The blank face

Everyone has one, in fact everyone had to had one

When two parallel thoughts run or no thought run by

Some can hide and some had to quite hiding

It may not be an obvious face but a sure face

Nothings written yet still a messenger

It is a question or a warning

Asking why or against why

To express sarcasm and perplex

Of innocence and pertinence 

Of opportunities or pessimist

A face of agreement in disagreement

Unpredictable is when two blank face encounter

Surely everyone owns one, some just deny and some harness it

Epitome of 'I'

‘I am’ a Proclamation

‘I shall’ an Assurance

‘I will’ an Obligation

‘I want’ a Desire

‘I do’ a Subjugation

‘I had’ a Memory

‘I knew’ a Knowledge

‘I can’ a Declaration

‘I’ an Attitude

‘I’ an Ego

‘I’ a Definition

‘I’ an Identity

‘I’ a Question

‘I’ an Answer

‘I’ a Notion
'I' a Concept 

‘I’ a Destiny

The juncture

If I begin from the last breath

If I could steal the last moment

Still it will be insignificant, insignificant

All that has begun shall end

And the end shall be a new beginning

At the snap of second, all gone by

The virtuous nature still continue

But the one who like to thinks owns the nature will be soon gone.

Nature treat’s nothing fair unfairly

Randomity is uniformity for nature

In snap of time wonder architect vanish in vanity

The intertwine juncture between the new and the old

The gay days break down at the exact juncture and continues to fade faint

It matter the most but seemingly mean the least

After all what we have is what we have already destroyed

Make a choice but we still parish at a juncture

The point is, that’s the point.

To be asked

What is that magnify our memoirs?

Whose memocide one should wait?

Which imagination we continue to endure?

Whose horizon expands and contract?

Whose narrative flows forged?

Who’s picturesque is feed in witty design?

Whose felony is the felonious of all?

Whose massager and agency are worth hearing ears?

The walk to the pathless venture of valor.

Valor lost and sacrifice for the wretched cause?

Whose prose brings back my freedom and liberty, Is a rare found?

The considerate and the virtuous shall stand numb?

Let us pen down the answer. But how is that possible?

Because we are still due to catch the right source, the right path and the right calling.

Are you educated?

I just want to ask a very simple question that we as a student community cannot just skip and turn away. Now Education is our birth right with the implementation of RtE (Right to Education) ACT 2009.  All parents strive for their child’s education and want them to become educated individuals. Irony is that the term ‘Education’ and ‘Educated’ has been so rampantly used with the presupposition we know so much about it or it does not need much consideration. The truth is, ‘education’ or ‘educated’ words are not valued neutral but it comes with a baggage of its own normative meanings. So, it compels me to say that we are indulging education like a drug addict indulges in his/her kicks. Let me try a jargon free writing as far as possible to score the point clear and loud.

Are you educated? What it means to be educated? Are student/learners by default educated? These question could be logically answered as we answer questions such as what is education and what are the aims of education which make us educated persons. To decode the term ‘education’ let me echo R.S. Peter’s definition of education- ‘Education means achievement of something worthwhile and desirable (valuable)’. By this count, if you are educated you ought to be a reformed person. Valuable achievement in education is intrinsically valuable, meaning valued in itself and for its own sake. The knowledge and understanding obtained becomes the features of oneself and shapes the outlook of the person. But, treating education as a mere instrument of obtaining a job or attaining certain skills demeans the true aim of education. The critic of highly educated German society during Nazis tyranny could sum up in Wiesel's words on education: ‘It emphasized theories instead of values, concepts rather than human beings, abstraction rather than consciousness, answers instead of questions, ideology and efficiency rather than conscience.’ Introspecting into our present society, I think the barbarity is increasing and will only escalate in days to come. So we hinge in a very crucial position as we would not like our society to go rampage in barbarity. The ferocity of the problems looks like uncontrollable but the solution is yet simple. Has our education empowered us to uphold the fabric of Equality, Liberty and Justice which are at the core of our democratic society? Identifying ourselves as educated person, are we liberated from the dogmas of bigotry? Through education are we becoming a more peaceful and self-actualized individual or more distressed, ever ambitious, self-righteous, self-centered people? Has the education system that aims at making us more Rational, Autonomous and Conscious rather made us capable of manipulating, violent, corrupted, and siphoning public welfare for personal gain? Has our guilt feelings and consciences stopped pricking us for any wrong deed? Not to mention of blind submission to a status or an ideology without any critical analysis. There is nothing such as ‘one day’ or ‘someday’ where we will manifest the quality of being educated but there is ‘today’: we as learners/students should uphold the values in all sphere of our life. 

