Making learning meaningful
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 28
Just as the fascinating aspects of education have long remained buried under the weight of school bags, the talent of children has also remained hidden behind the rigidity of schedules. Breaking these barriers is Ashish Rajpal, an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur, who later took an MEd from Harvard Graduate School of Education, conducting researches for none other than Howard Gardner, the first thinker to tell the world that IQ was quite an inaccurate measurement of human intelligence.

As a cofounder and managing director of iDiscoveri, India’s leading experiential education organisation that creates meaningful learning experiences for schools, youth and adults, Ashish is busy bringing meaning to education in India. Started in 1996, iDiscoveri makes education more personally relevant and experiential. It helps set up schools, train teachers, work with children on nature and experience-based programs, and develop corporate leaders. Besides the forthcoming intensive teachers’ training workshop at Doon School, Ashish is currently engaged with the Strawberry Fields World School project, along with Mr Atul Khanna of the Durga Das Foundation. The school is coming up in Sector 26, Chandigarh.

In the city to work out the modalities, Ashish talked to The Tribune about his Harvard experience, which helped him enter the unexplored areas of education. “At Harvard, I learnt to connect education, psychology and neuroscience. The idea was to understand the functioning of the brain and its ability to impact attitudes and behaviours of children, in particular.”

With his experience at Harvard, which included training and research with leading thinkers in education and psychology such as Howard Gardner, David Perkins, and Eleanor Duckworth, Ashish learnt to use conceptual frameworks from mind and brain sciences to develop new paradigms of experiential education. It is this paradigm which he is maximizing at iDiscoveri, promoting activity and theme based education among children.

Currently he is defining the principles for Strawberry Fields World School which will draw on the saying, “Don’t limit a child to your own learning...for he was born in another time.” Explaining his strategies, Ashish, who has also authored several research papers on learning, creativity and progressive education, said, “This school will be central to children. It will promote flexibility in curricula and will ensure many entry points into the subject.” Here Ashish will utilize his guide Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence which he has explained in detail in his book, “Frames of Mind”. Interestingly, Ashish recently also conducted a study for Howard Gardner on his new project, “Good Work”, which underlies the need for a high quality work which also boasts of high moral standards.

Among other principles basic to the new project will be — use of theme based education. Explaining the concept, Ashish said, “It is important to tell the child a story, which he can relate with the educational concept under consideration. Bluntly introducing photosynthesis won’t help. But if you introduce the theme of “my garden”, tell him how plants and humans are related and then take him to the scientific aspects, he will grasp the concept well enough to retain it forever. At Stwarberry World School, we will also empower teachers”.

The belief that every child is a genius is basic to all educational pursuits of Ashish, who could well have stuck to his phenomenally lucrative corporate engagements. It was the birth of his children that brought him closer to education. Ever since he understood the meaning of education, he has been addressing the development of the whole child and building a sense of social responsibility in him.