Cultivating the mind of a child is analogous to cultivating a garden. In Nepal, however, our still very traditional and regressive ways is to tightly control, confine, and constrain the garden of the mind of a child. In order to cultivate the mind, what we must teach and learn to do is to free it.
Nepalis on average are a closed and inward looking people. And because of that, when the proverbial mirror is held in front of them, offended, disappointed, or not liking what is reflected back, they generally shatter the mirror. In this blog post, I document one such example from Twitter.
Nepanglish is Nepal's very own English, but it's a little beast of a language. It inflicts a lot of harm in many children, holding them back. If we are to improve the quality of our education, we must do away with Nepanglish and use and teach English English.
There are many many consequences of Nepali society being highly patriarchal and stratified. The Bhramanical patriarchal system stratified along caste lines, for example, has resulted in high caste Hindu men having a monopoly over in position of power and influence. Being there for as long as they have been, they have established a culture that works for them, a culture based, among other things, their arrogance. In blog post, I share one example of how that arrogance translates into what otherwise would be a professional relationship and professional interactions.
Math education in Nepal is limited to committing to memory formulae after formulae and, using them, how to solve problems that have been attempted over and over again using rules and steps also committed to memory. Little to nothing about WHERE the formula came from, WHY they work, and HOW they reflect something in or about life and the real world is taught. But all that can be taught and therefore how to think. For the details of HOW to do that, read on!
In Nepal, respect for teachers and administrators is instilled in student through the threat of violence, i.e. fear! That, of course, is despicable, just as Albert Camus says. Getting students to respect teachers is easy: just show them respect by listening to them.