams at the school level. Children must be given projects to work on and grades must be assigned to them on the basis of the effort they put in. Exams at the school stage are meaningless because they only promoted rote learning, inequality between the haves and the have-nots and also sets up a different sort of class barrier, one that becomes impossible to bridge!
It's ok to have exams at the college level starting from class eleven where students have 35% theory, 50 % objectives and the rest should be for project work evaluation. Knowledge must be promoted and not rote learning. At this level students must be allowed to express themselves in their own words based on their understanding of what they have learnt and the theory marks must be accorded to them accordingly. The system should be such that no one should feel left out. Everyone should have a fair chance of doing well provided they work hard emough. Teachers must be taught practical motivational psychology so that they have a better understanding of their charges. They themselves must be evaluated on their ability to motivate their charges into a better performance and not by the marks that their charges obtain. Any positive change must be praised and rewarded.
The last point I'd like to make is that there should be no age barrier in learning. Every institution must abolish the age specific and enroll anyone willing to earn irrespective of his age, background, qualifications or ability to pay fees. In this way education itself can be demystified and the countless illiterates that dot our country's humanity will find it easier to cme into the system and stay to learn for a longer duration.
These are changes that our system needs badly...what say you???

johnson

death of a dancer....michael jackson!

I was inspired by a piece written by Martin Huxter.( hes a friend with whom I share cyberspace on another forum)
the piece stung hard and made me think about things that we don't really pause to think and analyze....about judgments that we pass, about how easily we believe things written in print and how our sensibilities bring in hatred into this world.

go to link, read and pls leave your comments....here on this blog...


http://hurlyburly-hurlyburly.blogspot.com/2009/06/farewell-to-michael-jackson-worlds.html

(if this does not hyper link thn do copy paste it in a new tab and read)

the workshop on domestic violence at H.R.college....

The chairperson of the workshop was Ms.Indu Shahani Sheriff of Mumbai.Special Invitee was Ms. Shobha De the POPULAR socialite and columnist

The things that struck me..

1.No initiative can be sustainable if it works only on charity. ie. for free

2.Most workshops Ive attended about gender equality has shown the male in bad light. True, that ours is a male dominated society but the other side of the coin has to be addressed too.

3.Women are still thinking that one girl going out with 3 boys ( her friends/classmates) is not a good idea..its a invitation to danger/rape...(this is regarding the TISS case.)

4.Socialites are still talking about what should be done.. How society should be..how we should react.. blah blah ....(actually Im fed up of these females trying to talk about issues that they hardly know about...these women in designer sarees and AC cars. urgh....!)

5.Its heartening to see young women so charged up and raring to go....( NGO- CEHAT and the young people with women` s Helpline 1298( this number is also for an emergency ambulance service for women in need)

6.I would love to be empowered and not have to struggle with life everyday....( consider this an aside)

7. The directory that includes all the Ngo`s that could help women in any which way possible is a very good idea..
AASRA is also mentioned in the directory but the address given is NERUL.Should be Koparkhairane!