There is lapse in what we see in our society and what ought to be, where education prevails. Where is the problem? Is something wrong in the way we are educated? Have our school, institution and educators successfully educated us? Has the increment in individual education increased the education of our society? These questions brings us to another criteria of education, the criteria of procedure. Again let me echo R.S. Peter, ‘Education should be brought about in a morally acceptable manner and should not infringe the willingness and voluntariness of the learner’. Let’s introspect and see if we are conditioned, indoctrinated and brainwashed more than being educated? Rote learning of rhymes, national anthem, definitions and theories (without a clue about the concept of the subject) by screaming at the top of the voice has taken the hell out of our childhood. The institutions and teachers which were supposed to bring us up as responsible, peace loving, non-violent individuals were just the opposite for many. For average students it was not less than a slaughter house where our ingenuity and childhood had died every day and fear had ingrained in us since then and our emotional being hijacked. Please don’t acknowledge the beating we received in our school time. Many may credit saying that it is because of those smacking they are here today. Don’t fool yourself and don’t give me that dame naïve explanation because without that you could be a total transcendental person. The truth is, this practice is the mother of all violence in our society. Just look around and see how many of our class-mates have pursued higher education. Consciously or unconsciously we have detested school and teachers somehow.  

When our physic and psychic are forming at best, when an average child smiles more than 100 times (some studies claim 300 times) in a day, when curiosity and wonders struck us every second we suddenly find ourselves cramped into a small room called ‘class room’. Your knees are folded, backbone curved and finger on the lips; we become all time successful passive listener and a ‘blank slate’ to all-knowing figure (teacher). Each one is pushed into ugly competition with the help of examination system. The joy of learning something worthwhile will always be poisoned by the fear of passing the exam. Children are categorized into ‘caste system’ where some are destined to success while others are doomed to remain untouchable forever. How on earth does this education system promise equality in our society?

Call me an alarmist or an extremist but I least care your emotion because even today, thousands of children are dying every day, they are injected with dead facts and information’s in the name of knowledge, and they are cramped in small rooms supervised by fear of teachers with cane stick. Schools have to stop this atrocities, they have to open up a physical and emotional space for children to learn and grow. Learning with joy is possible. Furious teacher and her Cane stick (symbol of oppression) should be replaced by humane facilitator and reasoning and dialogue should be her tool. Teachers and schools should stop behaving like a law giver. Dirty competition should be replaced by healthy co-operation. We should turns towards comprehensive development of children. Consuming indigestible facts and information should be replaced by meaning making and understanding. Activity based learning should replace passive receiving and children should be allowed to construct knowledge. Radical transformation is calling out. We have to pay head to it for heaven sake, our future is at stake. I could only scratch the tip of the revolution required in our education. But, I hope it draws the attention of those who have a heart of conscience and mind of reasoning because for the rest George Gordon Byron  says “Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”  

Narrative on an old adage

Miracle they quote but miracle they have hardly seen.

Folks gather to hear it out. Beer sold off as they hear.
The messenger’s reputation among the folks are high.
Words spread put like wild fire.
The cold winter fade unknown and unnoticed as folks cramp close to each other mumbling miraculous story keeping both body and mind warm. Warm coffee are there part as they sip in momentum sync with the high and low of the story. They whisper softly as the night falls deep.
They are the secret society bonded by the soft words of miracle.
The better days, better life and deeper thoughts follows from their deep night whisper.
With glad heart they lay back to sleep someday.
Someday wondering mind won't let them sleep.
Someday distorted and broken heart pulls up so much tears.
The fabric of each miracle stands out.
So, another day it’s another miraculous story and another new beginning.
Call them the far off ignorant country man. But they will thrive in their own pond for, so far they are left alone by the so called civilization. The destitute and more pitied concept of the day.

