yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Old Path White Clouds People wiser have taught us how it is the book that decides how and when it will interact with us and not the other way round. Old Path White Clouds underscored this dictum yet again for me. It is 7 months now that we had purchased the book (from, of course, our favourite book store ). Since, it sat (needless to add, peacefully) on the rack - an arm's length from where we sit and chat at the end of each day.   Reading Old Path White Clouds accompanied by the vacation sounds (read quality silences) on the campus has been special. I had enjoyed, on similar lines, my time with the two books I had read during the previous vacation - Learning from silence and Sachha Sur .  Like I did with the previous two books, with this book too, I went slow and after every few pages or so I took a break to absorb what I had read. The mahaul around only helped - the silences outside gelling aptly with the inner silences, peace, and calm these books talk about.  I read...

Some thoughts on reading a newspaper article a couple of weeks ago -  Newspaper: The Indian Express Date: 4th October  Title: The Teacher is Walking Away Author: Krishna Kumar  At the onset I clarify that I have, over the years, read Krishna Kumar’s articles,  learnt from them, and also shared them with friends.  This particular article talks about problems in the school system today - a system that relies excessively on data and where ‘teaching and children don’t matter’. There is no denying these problems - many of which are driven by societal changes. The focus on ‘permanent teaching job’ - the first line onwards - though, left me perplexed!  Now, the questions - Let us begin with numbers -  How many people have quit ‘permanent teaching jobs’ to return to ‘state of unemployment and uncertainty’? Is the number high enough that we need to be concerned in the manner that the article suggests?  Where does this number of quitting teachers stan...