Tuesday, May 30, 2006

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."

The most difficult thing for any sinlge person in his life is to educate himself. Education is always transitory and never ending. Aristotle knew this fact and he was the inspiration of the most powerful emporer who ruled from West to East, Alexander. Alexander the great was a profound student even as he plunged in the pool of blood in fearful wars.

Today as education evolves itself to edufun I poder several times that why didn't the masters of the past, the greatest educators and learners of history never thought of it. Though Aristotle has once said "Early education should be fun", it has never been meant to divert educators to adopt the playway method which it is called today.

The playway method has been introduced in western countries to market the toys that fill pockets of the rich and education being made a commercial entity which yields high pofit margins to investors.

I ask and ask, does the playway method make any difference in building the scholistic minds of students. Although it builds and devolops the creative mind but what about the logical brain that gets dimmer as a result. Thinking and memorizing are the only ways to devolop the analytical mind. The bitter wine of education and harsh dicipline that the military still uses must be added to the educational system to build such brains as Einstein and Socrates.

My kid asks "Why" for each and every thing that I tell him. Reason is inborn in the human soul and playway method of education does not point to reason. Rather as far as I know and think is intuites the mind to accept things as is and if not possible change it to match our passion and taste. Kids do need light dozes of education but do they really need to be turned away from the bitter stress of memorizing and the bitter pain of holding the pen for writing?

Many people out there are more experianced and learned then myself and the fact is that I learn from them and try to understand their tactics to teaching and adopt it. They would better more shed light on the debate I intend to raise. I am merely a student of the philosophy that "great teachers inspire".

Someone came upto me and said that the students are always right, the customer is always right. From which day did the philosophy of education change. In todays commercial world teaching has become a curse for some who fear their students for the sake of saving their own bread. The playway method has made education a game and the school a playground.

Aristotle once said, "Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well."

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Live Audio /Video Relay from Burhani Masjid Dubai

Hasan Qutbi known to me since a couple of years is the brain around this entire relay drill. Audio/Video that seemed to be possible only through ISDN point to point connection is has now been made possible through DSL lines as well through remote connection to a CUTE little device "SlingBox". The device basically used for streaming your home TV shows to the desktop has done the job.

The only drawback was that the device supports single connections or maybe its the DSL line that has a single IP to allow remote connection to the box. The device is just wonderful and I got to try it out. I am having an idea about conferencing through this box if this entire drill works well and good.