Mana Shah - Facilitator

In my years before me, I can say I have decent amoung of experience in working with youth. But if one were to ask me what is the secret of their success or what is one thing that should be done in creating maximum outcomes, I would answer with a typical Indian unidentifiable nod! As someone who is supporting, guiding, mentoring youth groups, should one give more autonomy and flexibility (and then take a chill pill and wait for the spontaneous order to create the magic)? Should one provide frameworks and structures within which young people can play with (and then scringe if one of those frameworks are not often referred to again until one plays the job of a constant reminder)? Should one insist on reporting and documentation after a great program when one knows that will take its own time to come? Should one provide more spaces to meet and interact face to face or create multiple online forums? Should one wait and control the impulse to rush in to "rescue" or "correct...

After reading James Tooley's The Beautiful Tree! I felt angry, inspired, surprised, and most of all completely bewildered as to how the education experts of the world from 19th century onwards were just ignoring how majority of the poor were choosing the education for their children. His experiences of working with schools in India, China, Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe all showed him the same thing! That the poor had made a choice for the betterment of their children. The educational entreprenuers were not looting the poor "ignoramous" parents. The children in private schools, even the village schools, were performing way better than their counterparts in government schools. It was the first time I had read a counter to Britain's feather in the cap-of bringing education to the uncivilised world! He documents again and again how in Kenya, China, India, and even in England had a history of well-functioning private schools which used a unique peer-learning methodoly! Giv...