Join us on Saturday, the 21st of May for the book launch of Classroom With A View by Ashwin Prabhu, published by Tara Books. He will be in conversation with Venkatesh Onkar.
The event will take place at Champaca, from 5.00pm to 6.30pm.
Please RSVP here.
About the book:
Classroom with a View: Notes from the Krishnamurti Schools raises and addresses an important but often ignored question: what is school a place for? Drawing from everyday pedagogy in the Krishnamurti schools, it suggests that school is where children learn in an expansive sense — across subjects and beyond the classroom, in the sports field, during a nature walk, a class excursion, on the streets, and not only from teachers, but equally from workers, artisans, poets, performers…
The book details a range of exercises and projects which can enable teachers from a variety of schools to put this vision of learning into practice. Teachers interested in fostering independent thought as well as collaborative work will find this a thoughtful and practical guide.
About the speakers:
Ashwin Prabhu found his way into teaching in a rather fortuitous manner. Right on the threshold of a conventional corporate career, he came upon Krishnamurti’s book, “On Education”, on a friend’s coffee table. The book caused him to pause and reflect for the first time on his own schooling, and the role it had played in his life choices as a young adult. For the next 10 years, even as he journeyed on in his professional life, he kept coming back, again and again, to fundamental questions around education and its purpose.
Eventually, at the age of thirty three, he joined The School - the Krishnamurti School in Chennai, to teach English and History - his only qualifications for the role being an abiding childhood love for those subjects, and a ready willingness to work with children. The five years he spent in school allowed him to examine his questions around learning, growing, and finding one’s place in the world in a more deliberate and experiential manner, and this book is an outcome of that engagement.
Venkatesh Onkar has been a teacher since 2002. He works at Centre For Learning, a non-formal school outside Bengaluru inspired by the questions of J Krishnamurti. He teaches sociology and history for older students. He enjoys communicating with young people around the themes of self, identity, society and awareness.