meethapani

  Exodus Arif Hasan, in his paper, The Roots of Elite Alienation, gives a compelling account of the sequence of events that led to the disengagement of the elite of Pakistan with the progress of the country.   From 1972-1976, ZA Bhutto nationalised private educational institutions and industries and then, in 1977, banned   leisure and entertainment activities that were deemed to be un-Islamic.   This was followed by eleven lean years of General Zia ul Haq’s consolidation of his version of an Islamic State,   that filtered down to the street dictating suitable clothing, greetings, and punishment for transgressions.   Arif Hasan examines the social and economic implications of these changes as factors for, what one can call, the Great Withdrawal of the elite. Young people were sent abroad for higher education rather than to State Universities, and many were encouraged to remain there. Educators left as classroom discussions became restricted and prescribed. Family vacations were no l

  Edutainment for Children The most extraordinary years of learning are between 2-7 years when children learn faster than at any other time of life, with a lasting impact. Two-year-olds have twice as many synapses as adults. After the age of eight, learning slows down. Most parents assume learning begins when a child starts school. They are less likely to spend time with preschool children stimulating their learning and responding to their curiosity. Far too often parents are happy to keep their children quiet with a game on a phone or sit them before a cartoon channel, without filtering what they are watching. Many assume watching television makes the brain “switch off”. In fact MRI scans show it stimulates right brain activity related to our emotions, while reading stimulates our left brain or verbal reasoning. Both are equally, if differently, effective in the learning process, and require equal attention to content by caregivers.     The educator, Edgar Dales suggests we re

  The Culture of Mediocracy A growing number of countries across the world are grappling with the rise of mediocrity.   There is a fair amount of confusion about how mediocrity has taken such firm root. A number of theories are put forward. Some lay the blame on educational institutions, where the standards of education are lowered as more young people from varied backgrounds enroll. Equally accountable are mediocre teachers and administrators. With the exception of a few elite universities, the average higher education institutions tend to marginalize the more capable, even resorting to mockery, intimidation and questioning their loyalty. This leads to a sense of alienation, resulting in a silencing or resignation.   There is a culture of “good enough” or “chalay ga” that permeates many institutions, industries, and services. Mediocrity’s aim is to ease the work load, get away with the least effort, avoid accountability, and ensure perpetuity. Mediocrity is comfortable with va

  Where have the Bohemians Gone? Bohemianism as a lifestyle emerged in post-Revolution France.   What started as poverty and the political rejection of the aristocracy, became an affirmation, an intellectual counter culture to mainstream norms, embraced by the artists and writers of the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) of Paris - poets such as Baudelaire and Rimbaud, the artists Braque, the young Picasso, Modigliani and Leonor Fini, the writers Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean Paul Sartre.   The name, Bohemian, was associated in France with the gypsies, who migrated westwards from the North West of India over a 1000 years ago, but faced rejection wherever they tried to settle. The exception was Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. The story goes that in 1423 the Holy Roman Emperor and the King, wrote a letter to the head of the gypsies stating they had the same rights as other citizens, and that they would be allowed to follow their own culture and social rules. The gypsy love of independen