Introducing myself to Philosophy-II

After a brief introduction of myself to the idea of philosophy I would like to dig deeper in to what it is really composed of and what and choose the component which is our first choice (epistemology). Philosophy is its board sense is divided in to five branches. Logic: also known as sematic which is to do with meaning and concepts. Ethics: also known as moral or political dealing with how we ought to live. Epistemology: which to do what we can be known (knowledge). Metaphysics:  to do with what is ultimately real. Esthetic: to do with what art. This branches are also studied as philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of law, and philosophy of art (aesthetics). The term Epistemology which is derive from Greek word episteme epistēmē (“knowledge”) and logos (“reason”), and is also refer to as the theory of knowledge.

Pritchard in his book ‘What is this thing called knowledge?’ begin by talking about types of knowledge as his main interest in the book is on a particular type of knowledge (prepositional knowledge). 

Types of Knowledge:

There are three types of knowledge, Knowledge by Acquaintance, Ability Knowledge, and Propositional Knowledge. Needless to explain with example here as we all seems to be too frequented by it.

But, here the question that came to my mind is can these knowledge exist independently of one another? Can we have prepositional knowledge independently without directly or indirectly having related knowledge of acquaintance or ability knowledge and Vis-versa? Our pursuit in education are mainly focus on prepositional knowledge. What are some major problem this concentrated pursuit creates in our society (if any)? Have our educational endeavor focus too much on prepositional knowledge that we have a highly specialized professionals who have no clue of any co-relation of his action to the larger environmental or societal implication? If aim of education is at all liberating and empowering individual and all ultimately for the larger good of the society. Does the hierarchy we assume (or perceive) divided the society? Look at the disparity in our society? The unequal payment or the returns of different profession? Is it the problem related to this notion of hierarchy or is it something else? If, so what could be that?

Are approaches like CCE which focus on scholastic excellence and co-scholastic (honesty, team spirit, etc.), extra-curricular activities, physical-education practice in our education system sufficient to dealt with this mammoth problem we have (consider this question if you agree to the problem I have highlighted above)? 

Definition of Knowledge:

There are in-built dilemma in knowledge regarding where to begin. That is either to begin by definition of knowledge or criteria of knowledge. This problem is call the problem of criterion. This problem say one can only identify instances of knowledge provided she already know what the criteria for knowledge are. Or one can only know what the criteria for knowledge are provided she is already able to identify instances of knowledge. The Methodism and Particularism are two way out of this dilemma. Methodism proceeds from the criteria for knowledge and Particularism begin from instances of knowledge. I face another problem, if I should begin by defining both ‘knowledge’ and ‘criteria of knowledge’ or ‘the problem of criteria’. For now I begin with the problem but I don’t know how efficient will it be if looked at facilitation point of view.

Prepositional knowledge:  A prepositional knowledge is a knowledge of preposition. A preposition is what is asserted by the sentence which says that something is the case. Like, all husband are married or two plus two is four. But, it is quite obvious possible one can assert on anything. So, if the definition of prepositional knowledge is just asserting that something is the case than everything can go haywire. So the precondition of considering any preposition as prepositional knowledge is that one have to belief on which she is asserting and that assertion should be true. This assertion should in turn be justifiable. Thus, the famous Justified True Belief as the criteria of knowledge. These three criteria’s made the pursuit of knowledge in various field (like science) possible for objective studies and hence its advance. But, where these scope are impossible (like religion) no objective studies is possible and hence its own problem.

The three criteria’s are individually necessary and jointly sufficient to call any preposition a prepositional knowledge.

Before talking in detail about criteria of knowledge I would like to talk about the dilemma related to it in education. What is the difference between knowledge and information? Is it knowledge place in class room in the form of information? Or is it at all possible to place knowledge in the form of information? Is this the problem of Knowledge in our education system? Do we have the luxury of analyzing every knowledge we claim in education via tripartite criteria. Is it because JTB criteria is not applied in acquiring knowledge? Is education system the delivery of the ‘produced knowledge’ where the process of production is not given important but only where the end product is given important?

*Problematization on the definition of knowledge, each criteria of knowledge, and further contents in knowledge would be done in next writings.