Other India Bookstore

This seminal work is once again available. Essential reading for educationists, teacher, parents and just about anybody concerned about children.

The classic tale of an ideal school in Tokyo during World War II that combined learning with fun, freedom and love. Also available in Hindi for Rs. 45/-

Everything significant that Gandhiji said about education is here in this collection of his writings on the subject. Kumarappa has done a real service to the public by this selection.

If you consider that what they are saying is true, at least you can take adequate steps to contain the damage.

Multiversity is a new project of the Other India Bookstore. The flagship book, Multiversity, which contains all you need to know about the project, is now available from OIB. But you can also subscribe to Kamiriithu (look elsewhere in this catalogue), the peppery newsletter on learning that comes out occasionally from the Press. Multiversity (the book) contains the original proposals seeking intellectual independence from “white studies” regimes, vision statement, the full transcripts of the original Penang meeting that launched the project, and a fairly detailed introduction to what is presently being undertaken under the project. The first major international conference on “redesign of social science curricula” took place in Penang in November 2004. Its objective: “ghost-busting”, eliminating the Eurocentric dominance still playing havoc with our social studies programmes in our universities. The India segment of Multiversity is now preparing for publication a “Learning Sourcebook” that brings together major, significant, pioneering alternatives to conventional schooling and education systems. Multiversity is proposing to organise a major international conference on “Transcending Macaulay and Factory Schooling” sometime in November 2005. We are looking for young and energetic people who can work on some of these ideas at our Goa office. So if you are excited by what you read and would like to work on a meaningful project, get in touch with us through Other India Bookstore. You don’t even need to come and work in Goa really, since the internet makes it possible for you to join and collaborate on project themes wherever you are on the planet. But if you still wish to relocate here for a while, welcome. But be prepared to work hard.

The remarkable story of Gandhis Nai Taleem (basic education) experiments, written extremely well, crystal clear, and with passion. The account is personal and based on first-hand experience, hence its total freshness.

Revised and enlarged edition of the Montessori method.

Dr Montessoris revolutionary method of education began early this century. In this classic work she expounds her conviction that in the child there are laws of growth in character and disposition as marked as those in his/her physical life.

Another wise and significant document on the need to transform the present education system.

A pioneering study on the importance of art as a foundation for the education of the individual. The book also takes a detailed look at the various stages of its expression in a child, its importance in shaping the individuals thinking and cognitive faculty, the role of teachers and parents and most importantly its role in an anxiety-ridden society.

A study of Gandhi’s basic education system of ideas. The title of the study indicates a dissatisfaction on the part of its author with much of the material that has so far been written on the subject.

This ‘interrogation’ of literacy and its claims provides for the first time a clear glimpse into its underside, darkside and side-effects.

Devi Prasad is a freedom fighter, a Gandhian and artist and a craftsman. He graduated from Rabindranath Tagore’s school in Santiniketan. In this book he writes on the educational insights of Tagore and Gandhi and argues why Art Education should be the core of the curriculum process.

Taleemnet, a branch of Multiversity, introduces twelve educational pioneers in India, who have been working in education in their own mothertongue, using their own (often meagre) resources and endowments. Their insights into education have largely remained unavailable to the world at large, simply because of the restrictions of language. This book will be useful to all those interested in alternative education.

Taleemnet and Abhiyatki, two organisations concerned with alternative education, invited path-breaking educators working with learning communities to a four day gathering in Goa in 2005. The group eventually included 60 people from all over India, including three from Pakistan and one each from Malaysia, England and /France. This book reports on that meeting. It has brief biographies of the participants, their views on different aspects of education, interviews with some of them and of course snippets of wisdom. All in a very easy-to-read format.

A personal reflection by an outstanding educationalist.

Reprinted by Eklavya in the interests of putting fun and learning back into the child’s education instead of the dreary boredam that today’s schools offer, Summerhill, first published in 1959 is as relevant today as it was half a century ago. Summerhill, is a school where children are not compelled to go to class and can stay away from lessons for years if they want to. And yet the students in the school learn. This experiment was started by Alexander Neill, an Englishman, in 1921 and continues to run under a children’s government where the “bosses” are the children themselves. A must-read for all those interested in education and also for those who have children. Low priced.

A collection of essays by comrade S.N., an activist writer well-versed with the different shades of the communist movement in India.

How do you occupy young children and at the same time inculcate in them ecologically sound values and skills? Sending them to school was not the answer as this Japanese housewife, living in India with her Indian husband and their two small children, soon discovered. Instead she initiated ecological activities within the home, including setting up a small garden, making clay jewellery and other eco-crafts such as book-making, soap making, solar cooker etc. Several ideas came from the children themselves. With drawings and photographs to illustrate the text, this book is not only a delightful read but will also be useful for educationists who can creatively employ these ideas to enliven learning experiences in schools.

The results of a study carried out to find out the expectations and perceptions of people regarding schooling, in the Tehri- Garhwal areas of Uttarakhand.

The book outlines Japanese educational philosopher of the earth 20th century Tsunesaburo Makiguchi's inspiring philosophy and revolutionary proposals for reforms. The basic idea of Makiguchi that students must experience happiness in school and that school must be directly relevant to their lives is pertinent to our situation today in which education practices the opposite

The book is about the day-to-day practices of schools, which if reinvented, could make them into dynamic learning environments rather than what they are today. The book looks at how every aspect of school life can be made meaningful for a child’s education in a brave, new world.

This is a passionate account of an educational experiment carried out in the 1950s in a school established in a forest in Orissa. Written in the form of letters to a newspaper, it records the joys and difficulties accompanying the founding of an ideal in a world rotten with prejudice, mired in bureaucratic apathy and burdened with a mindset that is suspicious of any kind of change.

This book is an attempt at the long overdue task of freeing our learning institutions from the Eurocentric frameworks and assumptions that they are modeled upon, and hopefully will pave the way for us to discover our authentic selves and become people who are truly liberated. It contains selected papers from the International Conference on ‘Decolonising Our Universities,’ which was organized in June, 2011, in Penang, Malaysia.

A critical look at salaried professionals and the soul-battering system that shapes their lives Disciplined Minds arms you for the battle to think independently and pursue your own vision in today’s corporate society.

The author has brought to bear upon this brilliant work, painstakingly executed, his long teaching experience in colleges in Goa spread over 35 years, his minute observation of good and bad teachers, his exhaustive reading of the relevant material and, above all, his own erudite introspection about various aspects of teaching.

This book simply written, shorn of all educational jargon. It recounts the inspiring story of this marvelous school where children can “just be”.

This book is based on lectures given by Maria Montessori, is an analysis of the physical and psychological aspects of a child’s growth during the most significant period of life – the first six years

This is a collection of 21 essays which offer an agrarian alternative to our mindless urban lives.

Dewey describes the rational behind the University Elementary School that made his pedagogic approach famous .

The author shows how forced schooling seduces the trapped into believing us that inert knowledge , memorized fact bits and sequences is the gold standard of intellectual achievements.

The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory schooling

This book suggests various activities and games to hone their cognitive skills. This book will be of utmost importance to teachers of pre-school and primary school children, curriculum farmers, parents and also others working with children.

Teaching story gives us new insights everytime we read it … and we begin to see the world, and even ourselves, differently.

Teaching story gives us new insights everytime we read it … and we begin to see the world, and even ourselves, differently.