Week 24: Geetha Narayanans

Slow Learning

Announcements

Week 24: Geetha Narayanan
This week, we are pleased to welcome Geetha Narayanan to the #Change11 stage.

Geetha is the Founder-Director of the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology and its sister institution, the Mallya Aditi International School. She has dedicated her life to finding and establishing new models of educational institutions that are creative, synergistic and original in their approach to learning. An administrator, researcher, teacher and facilitator, she has pioneered many courses and projects that examine a wide variety of needs, social and educational. Geetha is the author and principal investigator of Project Vision, an international research initiative that is looking at the development of appropriate instructional strategies and technology-related tools that foster creative cognitive architectures in young children from urban poor communities. week24

Read Geetha’s 2007 article, A Dangerous But Powerful Idea: Counter Acceleration and Speed with Slowness and Wholeness.

On Slow Schooling:

She begins by reading a story by Rabindranath Tagore, The Parrot’s Tale (translated from the Bengali by Palash Baran Pal).

She then takes this story and extrapolates it to today’s world of educational technology and the the lack of emphasis on creativity. She asks, “Now that we can do anything, what will we do?” Turns out that she is the first person to quote Lyotard to me, and have it actually make sense.

She begins her second part of her presentation by quoting one of Shel Selverstein’s poems The Zebra Question. Check it out here. [Some examples of extensions of the poem developed by a group of school students, read them here.]

Geetha emphasizes slow, deep learning in sharp contrast to most technology related discourse today (dominated by speed). Learn more about slow schooling by going here, here. (Via Punya Mishra)

Summary of Global Summit 06 presentation

Video with Geetha Narayanan

Resources