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Calendar of Educational Events:

  • Educational Approaches

    by Urmila Devi Dasi

    The overall approach we use in each subject or school is largely determined by the viewpoint and experience of the staff, classroom organization, number of students, type of curriculum material, and availability of enrichment materials. However, all teachers should be familiar with various ways to teach to allow for flexibility.

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  • Methods of Teaching and Evaluating

    by Urmila Devi Dasi

    Although the general approach to learning will to some degree determine the particular method, most teaching methods can be used to some extent in all the above-mentioned systems. We may think of teaching as telling the students information, either verbally or in writing. But, even a good lecturer or textbook makes use of a variety of ways to communicate. Mary Pride, in Schoolproof, lists methods of teaching as follows: read to students, lecture, demonstration, visuals (teacher-made, canned, unfolding), imaginative pictures, videos, experience, experiment, simulation, walk the student through it, have the student research, challenge the student, put on a play or puppet show, field trip, repetition, songs, chants and poems, games, and asking the student to learn on his own.

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  • Vaikuntha Children (A Gurukula Classroom Guidebook)

    "These are not ordinary children. They are Vaikuntha children, and we are very fortunate that we can give them a chance to advance further in Krsna consciousness."
    (Srila Prabhupada, letter to Arundati, July 30, 1972)

    A Gurukula Classroom Guidebook for the organization and instruction of students from five to eighteen years of age in asrama gurukulas, day schools, parent cooperatives and home schools.


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  • Individualizing Instruction in Secondary Schools

    by Urmila Devi Dasi

    By the time children are about twelve years old, most of them have developed personal educational interests. It is common for middle and secondary students to have a specialized vocabulary that their teachers don’t possess unless they share those same interests. When absorbed in their passion, these adolescents can absorb and apply information and skills at an incredible rate. They will also learn skills that may be secondary to their interest, such as organization, memory aids, typing, and so on.

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  • The Playful Mood

    Fifteen children between two and five years old stood at one end of our living
    room. Some inched away from the wall. All waited.
    "Be cowherd boys!" I called, and the children pretended to blow flutes and horns or bring
    a cow by a rope. Pretending in this way, they went as quickly as possible to the other side of the room and back. (Having a living room with little furniture was an advantage.) My infant son squirmed in my arms and tried to join the fun.
    "Ambarish won!" I announced. "HeHe got back first, playing like a cowherd boy the whole
    time. Now, ready again. Be fish!"
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  • Education for Autonomy: the Role of Religious Elementary Schools

    I argue that religious elementary schools whose pedagogical methods satisfy the principle of rational authority have distinctive advantages over secular elementary schools for the purpose of laying the foundations for ethical autonomy in the children of religious parents. Insights from developmental psychology bolster the argument from conceptual analysis. Before children have the cognitive capacities to engage in authentically autonomous reflection, their long-run interest in developing autonomy is best served by developing their understanding of and provisional identity within their primary culture and by encouraging a limited form of ethical reasoning within the framework provided by that secure cultural identity.
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  • IS EXPERIENCE THE BEST TEACHER? by Urmila Devi Dasi


    After giving Arjuna knowledge of matter and spirit, Lord Krsna tells him, "Deliberate on this fully, and then decide what you wish to do. Our children also have to choose between material and spiritual life  To prepare them for this choice, do we need to give the experience of both? Do our children need any experience of materialism to choose Krsna consciousness?
    The sages do indeed say that to be complete in knowledge one must study both spirit and matter. But our children can best gain knowledge of illusion by seeing both illusion and reality from the perspective of reality.
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  • The Key to Lesson Planning: Clarifying Objectives by Bhurijana Dasa

                                             
    What Am I Teaching?
    Before a teacher begins teaching his lesson, he must decide what he wishes his students to learn. That goal is termed an educational objective. To proceed in teaching without clearly knowing one's objective is inefficient, ineffective, and, as Srila Prabhupada says - foolish.
    Karandhara:They want to become minus.
    Srila Prabhupada: But he is plus always. No, if you have no goal . . . There is example: "Man without any aim is a ship without any rudder." So suppose if the airplane is going with an aim to land in some country, but if he goes on simply without any aim, then there will be disaster.
    Karandhara: Well, they have an aim.
    Srila Prabhupada: That you say they have got; he does not say. You say.
    Karandhara: No, but I mean philosophically considering, they have an aim, but it's very obscure. The substance and the significance of that aim is without form or conception.
    Srila Prabhupada: So without aim, what is the use of practice?
    Prthu Putra: He says he likes the practice without goal, and he doesn't give any value to the practice because there is goal.
    Srila Prabhupada: That is foolishness. Without goal, practicing something, it is foolishness.
    Conversations, Vol. 10, Paris, June 13, 1974
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  • Gurukula Handbook by Jyotirmayi Dasi

    Here are more than 300 pages of unfinished manual on gurukula written by Jyotirmayi Dasi in 1979 / 1980. Jyotirmayi Dasi worked in gurukulas for 10 years as headmistress, nursery teacher, kindergarten teacher, primary school teacher and ashram teacher. She built and organized 6 gurukulas in different countries.
    She personally talked to Prabhupad about gurukula. In the years 1975 to 1980, she compiled numerous information, including all of Srila Prabhupada's letters and conversations about gurukula.

    GURUKULA HANDBOOK FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS


    Gurukula Headmaster

    1. The school building and situation
    2. Organization of programs and regulations
    3. Finances, legal matters
    4. Dealings with academic teachers
    5. Dealings with ashrama teachers
    6. Dealings with other stuff members
    7. Dealings with parents
    8. Various forms
    9. Additional stuff members responsibilities


    Academic Teachers   

         1.  Upper grades tutorial class: subjects, methods, materials
         2.  First grade class: subjects, methods, materials
         3.  Devotional arts class: subjects, methods, materials
         4.  Kindergarten class: subjects, methods, materials
         5.  Discipline in class
         6.  Good qualities in teachers, good methods
         7.  Defects in teachers, errors in teaching
         8.  Various teaching processes for older pupils

    Ashrama Teachers

    1. Devotional temple activities
    2. Health, sleep
    3. Cleanliness, clothing
    4. Play time
    5. Discipline in ashrama
    6. Good qualities in teachers, good methods
    7. Defects in teachers, errors
    8. Qualities to develop in children


     Discipline

    1. Emotive reasons for children’s misbehavior
    2. Child’s psychology
    3. Chastisements allowed, chastisements forbidden
    4. Good qualities in teachers, good methods
    5. Defects in teachers, errors in rising children

     
    Parents

    1. Characteristics, teaching and rising of children up to 5 years old
    2. Enrollment of children in ashrama and school
    3. Enrolment of children in day - school
    4. Dealings between parents, Gurukula children and teachers
    5. Care of mother during and after pregnancy
    6. Care of baby
    7. Life of children after Gurukula
      Nursery School
    1. First section: age 1 to 3
    2. Second section: age 3 to 4
    3. Third section: age 4 to 5
    4. Class-room organization and materials (1st section)
    5. Class-room organization and materials (2nd and 3rd sections)

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